LE MASSIF DU TAILLEFER PEINT PAR PAUL CEZANNE (1839-1906)

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
Le Taillefer (2,857m)
France

In " Le Lac d’Annecy " 1896, Huile sur toile 79 x 64 cm,  Courtauld Institute of Art, London 

 La montagne
Le Taillefer (2,857m) est le point culminant du massif du Taillefer, au sud-est de Grenoble, dans les Alpes françaises.Son plateau sommital arrondi et rocailleux, teinté de rouge lui aussi, contraste avec les pentes raides de son versant Nord, souvent enneigé à la fin du printemps. La situation géographique du Taillefer en fait un magnifique belvédère sur l'Oisans, les Grandes Rousses, la chaîne de Belledonne et le massif du Vercors et offre un panorama très large, du mont Blanc au mont Ventoux. Il existe plusieurs voies d'escalade au Taillefer dont celle du Petit Taillefer surnommée Dudu la Faillite. Le massif est formé de trois chaînons parallèles orientés nord-sud et se succédant d'est en ouest.Le Taollefer est visible de Doingt au bord du Lac d'Annecy.

Le peintre
Paul Cézanne est un peintre français provençal, membre un temps du mouvement impressionniste et considéré comme le précurseur du post-impressionnisme et du cubisme. Par sa volonté de faire « du Poussin sur nature », il apparaît comme un continuateur de l'esprit classique français autant qu'un innovateur radical par l'utilisation de la géométrie dans les portraits, natures mortes et les nombreux paysages qu'il peint, d'Île-de-France et de Provence, particulièrement de la campagne d'Aix-en-Provence. Il a notamment réalisé une série de toiles ayant pour motif la montagne Sainte-Victoire. Il est considéré comme le « père de l'art moderne». Parmi ceux des peintres du XIXe siècle rangés sous l’étiquette « impressionnistes », Cézanne, dont l’œuvre est au-delà de l'impressionnisme — et donc probablement la plus difficile —, est celui qui fut, et reste encore aujourd'hui, le plus mal compris, voire le plus controversé. Dans une interview donnée à Denise Glaser, Salvador Dalí toujours provocateur dit de Cézanne : « Le peintre le plus mauvais de la France s'appelle Paul Cézanne, c'est le plus maladroit, le plus catastrophique, celui qui a plongé l'art moderne dans la merde qui est en train de nous engloutir… » À la mort de Cézanne, certains peintres voulant créer de nouveaux mouvements se réclamèrent de lui. Le cas le plus notoire est celui des cubistes. Malgré tout ce qu’on a pu dire et écrire, il reste douteux que Cézanne eût reconnu cette paternité. Il n’est plus là pour répondre, mais sa correspondance conserve quelques phrases que l’on peut méditer, par exemple, celle-ci : « Il faut se méfier de l’esprit littérateur qui fait si souvent le peintre s’écarter de sa vraie voie — l’étude concrète de la nature — pour se perdre trop longtemps dans des spéculations intangibles. »

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2024 - 13e année de publication -  Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau

 

 

THE SAINTE VICTOIRE BY PAUL CÉZANNE

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906) 

Montagne Sainte-Victoire   (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)

France (Provences-Alpes-Côte d'Azur) 

In La Montagne Sainte-Victoire, c. 1900. watercolor and graphite on wove paper,
Barnes Foundation

The mountain

Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft)  also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works  Paul Cézanne did  on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.

The range of the Sainte-Victoire is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians.  On the northern side, the D10 crosses the Col de Claps (530 m) and the Col des Portes (631 m). On the southern side, the D 17 walks on the Plateau de Cengle and crossed the Collet blanc de Subéroque (505 m).

The massif rises to the Pic des Mouches (Peak of the Flies) (1,011 m) near the eastern end of the chain, and not at the Croix de Provence (946 m) near the west end and visible from Aix. The Pic des Mouches is one of the highest peaks of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, behind the peak Bertagne which reached an altitude of 1,042 mètres and which is located on the massif of Sainte-Baume.

Sainte-Victoire, as the range of the Sainte Baume, can be considered a special case among the Alpine ranges for the various stages of the formation of its relief associated geological history as well as that of the old Pyrenean-Provençal chain than that of the Western Alps (which have succeeded it).

Indeed,  from the former Sainte-Victoire mountain, contemporary of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, appeared 15 million years BCE.

Sainte-Victoire, whose calcareous sediments date back to the Jurassic, thus consists of both a Pyrenean-Provencal vestige and of an alpine geology.

The massif is a ensemble of 6525 ha classified since 1983.

The massive hosts several world-famous dinosaur eggs deposits including the Roques-Hautes / Les Grands-Creux on the town Beaurecueil.

The painter  

The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with  the  painter (Paul Cézanne).  He painted  this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings !

Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other.  But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History  says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.

Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.

The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.

It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s)  he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors.  IN the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view  from Les Lauves,  between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.

