I think I've loved Paul Cézanne's work ever since my mom came home from an exhibition of his as a child with a book? or something? I don't know, but the muted, warm paintings of Mont Saint Victoire was love at first sight. So there I was in his hometown, Aix-en-Provence, like every other tourist, lapping up his history and works.
I visited the Atelier des Lauves which was Cézanne's studio once he had some money to build his own space. They had a few original items and replicas from his still lives. One fact I appreciated was that Cézanne was awkward around women, so when he painted women, like in
The Bathers he actually used a wooden female model. There were other interesting tidbits, like finding a discarded Cézanne canvas used to insulate a window around town. His work wasn't super appreciated in the beginning, but that did eventually change (clearly).
After the Atelier, I walked a bit around the neighborhood. Cézanne used to walk to and from Aix to get to his studio, but he also painted many a view of Mont Saint Victoire from nearby. The Portail Cézanne above perfectly frames a familiar angle of the mountain...
Before the Atelier, I had visited the home his father bought when he was a young adult, the Bastide du Jas de Bouffan. This building was newly opened, and seems to be periodically temporarily closed as they restore it, because it was in rough shape still. It was great to se his original studio with all the windows added in, which was the inspiration for the Atelier des Lauves studio.
Even walking the grounds outside of the Bastide reveals lots of familiar sights from Cézanne's paintings. They pair it with prints of these to help you recognize the scenes.
It was wonderful to see the walls where Cézanne started painting. They projected his pieces where they would have been. And then I went to the traveling Cézanne exhibit at Musée Granet in town, where they had most of the actual pieces set-up just like they would have been in the Bastide. A really lovely side-by-side.
