Finding Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence

I can’t help thinking how strange it is to be walking through a residential part of Aix-en-Provence, past local corner shops and apartment blocks – at the same time knowing that I’m just minutes from the studio of Paul Cézanne, set in a street where you’d miss it if you didn’t know it was there.

I’ve long loved Cézanne’s art, as a kid, one Christmas I asked for a book of art about the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists of which Cézanne was a leading light. My favourite painting was The Card Players, I felt like I could smell the pipe smoke and hear them laying the cards and sighing at their luck. Years later when I saw the painting for real in Paris’ Musée d’Orsay, it surpassed my expectations, a whole story played out in a painting.

Janine Marsh traces the footsteps of the painter in his hometown.

Cezanne’s studio in Aix-en-Provence

Paul Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Provence on January 19, 1839, and memories of the great artist are everywhere but it’s in his studio where you feel his presence the most. He worked here for four years before his death.

There are tranquil gardens, birds singing, burned orange shutters and pale blue window frames on pale mustard walls – so Provence, and recognisable colours from his paintings. On a hot midsummer’s day, the sunlight plays a dappled tune through the wilting leaves of the tall trees, and it’s easy to imagine the painter arriving first thing in the morning which was his habit, setting off at 6am and walking around 20 minutes from his apartment as 23 rue Boulegon in the town as I had just done. He would collect his brushes, paints and easel from the studio (they are still there) and head off into the countryside to paint. Around 11am he walked back home for lunch, returning in the afternoon to carry on painting.

The studio was built to his own specifications, each room conformed to his specific requirements. Big windows, blinds to mute the shade on the south side, open on the north side where the light was shaded. Everything is as it was, though the original floor has been cleaned of its multiple paint stains. In one corner of the studio, you can see where he had to cut a hole in the wall, the only way to get his largest painting, Grandes Baigneuses, out.

Cezanne’s style

Cézanne was classically trained, and his early paintings show he was a superb painter, especially of biblical scenes, he could certainly do art the accepted way in those days – but that wasn’t his way. For him it was about harmony in shapes, texture and colour. He was obsessed with painting the nature of Provence and Mont Sainte-Victoire, the mountain that dominates the landscape of Aix, and he obsessively organised objects for his still life paintings.

His art wasn’t always appreciated. When Cézanne exhibited two paintings at the first Impressionist Exhibition in 1874, a critic wrote that he was “a bit of a madman, afflicted with painting delirium tremens…” It wasn’t until the last ten years of his life that his work began to be appreciated, and he would certainly be shocked to find that one of his paintings of Mont Saint-Victoire sold in New York for $138 million in 2022.

By all accounts he was a difficult man. Emile Zola his friend since childhood, said of him that though he had the makings of a great painter “he will never have the genius to become one. The least obstacle makes him despair.” He painted with an intensity that was unusual, would fly into rages, and destroy his work. Struggling to achieve the recognition he craved, he would tell younger painters “I am a painter of your generation, not of mine.”

But here in the studio there is an air of peace. You can see the objects he painted, still grouped together, the bottles, the skulls (no-one knows who they belonged to – but they are real), his smock and hat, brushes and easels, just as if he were still there.

Cezanne-en-provence.com

Follow up with a tour of the Cézanne family home in Aix, Jas de Bouffan, the Bibémus quarries, pine forests and fields of the area that provided inspiration for his art. Book tours at Aix-en-Provence Tourist Office.

At the Musée Granet you can see several original works of Cézanne.

Cézanne died at his apartment in rue Boulegon on October 23, 1906, from pleurisy said to be brought on by painting outside in at storm. Visit his final resting place in Saint-Pierre Cemetery.

Read our guide to what to see and do in Aix-en-Provence

Janine Marsh is the author of several internationally best-selling books about France. Her latest book How to be French – a celebration of the French lifestyle and art de vivre, is out now – a look at the French way of life. Find all books on her website janinemarsh.com