A true love story…

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

MOUNT SAINTE VICTOIRE BY PAUL CEZANNE

 

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
Montagne Sainte-Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)
France (Provences-Alpes-Côte d'Azur)

In Le Mont Sainte-Victoire, c. 1897. watercolor  on paper, Prvate collection

The mountain
Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft) also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works Paul Cézanne did on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.
The range of the Sainte-Victoire is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians. On the northern side, the D10 crosses the Col de Claps (530 m) and the Col des Portes (631 m). On the southern side, the D 17 walks on the Plateau de Cengle and crossed the Collet blanc de Subéroque (505 m).
The massif rises to the Pic des Mouches (Peak of the Flies) (1,011 m) near the eastern end of the chain, and not at the Croix de Provence (946 m) near the west end and visible from Aix. The Pic des Mouches is one of the highest peaks of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, behind the peak Bertagne which reached an altitude of 1,042 mètres and which is located on the massif of Sainte-Baume.
Sainte-Victoire, as the range of the Sainte Baume, can be considered a special case among the Alpine ranges for the various stages of the formation of its relief associated geological history as well as that of the old Pyrenean-Provençal chain than that of the Western Alps (which have succeeded it).
Indeed, from the former Sainte-Victoire mountain, contemporary of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, appeared 15 million years BCE.
Sainte-Victoire, whose calcareous sediments date back to the Jurassic, thus consists of both a Pyrenean-Provencal vestige and of an alpine geology.
The massif is a ensemble of 6525 ha classified since 1983.
The massive hosts several world-famous dinosaur eggs deposits including the Roques-Hautes / Les Grands-Creux on the town Beaurecueil.

The painter
The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with the painter (Paul Cézanne). He painted this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings !
Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other. But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.
Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.
The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.
It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s) he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors. IN the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view from Les Lauves, between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.
A true love story…
________________________________
2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE MONTAGNE SAINTE VICTOIRE PAINTED BY PAUL CEZANNE

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906) 

Montagne Sainte-Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)

France (Provences-Alpes-Côte d'Azur)

In  Sainte-Victoire vue à travers l’allée des marronniers du Jas de Bouffan,  oil on canvas, 1885

 Minneapolis Museum of Fine Arts 

The mountain
Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft) also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works Paul Cézanne did on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.
The range of the Sainte-Victoire is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians. On the northern side, the D10 crosses the Col de Claps (530 m) and the Col des Portes (631 m). On the southern side, the D 17 walks on the Plateau de Cengle and crossed the Collet blanc de Subéroque (505 m).
The massif rises to the Pic des Mouches (Peak of the Flies) (1,011 m) near the eastern end of the chain, and not at the Croix de Provence (946 m) near the west end and visible from Aix. The Pic des Mouches is one of the highest peaks of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, behind the peak Bertagne which reached an altitude of 1,042 mètres and which is located on the massif of Sainte-Baume.
Sainte-Victoire, as the range of the Sainte Baume, can be considered a special case among the Alpine ranges for the various stages of the formation of its relief associated geological history as well as that of the old Pyrenean-Provençal chain than that of the Western Alps (which have succeeded it).
Indeed, from the former Sainte-Victoire mountain, contemporary of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, appeared 15 million years BCE.
Sainte-Victoire, whose calcareous sediments date back to the Jurassic, thus consists of both a Pyrenean-Provencal vestige and of an alpine geology.
The massif is a ensemble of 6525 ha classified since 1983.
The massive hosts several world-famous dinosaur eggs deposits including the Roques-Hautes / Les Grands-Creux on the town Beaurecueil.

The painter
The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with the painter (Paul Cézanne). He painted this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings !
Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other. But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.
Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.
The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.
It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s) he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors. IN the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view from Les Lauves, between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.
A true love story…

_____________________________________________
2019- Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LE PILON DU ROI - MASSIF DE L'ÉTOILE PAINTED BY PAUL CÉZANNE

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
The Pilon du Roi - Massif de l'Etoile (710 m - 2,200 ft)
France 

                     La Chaîne de l'Etoile avec le Pilon du Roi, 1885–1886,  Barnes Foundation


The mountain
The Massif de l'Etoile (Range of the Star) is a small mountain range located north of Marseille. Covering an area of ​​10,000 hectares, it culminates at 779 meters at Grand-Puech. Its other highest points are: to the west, the summit of Grande-Étoile (590 metres) and l'Étoile (652 metres, the highest point in the municipality of Marseilles), to the east, besides the Tête du Grand-Puech, the Mont Julien (647 meters), while the center of the massif is dominated by the Pilon du Roi (710 meters) whose name is a deformation of the Provençal Pieloun dóu Roure, or the “peak of the oak”.
With the Garlaban massif, it forms a chain of mountains in coastal limestone Lower Provence in the south of Bouches-du-Rhône. They constitute a vast natural space of approximately 20,000 hectares which emerge at the heart of an urban complex of more than one million inhabitants with the agglomerations of Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Aubagne and Gardanne.
The massif crosses 18 communes of the Bouches-du-Rhône.
On the northern edge of the Marseille agglomeration, this massif offers a beautiful image of the non-coastal hills of limestone Basse-Provence with typical flora, including endemic and rare species, including one from Appendix II of the plant protection system. (Arenaria provincialis), a typical vegetation of coppice, scrubland, lawns and rock habitats belonging to the Meso-Mediterranean level with even, thanks to a clear shade, an outline of a supra-Mediterranean level (coppice - high oak forest pubescent holly and pine forests of Scots pine) and a Mediterranean fauna whose current studies show for the moment typicality and originality.


The Painter
If mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with the painter Paul Cezanne, it is not the only one mountain he painted.
Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other. But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.
Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.
The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.
It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s) he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors. In the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view from Les Lauves, between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.

