CEZANNE at ARLES

A master, and all he surveyed

By Neville Walker


Summer started hot and early in theMidi this year, andin inland Provence,away from the cooling breezes and inviting waters of the Côte d'Azur. Visitors were driven to find alternative sanctuary from the sun as the mercury climbed relentlessly, reaching the high 30s even before the grandes vacances had properly begun.
Rarely have the cool, dark mysteries of Aix-en-Provence's St Sauveur cathedral seemed so engrossing, the dappled shade and splashing fountains of the Cours Mirabeau more alluring, or the need to linger over a citron pressé and the latest edition of La Provence more pressing. This summer, late mornings blend effortlessly into early afternoons on the terrace at Les Deux Garçons. Anything more strenuous is, frankly, an effort.
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Right on cue, Aix's distinguished but hitherto rather dusty Musée Granet reopened its doors in June after a lengthy rebuild, and visitors to Provence's most seductive city were presented with an altogether more compelling refuge from the daytime heat. For this - in case you hadn't noticed - is the year of Cézanne in Provence. It is a century since the dogged, solitary father of modern painting was struck down while painting in the autumn rain on the hill of Les Lauves. It seemed inevitable that the city's principal art gallery should reopen with an exhibition of his work and it duly did so: the Cézanne en Provence exhibition is opening here after first being seen in Washington, DC, and it's a triumph. Far more than the stifling afternoon heat outside, this exhibition is truly breathtaking. I doubt I shall ever again see such a magnificent collection of Cézanne's paintings in one place.
It seems as though they're all here, returned to the place that inspired them from the world's greatmuseums: "Les Grandes Baigneuses" from London's National Gallery, "Les Joueurs de Cartes" from the Musée d'Orsay, the almost cubist "Carrières de Bibémus" from the Folkwang in Essen, and a roomful of Mont Sainte Victoire canvases. The museum itself has been rebuilt with more taste than audacity - there are no Bilbao-style architectural pyrotechnics to distract attention from the artworks on its walls.
And yet wonderful though Cézanne en Provence is, it isn't the only artistic revelation on offer in Aix this summer. For the very first time, it is possible to visit Jas de Bouffan, the handsome 18th- century house that was for many years the Cézanne family home, the artist's studio and the subject matter of his art. Though he only painted the house itself after the death of his domineering father, Cézanne painted much else here - the avenue of chestnut trees, the rectangular basin in the garden, and the simple Provençal farm folk who became the subject of "Les Joueurs de Cartes". He even painted the walls of the house itself, for this was the original location of his "Four Seasons", later chemically removed from the plaster of thespacious white salon. This salon is the setting for a wonderful coup de théâtre at the start of the tour, as paintings from the Jas de Bouffan period are projected on to the walls of the room in which they were painted. Many of the works thus projected are among the canvases on view a few kilometres away in the Musée Granet.
The reminders of Cézanne in Aix are everywhere. A marked Cézanne trail allows pilgrims to follow the progress of his life in the city, from his birthplace in the Rue de l'Opéra to the Saint-Pierre cemetery where he was buried on October 24 1906. Beyond Aix itself, there are guided visits to the quarries of Bibémus and to the village of Gardanne, where the artist spent part of the most decisive year of his life: the year he married, his father died and he broke with his childhood friend, Émile Zola, over the unflattering pen portrait of Cézanneand the impressionists that appeared in the author's novel The Masterpiece.
Perhaps the best-known and most visited of all Cézanne sites is the atelier on the hill of Les Lauves, a little to the north of the old city of Aix. Cézanne had it built to his own specifications and he was obsessive about getting the details right: the studio walls were originally white but created too many reflections, soseveral colours were tried before finally settling on the grey that visitors see today.
By the time it was ready in 1902 Cézanne was an old man, but financially secure, and at last attracting the attention as an artist that had evaded him for mostof his life. To walk intothis studio today is to enter a time capsule: propped against the wall is the giant easel on which he painted "Les Grandes Baigneuses", and dotted about the room are the humble artefacts he turned into compelling still lives: a skull, a basket, the olive jar that belonged to his mother, the bottle in which he cleaned his brushes.
One thing is missing from the atelier, though it can be seen a little to the north: Mont Sainte Victoire itself, a familiar motif even from the artist's earlier work but the subject of his obsessive attention in the years 1902-06. Two kilometres from the studio, near the summit of the hill of Les Lauves, an informal garden planted with olives andoleander climbs from the side of the road. This is the Terrain des Peintres, thevantage point from which Cézanne painted his beloved mountain.
It is perhaps best visited late in the afternoon or early in the evening, not just to enjoy the light but because there's little shade and the path is steep and not especially smooth - it's hot work being an art pilgrim. Only at the top does the garden fully reveal its treasure, a glorious view over the mountain and the surrounding landscape.
Plaques with reproductions of some of the Mont Sainte Victoire canvases help visitors to compare the living landscape with the artist's interpretation, though even without them it would be impossible now to imagine this as anything other than Cézanne's mountain: a vast triangle of limestone rising above a horizontal line with the deep greens and tawny shades of an unspoilt Provençal landscape below. A view worth braving any amount of summer heat to savour.