Mansfield Care residents enjoy Belleville rendezvous with famous artists

Some of the residents at Belleville Lodge are well travelled and have happy memories of visiting European art galleries, so they recently enjoyed a reminiscence activity based on famous artists.

Matron Margaret Russell says: “We like to pick different themes for discussion, and one of our residents, Anne, is from Holland. She has been to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam several times and really enjoyed seeing Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers, while Bert loved The Starry Night. Another lady had received a Rembrandt postcard from a friend that day, and enjoyed discussing her favourite painters.”

Matron printed pictures to encourage memories, and it turned out several of the residents had been to Paris and visited the Louvre Gallery. “They remembered being surprised by the small size of the Mona Lisa in real life and we ended up discussing Paris in general, and the lives of artists, Montmartre, absinthe and Toulouse Lautrec watching the ballet dancers and the cancan girls at the Moulin Rouge. It was also a nice way to think about the wider world at a time when we have to stay safe at home.”

Many thanks to the staff and residents at Belleville Lodge for the lovely photos.