_______________________________
2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE MOUNT SAINTE-VICTOIRE PAINTED BY PAUL CÉZANNE

 PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)

Montagne Sainte Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)

France (Provence Alpes Côte d'azur) 

 In Plaine près de la Montagne Sainte-Victoire, c. 1882-85   oil on canvas, 58 x 72 cm. Musée Pushkin, Moscou

The mountain
Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft) also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works Paul Cézanne did on it.
It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.
The range of the Sainte-Victoire is 18 kilometers long and 5 kilometers from large, following a strict east-west orientation. It is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians.
The Sainte-Victoire, as the range of the Sainte Baume, can be considered a special case among the Alpine ranges for the various stages of the formation of its relief associated geological history as well as that of the old Pyrenean-Provençal chain than that of the Western Alps (which have succeeded it).
Indeed, from the former Sainte-Victoire mountain, contemporary of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, it remains today only the fold Bimont, said Chaînon des Costes Chaudes, the last vestige resulting from tectonic movements and characteristics of the stacks of Pyreneo-Provençal phase during the Eocene. Later during the Oligocene, breaking of the anticlinal fold of Sainte-Victoire, which resulted from the uplift of the first great Alpine reliefs, is causing a surge that help explain the current form of the mountain, which appeared 15 million years BCE.
According to a recent study, the Sainte-Victoire is still growing ! The company ME2i has indeed conducted a satellite survey between 1993 and 2003 providing evidence that during this period the western end of the Sainte-Victoire was uplift of 7 mm per year.
The massif is a ensemble of 6525 ha classified since 1983.

The painter
The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with the painter Paul Cezanne. He painted this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings!
Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other. But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.
Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.
The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.
It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s) he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors. In the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view from Les Lauves, between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.

_______________________________
2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

MONTAGNE SAINTE VICTOIRE BY MARSDEN HARTLEY

MARSDEN HARTLEY (1877-1943)

Montagne Sainte Victoire (1, 011 m - 3, 316ft)

France (Provence)

 1. In Montagne Sainte Victoire from Chateau Noir, pink mountain, 1927, oil on canvas,

 Private collection 

2.  In Montagne Sainte Victoire from Chateau Noir, red mountain, 1927, oil on canvas,

Private collection 

The mountain
Mont Sainte-Victoire (1, 011 m-3, 316ft)  also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works  Paul Cézanne did  on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.
- More about Montagne Sainte Victoire 

The painter 
Marsden Hartley  was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist.
Hartley began his art training at the Cleveland Institute of Art after his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1892.  He won a scholarship to the Cleveland School of Art.
In 1898, at age 22, he moved to New York City to study painting at the New York School of Art under William Merritt Chase, and then attended the National Academy of Design. Hartley was a great admirer of Albert Pinkham Ryder and visited his studio in Greenwich Village as often as possible. His friendship with Ryder, in addition to the writings of Walt Whitman and American transcendentalists Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, inspired Hartley to view art as a spiritual quest.
Hartley first traveled to Europe in April 1912, and he became acquainted with Gertrude Stein's circle of Avant-garde writers and artists in Paris.  Stein, along with Hart Crane and Sherwood Anderson, encouraged Hartley to write as well as paint.
In 1913, Hartley moved to Berlin, where he continued to paint and befriended the painters Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. He also collected Bavarian folk art.  His work during this period was a combination of abstraction and German Expressionism, fueled by his personal brand of mysticism.
In Berlin, Hartley developed a close relationship with a Prussian lieutenant, Karl von Freyburg. References to Freyburg were a recurring motif in Hartley's work, most notably in Portrait of a German Officer (1914). Freyburg's subsequent death during the war hit Hartley hard, and he afterward idealized their relationship. Many scholars believe Hartley to have been gay, and have interpreted his work regarding Freyburg as embodying his homosexual feelings for him.
Hartley finally returned to the U.S. in early 1916. He lived in Europe again from 1921 to 1930, when he moved back to the U.S. for good.  He painted throughout the country, in Massachusetts, New Mexico, California, and New York. He returned to Maine in 1937, after declaring that he wanted to become "the painter of Maine" and depict American life at a local level.  This aligned Hartley with the Regionalism movement, a group of artists active from the early- to-mid 20th century that attempted to represent a distinctly "American art." He continued to paint in Maine, primarily scenes around Lovell and the Corea coast, until his death in Ellsworth in 1943. His ashes were scattered on the Androscoggin River. Most of his mountains paintings of Maine are nowadays in the MET collections.

Marsden Hartley and the Montagne Sainte Victoire
(notice from Baltimore Museum of Art)
" The American artist Marsden Hartley greatly admired the work of Paul Cézanne. Even though Cézanne had died in 1906, Hartley traveled to southern France in 1925 to live in the countryside that Cézanne loved. When he first saw Mont Sainte-Victoire, he said, “I couldn’t believe my eyes for what I saw in the way of dignified beauty…”  He rented lodging on the same estate where Cézanne had had a studio, affording him the same view of the magnificent Mont Sainte-Victoire that had inspired Cézanne. Hartley thought of himself as a realist and intended to paint the mountain as most people would see it. But in the strong southern light, he found the mountain “full of hypnotic attraction” and began to express his feelings about the mountain through color. Marsden Hartley was captivated by the reddish color of the earth around Mont Sainte-Victoire, comparing it to the vivid colors of stained glass windows. He wrote, “Such color exists nowhere outside of the windows of Chartres & Sainte-Chapelle—the earth itself seems as if it were naturally incandescent & seems fired from underneath somehow—yet withal so restrained and dignified.”

