There is considerable irony in the upcoming events centering on Paul Cézanne in his hometown of Aix-en-Provence, France. Although today there is a large statue of the artist at the city’s central plaza, Place Charles De Gaulle, and the sidewalks are studded with medallions bearing the artist’s name and a large C encircling the city crest, Cézanne was virtually a stranger to his own municipality during his lifetime. Though only a few of his paintings sold early on, in Aix or elsewhere, today many of them are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The year 2025 is, according to the city of Aix, “the year of Cézanne.” The artist was born in 1839 and died in 1906, so this will not be an anniversary. But the year will feature a major exhibition at the Musée Granet in Aix, displaying over a hundred artworks by the “Master of Aix,” many from international lenders. Also featured will be two prominent openings: Cézanne’s residence at the Jas de Bouffan and the Centre Cezannien de recherche et de documentation (CCRD). Visitors wanting to discover other places where the painter worked can visit the quarries of Bibémus, a few miles outside of Aix, as well as his captivating studio at Les Lauves.
This year will herald a return something 0like that of Odysseus, who as we know reverted after his long journey to the halls of Ithaca. Cézanne traveled to Paris some twenty times during his life, practically an obligation for artists of the time. He exhibited twice with the Impressionists, though it is not quite accurate to include him under this label. In Paris, he mingled with a number of the rising artists of his day, including Pissarro, Renoir, and to a lesser extent Monet and Guillaumin. Cézanne spent hours at the Louvre copying works there.
Yet Cézanne was never comfortable in Paris and always longed to be back south. He told his friend Claude Monet that he should probably never have left home to pursue his dreams. The fanfare of this return is more thanks to Cézanne’s fans than any prolonged absence on his part. Many of the featured openings are inspired by Denis Coutagne, the former curator of the Granet. He is the founding director of the Société Paul Cezanne and has contributed his considerable expertise to these initiatives.
Jas de Bouffan is well worth a visit. The name means “place of the wind” in the Provençal dialect. If you know this region, you may have experienced the mistral, a cold breeze so severe there were once laws on the books lessening penalties for crimes committed while it blew. Paul Cézanne lived at Jas de Bouffan and used the place as a laboratory for his artistic development; the house was owned by the painter’s family from 1859 through 1899. On the estate is an old building in which we can discover murals by the young artist, some curiously signed “Ingres,” perhaps owing to the youthful Cézanne’s lack of confidence. Visitors must imagine the property without the adjacent modern building that blocks the view of Mont Saint-Victoire, the subject of so many of Cézanne’s works. Even so, the park, the pool with goldfish, the lovely trees, and so much more will warmly greet visitors.
The Société Cezanne hopes that updates to the artist’s catalogue raisonné will be completed within the year. The original architect of the catalogue was the renowned art historian John Rewald. It has since been brought up to date with contributions by the art historian Jayne Warman, who first worked on it with the appraiser Walter Feilchenfeldt.
Thanks to the celebration of the Master of Aix, these events will afford the opportunity to study the details of Cézanne’s life. What drew him so insistently to the South of France? While his relation to the town of Aix was no doubt tenuous, there was nothing ambiguous about his love for the Provençal region. He certainly felt an acute nostalgia for his homeland, wherever he was.
When Cézanne was finally able to retreat to his birthplace, some in town thought he was a frustrated hermit. Indeed, Cézanne was the quintessential loner. The cosmopolitan life of Paris was never on his agenda. But what drew him to the South was his commitment to the brilliance of the landscape. About this setting, he once declared to his friend Pissarro, “The sun is so fierce that its objects seem to be silhouetted, not only in black or white, but in blue, red, brown, violet.”
France in the nineteenth century was in a constant tug-of-war between the older, prerevolutionary order and the newer mentality, open to exploration of fresh perspectives; this held in, say, the Roman Catholic Church as much as art. The officially sanctioned practice of art was classical in every sense. The epitome of this vision was the work of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867), whose nearly photographic detail was surpassed only by his conformity to traditional motifs. Most of the Impressionists rejected classical ideals in their search of the beauty of the natural world as they saw it. Cézanne’s focus was on the contours of his native locale, the trees, the rocks, the quaint houses, and even its ordinary people. In this respect, he was on the side of the newer mentality.
Visitors will be able to explore Cézanne’s relation to other modern artists, his emphasis on color over shapes, his obsession with the Sainte-Victoire, and maybe his spiritual commitments. Along the way it will be impossible to ignore that tumultuous friendship between Cézanne and the author Émile Zola (1840–1902). The two grew up together and spent untold hours taking long walks, swimming in the local streams, and even jointly writing poetry. Something strange occurred in Paris, when Zola sent Cézanne a fresh copy of his 1886 novel L’Œuvre (The Masterpiece). It is the story of a maligned artist, Claude Lantier, who is unable to finish his planned masterwork and ends up taking his life. Cézanne cordially thanked Zola but never corresponded with his old friend again. The artist seemed to be troubled by the main character, whom he took to be based on himself. Did their friendship end with L’Œuvre? Did Zola misunderstand Cézanne?
Cézanne once said, “Je vous dois la vérité en peinture et je vous la dirai” (I owe you the truth in painting and I will tell it to you). Many of us believe he fulfilled his promise. This year will put his hopes to the test.
