What came first, the rocks of Bibemus or the strokes of Cezanne?

November 15, 2022

What came first, the rocks of Bibemus or the strokes of Cezanne?

Paul Cezanne caused quite a stir in the Paris salons of 1874 with his follow-on to Edouard Manet's 1865 "shocking" painting of a prostitute, Olympia, a source of scandalized outrage a decade earlier.

(Olympia, Edouard Manet)

What was Cezanne thinking? Manet had paid a price but he had also become well known. Was that the goal, to be recognized? It couldn't have been to be accepted. If anything, Cezanne pushed the edges of social norms much more with his A Modern Olympia, so he must have been prepared for the fallout and ready to retreat if needed to the south of France. Which he did.

(A Modern Olympia, Paul Cezanne.)

A critic of Cezanne's painting, not completely without affection, cried: "like a voluptuous vision, this artificial corner of paradise has left even the most courageous gasping for breath.... and Mr Cézanne gives the impression of being a sort of madman, painting in a state of delirium tremens ". (Marc de Montifaud in L'artiste May 1, 1874)

Once back in his childhood environs Cezanne returned to more sedate topics. I found myself immersed in one, Gardanne.

This painting seduces and cals with of cubed fields and rubbed edges in the Aix-en-Provence countryside.

Soon I was painting my own version:

After Cezanne's Gardanne. by HerbFillmoreIIIArt

I could live in either painting, especially knowing Marseille and the rest of the coasts are short hours away.

Cezanne often wandered about the countryside, with staff and plein air grip, a high domed, rollie, bearded character, Hortense and Paul in Paris or beyond, with all the time in the world to paint.

(I wonder why Cezanne didn't go all in on his own portrait, like he did on the Portrait of Victor Chocquet (which I could look at for days)

Anyhow, just a few hills over from the Gardanne setting, Cezanne spent afternoons at the old sandstone quarry of Bibemus... afternoons that are credited for his oft composed short flat grooved strokes, the watery and colorful elements on the rocks surfaces deriving from the changing mineral face scape, moss, and sun skies.

La carrière de Bibémus (The Quarry at Bibémus) Paul Cezanne um 1895

Bibemus Quarry 1895 Paul Cezanne

You can still see much of the raw inspiration at the quarries today.

The photo above is by Phil Haber and is part of a great 3 part blog series by Haber on photographing the subjects of Cezanne's paintings as they exist today. The series is titled In The Footsteps of Cezanne and is on his blog site: Phil Haber's Photography Notes. Just go to the blog entry "In the Footsteps of Cezanne, Part III: The Bibemus Quarries" and study the painting "The Red Rock" and Haber's photograph of same. Comparing the photo and painting will give you a phenomenal example of what it means to penetrate into the essence of a place. For example, you'll notice paradoxically for Cezanne the red rock is not a flat scored plane but is transformed into an almost soft presence, leaning like a strong brother out over the circular sharp planes of the small plants, trees and outcroppings beside it. Check it out.