THE SAINTE VICTOIRE (3) BY PAUL CEZANNE

PAUL CEZANNE (1839-1906)

The Montagne Sainte Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)

France (Provence Alpes Côte d'azur) 

 In La Sainte-Victoire vue de la colline des Lauves, 1902-1906,  watercolour, Private collection 

The mountain

Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft)  also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works  Paul Cézanne did  on it. 

It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.

The range of the Sainte-Victoire is 18 kilometers long and 5 kilometers from large, following a strict east-west orientation. It is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians.

 The Sainte-Victoire, as the range of the Sainte Baume, can be considered a special case among the Alpine ranges for the various stages of the formation of its relief associated geological history as well as that of the old Pyrenean-Provençal chain than that of the Western Alps (which have succeeded it).

Indeed,  from the former Sainte-Victoire mountain, contemporary of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, it remains today  only the fold Bimont, said Chaînon des Costes Chaudes, the last vestige resulting from tectonic movements and characteristics of the stacks of  Pyreneo-Provençal phase during the Eocene. Later during the Oligocene, breaking  of the anticlinal fold of Sainte-Victoire, which resulted from the uplift of the first great Alpine reliefs, is causing a surge that help explain the current form of the mountain, which appeared 15 million years BCE.

According to a recent study, the Sainte-Victoire is still growing ! The company ME2i  has indeed conducted a satellite survey between 1993 and 2003 providing evidence that during this period the western end of the Sainte-Victoire was uplift of 7 mm per year.

The massif is a ensemble of 6525 ha classified since 1983.

The Painter  

The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with  the  painter Paul Cezanne. He painted  this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings!

Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other.  But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History  says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.

Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.

The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.

It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s)  he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors.  In the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view  from Les Lauves,  between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.

_______________________________
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

LA COLLINE DES PAUVRES PEINTE PAR PAUL CÉZANNE

 

 

 

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
La Colline des Pauvres (?)

France (Provence Alpes Côte d'azur)

In Vue du Domaine Saint-Joseph ou plus précisément La Colline des Pauvres près du Château Noir, avec vue sur Saint-Joseph, 1880, huile sur toile, 65,1 × 81,3 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art à New York


A propos de l'œuvre et de la colline
La composition picturale expose une vue collinaire comportant la dite « Colline des Pauvres », ou Colline du Tholonet rendant visible le domaine jésuite de Saint-Joseph (la grande maison jaune au centre de la composition,) entre Aix-en-Provence et le village du Tholonet, un quartier parcouru par l'artiste depuis sa jeunesse, aux abords immédiats dela Montagne Sainte Victoire.

Le peintre
Paul Cézanne est un peintre français provençal, membre un temps du mouvement impressionniste et considéré comme le précurseur du post-impressionnisme et du cubisme. Sa volonté de faire « du Poussin sur nature », le fait apparaître comme un continuateur de l'esprit classique français autant qu'un innovateur radical par l'utilisation de la géométrie dans les portraits, natures mortes et les nombreux paysages qu'il peint, d'Île-de-France et de Provence, particulièrement de la campagne d'Aix-en-Provence. Il a notamment réalisé une série de toiles ayant pour motif la montagne Sainte-Victoire. Il est considéré comme le « père de l'art moderne». Cézanne a peint environ neuf cents tableaux et quatre cents aquarelles qui nous restent aujourd'hui, dont certains sont inachevés. Il a également détruit une partie de son œuvre. Ce sont ses amis peintres, notamment Pissarro, Renoir et Degas qui surent, les premiers, déceler ses intentions et reconnaître ses qualités.

______________________________________

2023 - Gravir les montagnes en peinture
Un blog de Francis Rousseau   

LA TETE D'AUGUSTE PAINTED BY PAUL CEZANNE

PAUL CEZANNE (1839-1906)

La Tête d'Auguste (278m
 - 912ft)
France (Bouche du Rhône)


In Au fond du ravin, L’Estaque, 1882 Huile sur toile, 73 x 54 cm, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

 

The Hill
The Tête d'Auguste (278m - ) is the highest point of the Chaîne de l'Estaque or the Nerthe chain, a massif of white limestone hills around 28 kilometers long which extends from L'Estaque to Martigues. The Estaque chain is part of the Pyrenean-Provençal chain, a former massif which stretched continuously before the Oligocene, from the Pyrenees to the Estaque massif, in place of the current Gulf of Lion. Nowadays, it forms a sort of isthmus about 8 kilometers wide between the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Etang de Berre to the north.
The coastline of the Estaque range forms the Côte Bleue with its steep shores cut into deep creeks. The railway line from Miramas to Estaque runs along the coast clinging to the side of the massif. The Estaque range is also home to several gray limestone quarries, two of which are exploited for the manufacture of lime, the others for the general and aggregates and other quarry products (Lafarge).



The painter

The mount Sainte-Victoire appears to have been the subject of a true love story with the painter (Paul Cézanne). He painted this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings ! but he diddn't painted only the Sainte Victoire... others landscape and mountains of Provence were in his mind too... 
Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion. 
The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York. 
It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne.In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene.


