In Aix 3 places to explore the intimate universe of Paul Cézanne

Entering the jas of Bouffan is like looking through the lock hole: we enter the intimacy of Paul Cézanne. It is the promise to discover behind the scenes of its trajectory. His soul still haunts the building. Or rather La Bastide, a nice Provencal property bought by her parents on the outskirts of Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône).

“At the time, the bourgeois had a home in the center of Aix and a countryside in the countryside,” recalls the heritage engineer David Kirchthaler, in the sweet Mistral which soothes the rising heat.

The property also bears its name, puffy meaning “wind” in Provençal. Animated by this breath, in the shade of the great chestnut trees and with a view of the Sainte-Victoire mountain, Cézanne groped, crushed his painting and spread its colors with a knife, in a concert of cicadas.

The Bastide stone is deliciously ocher, almost pink. The facades are decorated with mascarons, sculpted faces, one of which is a long wig of Louis XIV style. This recalls that the house dates from the beginning of the 18th century.

By looking up, we are surprised by a strangeness: what is this large glass roof that split the roof of tiles? It is the artist’s workshop of the young Paul, which his father had built for him. This contradicts the legend of bourgeois parents who intended their son to the right and would have opposed his career as a painter. Reality seems more nuanced.

The Great Jas de Bouffan Salon, Cézanne secret workshop

When Louis-Auguste and Anne Cézanne acquired the property, the young painter was just out of his drawing school. Generous, his family dedicated the large living room to him, a large room on the ground floor, so that he experiences his art. Under these high ceilings, the artist had carte blanche.

“For Cézanne, these large walls were like calls,” says David Kirchthaler. He who had so far painted on easel could make large formats, such as theater sets. He then did not do things by half, composing of grandiose murals, decorating all the walls of false woodwork.

The entire play represented a total, entirely painted work. Today, these walls are white. The successive owners, too happy to have “Cézanne”, torn these paintings to transform them into paintings and sell them.

Fortunately, light projections allow you to represent the flamboyant original piece … and to be, perhaps, surprise by the very classic style of the young Cézanne. He had not yet accomplished his moult, with the geometrization of the shapes and the apparent brush keys which today make him recognizable at the first glance.

These walls remain talkative since in June fragments of fresco from the painter’s hand were discovered under layers of plaster and plaster. With Cézanne, we are never at the end of our surprises …

2. The corner of nature

Aix managers owe this site their blond and bright stones. Six kilometers from the city, at the foot of the Sainte-Victoire mountain, the old quarries of Bibémus were exploited from Roman antiquity in the 1880s.

For fourteen years, just after their closure, Cézanne surveyed them, fascinated by the majesty and the changing brilliance of the stones. He modeled his painting there and oriented it towards a form of abstraction which announces cubism.

The quarries today offer routes to walk in the footsteps of Cézanne and admire this splendid site from the precise places where the painter painted some of his most beautiful paintings.

3. The workshop

At any time, we expect to see the silhouette of the old master arose that would paint, as usual, with hardness. The ceiling is high, the glass roof huge and the light abundant. And then, there are these so Cézanniens objects: a bottle, a basket of apples, skulls, arranged on a shelf, ready to be immortalized in a still life.

On the side, the easel is waiting for its canvas. As for the paint box, it still carries the colorful traces of the tubes that overflowed. Hanging to the wall, engravings from Delacroix and Daumier paintings offer inspiration. Everything is surmounted by a crucifix.

We are in the last workshop of Paul Cézanne, established in the middle of the pines. After the sale of the Bastide Familiales in 1899, he built a new one in 1901 on the Hill of the Lautes, north of Aix. “This place, Cézanne chose it. He bought this large agricultural land and drew the plans itself, ”recalls Michel Fraisset, director of the Aix tourist office.

From here, he could crisscross the Provencal paths he knew by heart, to the Sainte-Victoire mountain. He created there for five years, until his death in 1906.