| Sainte Victoire by Paul Cézanne |
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By putting his easel near the "chemin de la Marguerite", Cézanne chose the highest point to view Mt Saint-Victoire. He will return many times, between 1902 and 1906, to finish the eleven oil paintings and the seventeen watercolors, preserved in big museums of the world or private collections.
In the first paintings some elements of scenery are still identifiable: wheat fields, alpine roads, the red rooves of bastides and the electric generating station. In February 1904, Emile Bernard went with Cézanne in "le motif". " It was two kilometers from the studio, at the bottom of Sainte-Victoire, fearless mountain that he never stopped painting in oils and watercolors, that filled him with admiration.
Cezanne settled in front of the mountain with his easel, his canvas, his box of paints, his palette and his paintbrushes. He protected himself from the indiscreet glances behind umbrellas.
A few meters away, he painted the "Cabanon de Jourdan". The 15th of October 1906, a thunderstorm broke and Cézanne stayed several hours, painting in the rain. He fainted and "We brought him back to rue Boulegon, on a launderer's handcart and two men had to put him in his bed. Early in the morning,the next day he went to the garden of the Lauves' workshop to paint the portrait of Vallier under the lime tree. He returned in a state of "neardeath".
Cezanne wanted to die while painting. He died a week later, in the night between the 22nd and the 23rd of October 1906, due to the effects of pleurisy.
As part of its policy to highlight Cézanne, the town of Aix-en-Provence is developing the "terrain des peintres" in the Domaine de la Marguerite area. Facing the mountain which, from this view, becomes figurehead, 10 panels reproduce the main "Montagne Sainte-Victoire" views painted by Cezanne from the Chemin de la Marguerite.
Cezanne in the Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art reproduced the architecture of a Greek temple with its ionic columns and its polychrome pediment.
Finished in 1928, it holds collections of Asiatic art, costumes and textiles, European decorative art, European paintings and sculptures, engravings, drawings and photographs, of American art and of art from the XX century.
The Impressionnist Painters take place of honor, and more particularly with Cezanne and his 14 oil paintings illustrating the main themes of his work: still life paintings, landscapes, portraits and bathers.
The provençaux landscapes: Estaque bay, Saint-Henri and the gulf of Marseille, the millstone in the Château-Noir park, Mount Sainte-Victoire seen from the Lauves, burst with colors except the last "Grandes Baigneuses" painted by Cezanne in 1906 in his Aix studio.