 
__________________________________________
2021 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

LA SAINTE VICTOIRE DERRIÈRE LES BIBEMUS PEINTE PAR ANDRÉ MASSON

ANDRÉ MASSON (1896-1987)
La Sainte Victoire (1, 011mètres au Pic des Mouches)
France (Bouches-du-Rhône)

In Les Carrieres de Bibemus, huile sur toile1948, Musée Toulouse Lautrec, Albi

A propos de cette toile
La Sainte Victoire peut être ent'raperçue ici dans le fond supérieur de la toile, le premier plan étant occupé par les Carrieres de Bibemus à partir desquelles Cézanne peignit souvent lui-même la Sainte Victoire.

La montagne
La Sainte-Victoire (1,011m au Pic des Mouches) en provençal Mont Venturi est un massif calcaire dans la région Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, en France. Située à l'est d'Aix-en-Provence, elle a connu une notoriété internationale en partie grâce aux 87 œuvres du peintre Paul Cézanne dont elle est le sujet. Elle accueille de nombreux randonneurs, grimpeurs et amoureux de la nature, et elle est un élément majeur du paysage aixois. Le massif de la Sainte-Victoire s'étend sur 18 kilomètres de long et sur 5 kilomètres de large suivant une stricte orientation ouest-est. Il se situe principalement dans le département des Bouches-du-Rhône et en partie dans celui du Var, et, avec ses abords, sur les communes de Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet, Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues et Rians. Les D 10 et D 17 (Route Cézanne) sont les principales routes qui permettent de longer le massif. Sur le versant septentrional, la D10 franchit le col de Claps (530 m) et le col des Portes (631 m). Sur le versant méridional, la D 17 chemine sur le plateau du Cengle et franchit le collet Blanc du Subéroque (505 m). Le massif culmine au Pic des Mouches (1 011 m pour l'IGN), près de l'extrémité est de la chaîne, et non pas à la Croix de Provence (946 m pour l'IGN) proche de l'extrémité ouest et visible d'Aix. Le pic des Mouches est l'un des plus hauts sommets du département des Bouches-du-Rhône, après le pic de Bertagne qui atteint l'altitude de 1 042 mètres et qui se situe sur le massif de la Sainte-Baume. 6 525 ha du massif de la Sainte-Victoire sont classés depuis 1983.

Les carrières de Bibémus sont d'anciennes carrières d'extraction de blocs de pierre à ciel ouvert, à 5 km à l'est d'Aix-en-Provence, où étaient extraites, de l'antiquité romaine jusqu'au 19e siècle, des pierres caractéristiques (ou molasse) dites « de Bibémus », pour la construction de nombreux bâtiments de la ville. Les carrières, d'une superficie de 7 ha, seront abandonnées à la fin du19e siècle. Le peintre aixois Paul Cézanne y a peint une partie de son œuvre entre 1895 à 1904. Un espace muséographique lui est ici consacré, autour de son cabanon, le cabanon de Cézanne des carrières de Bibémus. Il a été aménagé en 2006 par la municipalité d'Aix pour la commémoration du centenaire de sa disparition.

 

Le peintre
André Masson, est un peintre, graveur, illustrateur et décorateur de théâtre français.Il participa au mouvement surréaliste durant les années 1920 et en conserva l'esprit jusque 1945. De façon plus marginale, il a également pratiqué la sculpture. Célèbre pour ses « dessins automatiques » et ses « tableaux de sable », il est marqué — sur un plan esthétique — par « l'esprit de métamorphose » et « l'invention mythique » et plus encore - sur un plan éthique - par un anticonformisme viscéra, y compris au sein du groupe surréaliste dont il s'éloigne à peine il y est entré et qu'il dénonce comme « orthodoxe » ; y apparaissant du coup comme un « rebelle » ou un « dissident ». Ayant échappé de peu à la mort pendant la Première Guerre mondiale et sensible aux écrits de Sade et de son ami Georges Bataille, son œuvre peut être interprétée comme un questionnement sans concession de la barbarie humaine et des comportements pervers. Cette préoccupation primant chez lui sur toute considération esthétique, la critique explique le rôle marginal qu'il joue dans l'art moderne par le fait qu'« il ne s'est jamais soucié de plaire ». Son influence est principalement notable à New York pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, où il séjourne alors, fuyant l'Allemagne nazie. Ses tableaux rompant en effet avec le schéma classique de figures se détachant sur un fond (afin de symboliser au mieux l'état de confusion mentale qui - selon lui - régit son siècle), ils servent de références aux peintres Jackson Pollock et Arshile Gorky, fondateurs de l'expressionnisme abstrait. En revanche, les quarante dernières années de sa carrière (à partir de son retour des États-Unis) sont généralement boudées par la critique.

________________________________________

2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
Gravir les montagnes en peinture...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

 

SAINTE-VICTOIRE BY PAUL CEZANNE

PAUL CEZANNE (1839-1906)
The Montagne Sainte Victoire (1, 011m - 2, 216 ft)

France (Provence Alpes Côte d'azur) 

1. In La montagne Sainte-Victoire vue depuis Les Lauves, 1902-04, oil on canvas,  

Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA,  The George W. Elkins Collection

2. In La montagne Sainte Victoire vue depuis Les Lauves, (1904-1906),  oil on canvas, 

 Kunstmuseum  Zurich, Suisse

3.  In La montagne Sainte-Victoire vue depuis Les Lauves, (1902-1906), watercolor, 

Coll. Oskar Reinhardt Winterthur, Switzerland.

