In Aix-en-Provence, in the intimacy of Cezanne at Jas de Bouffan

At the time of Paul Cezanne, the Bastide of Jas de Bouffan was lost in the midst of the vines. Today, it is near the highway, surrounded by buildings. The great chestnut trees of the aisle are dead but the building miraculously through time, with five hectares of gardens. For the painter, it was there, in the large living room, that it all started. Remarkably restored, it has been welcoming visitors to the Cezanne 2025 season organized by the city of Aix-en-Provence, in honor of the child of the country since the summer of the summer.

The work will last for some time, but we can already discover this place where part of modernity was invented. Acquired by the artist’s father in 1859, she remained in the family until 1899. Thanks to digital projections, the walls painted in the big one by the young painter at 20 years old came back to life, then the visitor can climb under the roofs in the second workshop with his large window open to the foliage.

Forty years of masterpieces

Batager, landscapes, still lifes … For 40 years, masterpieces will be born here, dispersed around the world and gathered today at the Granet Museum with an exhibition of 140 works, loaned by the greatest museums on the planet. A magnificent exhibition of course, but above all bright intelligence thanks to the work of commissioners Bruno Ely, director of the Granet and Denis Coutagne museum, president of the Paul Cezanne company, both specialists in the painter’s work … It’s very simple! Do you know anything about Cezanne? Leaving the exhibition, you will have understood everything! The large means deployed, in particular lighting to hang the paints and fragile watercolors side by side, make this hook even more readable.

With the dozen self -portraits punctuating the exhibition, time has passed from the large painted sets for ten years on the walls of Jas de Bouffan, deposited and then sold in cutting around the world. About 70 % of the large fair has been gathered for a majestic start and is already guessing the upcoming research of Paul Cezanne. The last song, The entrance to the castlewas found in Japan only three weeks before the opening!

In these first works, an expressionist Cezanne appears. “It shows the freedom of an artist”explains Bruno Ely. In the middle of the show, sits the portrait of the father whom he sought to seduce, to convince and that he signs Ingres, the only name of painter known to the paternal. Relatives, friends, family parade in particular Emile Zola. On the back of a portrait of his mother with a brush, the portrait of his sister with a knife appears.

“One foot in tradition, a foot in modernity”

Little by little, this first way “Couillarde” Give way to the works of maturity, softening his palette, dialoguing with the Impressionists, then he destroyed his touch, twists the perspectives, architecture his compositions to go to the point with a touch “constructive”. A room around the landscapes is particularly impressive, a real lesson in painting. Cezanne searches, experiences, adapts, is constantly questioning. With its bathers, Cezanne works around light, is a symbiosis between body and nature, “One foot in tradition, a foot in modernity”continues the commissioner. Another room around the famous still lifes dazzles the same, with its innovations, its paradoxes. “Rather than loyalty to reality, it builds stability by a series of instability”summarizes Bruno Ely.

It was also in Bouffan’s Jas, that he paints one of his most famous paintings, Card playershaving the peasants of the surroundings pose. The painting, loaned by the Musée d’Orsay, is put back in perspective both in its work and in the history of art.

The exhibition ends with an evocation of elsewhere. Because Cezanne did not work that in the Jas de Bouffan, we of course know his views of the Sainte-Victoire. But this elsewhere, it is not only the outside, it is also the whole 20th century that will feed on the work of Cezanne, as shown in a Sea view at Estaque, Who was part of the collection of one of his most admirers, Pablo Picasso.