Motif: Montagne Sainte-Victoire

Dominating the countryside around Aix, the Montagne Sainte-Victoire loomed large in the self-conception of area residents. Locals venerated it for its legendary ties to antiquity—its very name had come to be associated with a celebrated victory by the ancient Romans against invading Teutonic armies—while the paleontological excavations and discoveries on its slopes by Cézanne’s friend Antoine-Fortuné Marion evoked prehistoric times. Artists had long taken note of Sainte-Victoire’s distinctive silhouette, but none had approached it with the single-mindedness of Cézanne. He conducted a long, intense engagement with the mountain, a landmark that was visible from virtually every location he painted in the pays d’Aix. Cézanne first painted the mountain in 1870, returning to it regularly in 1880s in works such as Chestnut Trees at the Jas de Bouffan in Winter, 1885–1886, where it rises up in the distance behind a row of trees on his family's county estate. It would remain his signature motif until his death.

In the Montagne Sainte-Victoire, c. 1887, tree branches in the foreground frame a panoramic view that unfolds across a wide valley. At the foot of the mountain toward the right, a modern railway viaduct recalls a Roman aqueduct, suggesting the classical landscapes of seventeenth-century painters such as Nicolas Poussin, whom Cézanne admired. With its harmonious palette of greens and blues and an all-encompassing vista, the painting captures the tranquil beauty of Cézanne’s corner of Provence in a manner reminiscent of the paintings of the bay of L’Estaque executed two years earlier. It was his personal, living Arcadia.

«Motif: Château Noir | Motif: Atelier des Lauves»