4.  In  La montagne Sainte-Victoire vue depuis la route du Tholonet (1896-1898), oil on canvas, Hermitage Museum, Saint Peterbourg 

5. In La montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1885, oil on canvas, Private Collection   

6. In La montagne Sainte-Victoire vue depuis Bellevue,1882-1885), oil on canvas, The MET, USA. 

The mountain
Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft)  also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works  Paul Cézanne did  on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.
The range of the Sainte-Victoire is 18 kilometers long and 5 kilometers from large, following a strict east-west orientation. It is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians.
D 10 and D 17 (Route Cézanne) are the main roads to skirt the mountains. On the northern side, the D10 crosses the Col de Claps (530 m) and the Col des Portes (631 m). On the southern side, the D 17 walks on the Plateau de Cengle and crossed the Collet blanc de Subéroque (505 m).
The southern side is characterized by the presence of significant high limestone cliffs 500 to 700 m with the white appearance added to the sun gives the appearance of a high muraille. At the foot of the cliffs, there is more massive brush, oak, kermes oak, Aleppo pine (population greatly reduced after the fire of 1989) but also cultures (olive trees).
On the northern side among the many species present, the Crocus is fairly well represented in the hills and the wild iris and daffodil. One can also see various varieties and boxwood shrubs.
The massif rises to the Pic des Mouches (Peak of the Flies) (1011 m) near the eastern end of the chain, and not at the Croix de Provence (946 m) near the west end and visible from Aix. The Pic des Mouches is one of the highest peaks of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, behind the peak Bertagne which reached an altitude of 1042 mètres and which is located on the massif of Sainte-Baume.
Sainte-Victoire, as the range of the Sainte Baume, can be considered a special case among the Alpine ranges for the various stages of the formation of its relief associated geological history as well as that of the old Pyrenean-Provençal chain than that of the Western Alps (which have succeeded it).
Indeed,  from the former Sainte-Victoire mountain, contemporary of the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, it remains today  only the fold Bimont, said Chaînon des Costes Chaudes, the last vestige resulting from tectonic movements and characteristics of the stacks of  Pyreneo-Provençal phase during the Eocene. Later during the Oligocene, breaking  of the anticlinal fold of Sainte-Victoire, which resulted from the uplift of the first great Alpine reliefs, is causing a surge that help explain the current form of the mountain, which appeared 15 million years BCE.
Sainte-Victoire, whose calcareous sediments date back to the Jurassic, thus consists of both a Pyrenean-Provencal vestige and of an alpine geology. This singularity and this ambivalence help explain why, although a massive western Alps, the problem of this connection remains complexe.
According to a recent study, the Sainte-Victoire is still growing ! The company ME2i  has indeed conducted a satellite survey between 1993 and 2003 providing evidence that during this period the western end of the Sainte-Victoire was uplift of 7 mm per year.
The massif is a ensemble of 6525 ha classified since 1983.
The massive hosts several world-famous dinosaur eggs deposits including the Roques-Hautes / Les Grands-Creux on the town Beaurecueil.


The Painter  
The mount Sainte-Victoire (1011 m) appears to have been the subject of a true love story with  the  painter (Paul Cezanne).  He painted  this subject more than 80 times, in oil paintings, watercolors and drawings!
Aix-en Provence (France) painter Paul Cezanne still remains closely linked to his hometown. His studio in Les Lauves remains a place to visit, as if the painter was coming back from one second to the other.  But the eternal bond is undoubtedly the series of paintings he did of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. A hobby, a passion, a thread in the painter's work that took place in the latter part of his life, between 1882 and 1906 when he died in Aix. History  says that the painter had contracted a nasty pneumonia during a working session on the mountain. This is what can be called 'die on stage'.
Cézanne had a considerable influence on the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Acknowledged master of his time, he attended during stays in Paris between 1862 and 1882, the Impressionist band: Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir (who also ended his life in the Provencal brightness), Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and others. He participated in the Impressionist adventure while keeping his personality: it is the time of the shock of the en plein air, easels in the grass, looking for natural light and emotion.
The influence of the Aix painter is recognized in the history of art since it would be the cause of the Cubist movement embodied in 1906 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The first historically so called Cubist painting ' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' would, a true artistic shock shown by Picasso in 1907 (one year after the death of Cézanne) is today one of the masterpieces of the MoMA in New York.
It is the search of volumes around which leads to the appearance of geometry in landscapes or still lifes of Cézanne. In 20 years, Cézanne pushes his style to express the emotion of the landscape, suggesting the wind, involving movement just like if we can breathe the air of the scene. In his first paintings pf the Sainte Victoire,(in the 1880’s)  he expresses the giant aspect of the mountain that dominates the area with his characteristic e way of painting at the time, with a juxtaposition of linear brushstrokes and a range of soft, natural colors.  IN the last paintings of the Sainte Victoire, view  from Les Lauves,  between 1904 and 1906, he shows shots less accurate brushes allowing the shape of the mountain emerge from the canvas like an apparition. That is the whole intention of the artist, show nature as it is without fail to convey emotion.
A true love story…

SAINTE-VICTOIRE BY NICOLAS DE STAËL

NICOLAS DE STAËL (1914-1955)

The mount Sainte-Victoire  (1, 011m - 3, 316ft) 

France (Provence-Alpes-Côte -d'Azur)

 In La montagne Sainte-Victoire (Paysage de Sicile), en hommage à Cézanne,1954,  oil on canvas

The mountain 

Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft)  also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works Paul Cézanne did on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.

