Nantes and artists, a shared inspiration

It's hard to talk about famous artists from Nantes without mentioning Jules Verne, a major 19th-century writer considered to be the pioneer of French science fiction. The author of the famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in 80 Days was born in Nantes in 1828, where he spent his youth. According to legend, at the age of 11, little Jules embarked in the port on a sailing ship bound for India as a cabin boy. His father intercepted him at the last minute in the port of Paimboeuf. The reason for his departure? The boy wanted to fetch a coral necklace to give to his cousin, with whom he was madly in love. While the veracity of this anecdote is doubtful, the impact of his youth in Nantes on his works is very real, and his writings reflect the hustle and bustle of the Quai de la Fosse at the time, the waltz of the boats and the call of elsewhere that lulled his childhood. In this way, Jules Verne helped to make travel one of the keystones of Nantes' culture.

Today, as well as having given his name to a number of the city's infrastructures, the writer's legacy can be found in the Jules Verne Museum, where manuscripts, original documents and objects that once belonged to the author are on display. The museum also offers temporary exhibitions, children's workshops on the world of Jules Verne and a free application that takes visitors on a 2.5-kilometre tour of the city, taking in the places that shaped the writer's life and providing a wealth of information and anecdotes about him. The initiative was the brainchild of teachers and students at a secondary school in Nantes.

"All my films could have been set in Nantes", has often been said by Jacques Demy, the famous Nantes-born director of the iconic films Peau d'âne and Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. Although not all Demy's films were set in Nantes, he remained very attached to the city throughout his life, and made three of them there: Lola, his first feature film, Une chambre en ville, his most tragic film, and Jacquot de Nantes, an autobiographical work. Jacques Demy's camera immortalised many of Nantes' landmarks, including the port, rue du Calvaire, Le Katorza cinema and the chic La Cigale restaurant. As you stroll through the streets of Nantes, you're sure to come across film fans from all over the world following in the director's footsteps as they stroll down the Passage Pommeraye in the footsteps of the radiant Anouk Aimé in the film Lola.

The late Jacques Demy, who has since given his name to the city's multimedia library, is now part of Nantes' heritage, a setting and a fictional character... By capturing it on film, Demy made Nantes immortal.

"And yet I was there,

Twenty-five rue de la Grange-au-Loup,

But he never saw me again,

He had already disappeared.

It's raining in Nantes

Give me your hand

The sky over Nantes

Makes my heart ache "

Nantes, Barbara

Literally and figuratively, the great singer Barbara also left her mark on the Cité des Ducs. In 1959, the singer-songwriter learned that her father, with whom she had a traumatic relationship, was dying. She decided to visit him in Nantes to share his final moments. The day after the funeral, she began the painful task of writing the song Nantes, which she completed 4 years later and which was to become one of her biggest hits. In this song, Barbara evokes the fictitious rue de la Grange aux loups where her father was supposed to live - it was an invention. However, in 1986, at the request of the mayor of Nantes, Barbara, in the presence of Gérard Depardieu, inaugurated the "Rue de la grange au loups", which replaced the old "rue des charrettes" and eventually became a reality. This beautiful story reminds us that while art can be inspired by reality, sometimes it can also modify it.