The range of the Sainte-Victoire is 18 kilometers long and 5 kilometers from large, following a strict east-west orientation. It is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians.

D 10 and D 17 (Route Cézanne) are the main roads to skirt the mountains. On the northern side, the D10 crosses the Col de Claps (530 m) and the Col des Portes (631 m). On the southern side, the D 17 walks on the Plateau de Cengle and crossed the Collet blanc de Subéroque (505 m)...

- More about Sainte Victoire 

 The Painter 

Nicolas de Staël was a French painter of Russian origin known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. Nicolas de Staël was born Nikolai Vladimirovich Stael von Holstein (Николай Владимирович Шталь фон Гольштейн) in Saint Petersbourg (Russia), into the family of a Baron Vladimir Stael von Holstein, the last Commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress. De Staël's family was forced to emigrate to Poland in 1919 because of the Russian Revolution ; both his father and stepmother died in Poland and the orphaned Nicolas de Staël was sent with his older sister Marina to Brussels to live with a Russian family (1922).
De Staël's painting career spans roughly 15 years (from 1940) and produced more than a thousand paintings. His work shows the influence of Gustave Courbet, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger and Chaim Soutine, as well as of the Dutch masters Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hercules Seghers. During the 1940s and beginning in representation, de Staël moved further and further toward abstraction. Evolving his own highly distinctive and abstract style, which bears comparison with the near-contemporary American Abstract Expressionist movement, and French Tachisme, but which he developed independently of them. Typically his paintings contained block-like slabs of colour, emerging as if struggling against one another across the surface of the image. According to de Staël himself, he turned to his "abstracting" because he "found it awkward to paint an object as a likeness because of the awkwardness I felt when faced ! with the infinite multitude of coexisting objects in any single object".

De Staël's work was quickly recognized within the post-war art world, and he became one of the most influential artists of the 1950s. However, he moved away from abstraction in his later paintings, seeking a more "French" lyrical style, returning to representation (seascapes, footballers, jazz musicians, seagulls) at the end of his life.  His most well-known late paintings of beaches and landscapes are dominated by the sky and effects of light. 

Much of de Staël's late work—in particular his thinned and diluted oil on canvas abstract landscapes of the mid-1950s—predicts Color field painting and Lyrical Abstraction of the 1960s and 1970s. Nicolas de Staël's bold and intensely vivid color in his last paintings predict the direction of much of contemporary painting that came after him including Pop Art of the 1960s.

 Source : 

- Applicat Prazan

2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

LA MONTAGNE SAINTE VICTOIRE PEINTE PAR NICOLAS DE STAËL

 

 

NICOLAS DE STAËL (1914-1955),
Montagne Sainte Victoire  (1, 011m )
France Provence)

 In ciel de Vaucluse,  huile sur toile, 16 x 24 cm,  1953, Collection privée  

A propos de cette toile
Titré "Ciel de Vaucluse" on a supposé qu'il s'agissait d'une évocation de la Montagne Sainte-Victoire, hommage à Cézanne que Stael admirait beaucoup,  bien que cette montagne ne se trouve pas dans le Vaucluse mais dans les Bouches du Rhône.  La logique voudrait qu'il s 'agisse du Mont Ventoux, mais la silhouette de montagne évoquée ici rappelle définitiveent plus la Sainte Victoire que le Ventoux ! 

La montagne
La montagne Sainte-Victoire (1, 011m ) en provençal Mont Venturi selon la norme classique ou Mount Ventùriselon la norme mistralienne, est un massif calcaire  dans la région Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Située à l'est d'Aix-en-Provence, elle a connu une notoriété internationale en partie grâce aux 87 œuvres du peintre Paul Cézanne dont elle est le sujet. Elle accueille de nombreux randonneurs, grimpeurs et amoureux de la nature, et elle est un élément majeur du paysage aixois.
Le massif de la Sainte-Victoire s'étend sur 18 kilomètres de long et sur 5 kilomètres de large10, suivant une stricte orientation ouest-est. Il se situe principalement dans le département des Bouches-du-Rhône et en partie dans celui du Var, et, avec ses abords, sur les communes de Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet, Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues et Rians. Les D 10 et D 17 (Route Cézanne) sont les principales routes qui permettent de longer le massif. Sur le versant septentrional, la D10 franchit le col de Claps (530 m) et le col des Portes (631 m). Sur le versant méridional, la D 17 chemine sur le plateau du Cengle et franchit le collet Blanc du Subéroque (505 m).  Le massif culmine au pic des Mouches (1 011 m pour l'IGN), près de l'extrémité est de la chaîne, et non pas à la Croix de Provence (946 m pour l'IGN) proche de l'extrémité ouest et visible d'Aix. Le pic des Mouches est l'un des plus hauts sommets du département des Bouches-du-Rhône, après le pic de Bertagne qui atteint l'altitude de 1 042 mètres13 et qui se situe sur le massif de la Sainte-Baume. 6 525 ha du massif de la Sainte-Victoire sont classés depuis 1983.

Le Peintre
Nicolas de Staël (prononcé [stal) baron Nikolaï Vladimirovitch Staël von Holstein (Николай Владимирович Шталь фон Гольштейн), est un peintre français originaire de Russie, issu d'une branche cadette de la famille Staël von Holstein. La carrière de Nicolas de Staël s'étale sur quinze ans, de 1940 à sa mort. Artiste prolifique, il réalise au cours de sa carrière 1120 tableaux aux influences diverses — Cézanne, Matisse, Van Gogh, Braque, Soutine et les fauves, mais aussi les maîtres néerlandais Rembrandt, Vermeer et Seghers. Sa peinture est en constante évolution. Des couleurs sombres de ses débuts (Porte sans porte, 1946 ou Ressentiment, 1947), elle aboutit à l'exaltation de la couleur comme dans le Grand Nu orange (1953). Ses toiles se caractérisent par d'épaisses couches de peinture superposées et un important jeu de matières, passant des empâtements au couteau (Compositions, 1945-1949) à une peinture plus fluide (Agrigente, 1954, Chemin de fer au bord de la mer, soleil couchant, 1955). Refusant les étiquettes et les courants, tout comme Georges Braque qu'il admire, il travaille avec acharnement, détruisant autant d’œuvres qu'il en réalise.  Nicolas de Staël meurt à 41 ans en se jetant de la terrasse de la maison où il avait son atelier à Antibes. Cette maison fut classée monument historique en mars 2014. Il est enterré au cimetière de Montrouge. Par son style évolutif, qu'il a lui-même qualifié d'« évolution continue », il reste une énigme pour les historiens d'art qui le classent aussi bien dans la catégorie de l'École de Paris, que dans les abstraits ayant inspiré les jeunes peintres à partir des années 1970, ou encore dans la catégorie de l'art informel. Il a maintes fois créé la surprise notamment avec la série Les Footballeurs, entraînant derrière lui des artistes d'un nouveau mouvement d'abstraction et les artistes du néo-formalisme new-yorkais, ou de l'expressionnisme abstrait de l'École de New York, parmi lesquels se trouve notamment Joan Mitchell.

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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

MONTAGNE SAINTE VICTOIRE BY AUGUSTE RENOIR

PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR  (1841-1919)

 Mount of Sainte-Victoire (1, 011 m - 3, 316ft)

France (Provence) 

In La Montagne Sainte Victoire, ca.1888-89, oil on canvas,  (53x64,1cm) 

Yale University Art Gallery 

The mountain

Mont Sainte-Victoire our Montagne Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft)  also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works Paul Cézanne did on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape. The range of the Sainte-Victoire is 18 kilometers long and 5 kilometers from large, following a strict east-west orientation. It is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians.

D 10 and D 17 (Route Cézanne) are the main roads to skirt the mountains. On the northern side, the D10 crosses the Col de Claps (530 m) and the Col des Portes (631 m). On the southern side, the D 17 walks on the Plateau de Cengle and crossed the Collet blanc de Subéroque (505 m)...

- More about Mount of Sainte Victoire 

The painter 
 Pierre-Auguste Renoir, commonly known as Auguste Renoir  was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style.
Renoir's paintings are notable for their vibrant light and saturated color, most often focusing on people in intimate and candid compositions. The female nude was one of his primary subjects. In characteristic Impressionist style, Renoir suggested the details of a scene through freely brushed touches of color, so that his figures softly fuse with one another and their surroundings.
His initial paintings show the influence of the colorism of Eugène Delacroix and the luminosity of Camille Corot. He also admired the realism of Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet, and his early work resembles theirs in his use of black as a color. Renoir admired Edgar Degas' sense of movement. Another painter Renoir greatly admired was the 18th-century master François Boucher.
In the late 1860s, through the practice of painting light and water en plein air (outdoors), he and his friend Claude Monet discovered that the color of shadows is not brown or black, but the reflected color of the objects surrounding them, an effect known today as diffuse reflection. Several pairs of paintings exist in which Renoir and Monet worked side-by-side, depicting the same scenes (La Grenouillère, 1869). He rarely painted landscapes without silhouettes like the Mount Sainte Victoire above, probably done as a tribute to Paul Cézanne.
One of the best known Impressionist works is Renoir's 1876 Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Bal du moulin de la Galette). The painting depicts an open-air scene, crowded with people at a popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre close to where he lived. The works of his early maturity were typically Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling color and light. By the mid-1880s, however, he had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women. It was a trip to Italy in 1881 when he saw works by Raphael and other Renaissance masters, that convinced him that he was on the wrong path, and for the next several years he painted in a more severe style in an attempt to return to classicism. Concentrating on his drawing and emphasizing the outlines of figures, he painted works such as The Large Bathers (1884–87; Philadelphia Museum of Art) during what is sometimes called his "Ingres period".
After 1890 he changed direction again. To dissolve outlines, as in his earlier work, he returned to thinly brushed color. From this period onward he concentrated on monumental nudes and domestic scenes, fine examples of which are Girls at the Piano, 1892, and Grandes Baigneuses, 1887. The latter painting is the most typical and successful of Renoir's late, abundantly fleshed nudes.
A prolific artist, he created several thousand paintings. The warm sensuality of Renoir's style made his paintings some of the most well-known and frequently reproduced works in the history of art. The single largest collection of his works—181 paintings in all—is at the Barnes Foundation, in Philadelphia.
He was the father of actor Pierre Renoir (1885–1952), filmmaker Jean Renoir (1894–1979) and ceramic artist Claude Renoir (1901–1969). He was the grandfather of the filmmaker Claude Renoir (1913–1993), son of Pierre.