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Lot Essay
Throughout the 1880s, Paul Cezanne roamed the countryside around his native Aix-en-Provence, painting its magisterial vistas, bright, vibrant trees, and wide open sky. Despite covering only a small geographical area, the works created during these years were, argues Bruno Ely, key to the artist’s development of his mature style: this was one of the most ‘fertile’ periods in Cezanne’s long career ('Gardanne, Montbriand, and Bellevue', in Cezanne in Provence, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2006, p. 161). These now iconic images chart the artist’s new vision and indelibly link Cezanne to the Provençal landscape.
Maison de Bellevue et pigeonnier, painted circa 1890, dates from the end of this period, a moment when Cezanne was moving away from the rigorously classical compositions of the early 1880s towards a more abstracted treatment of his motif. Depicting a view of a clutch of buildings partially obscured by trees, the painting is defined by Cezanne’s rich use of dimensional colour. The ochre ground and vivid green vegetation are bathed in the heat of summer sunshine. The brushwork is varied across the canvas, alternating between swooping lines and the artist’s signature constructed stroke, which can be seen in the foreground of the painting.
The Bellevue estate was one of the largest properties in the region to the east of Aix-en-Provence, comprising a house with a courtyard, stables, farm buildings, the titular pigeonnier, and a former chapel as well as olive groves, vineyards, and vast, rolling fields. For many years, it was believed that the property was owned by Cezanne’s younger sister Rose and her husband, Maxime Conil. In fact, they had purchased the neighbouring Montbriand.
Bellevue and its environs offered the artist a wellspring of inspiration, with plenty of opportunities to seize ‘the essence of nature’ in paint as he sought to refine his approach (P. Cezanne quoted in R. Verdi, Cezanne and Poussin: The Classical Vision of Landscape, exh. cat., National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1990, p. 36). As John Rewald noted, ‘[Cezanne] preferred [Bellevue] to the landscapes of the north… there was a difference of colour and light’, a feeling enthusiastically evoked in the present work (Paul Cezanne, London, 1959, p. 121). Cezanne depicted the main buildings in several canvases, nearly all of which are now in museum collections (FWN 268-270; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Musée d’Art et de l’Histoire de la Ville de Genève, The Cleveland Museum of Art, and Kunstmuseum Basel, respectively). He also painted views of the so-called ‘Bellevue plains’, examples of which are held in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum & Fondation Corbaud, Cologne, the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. (FWN 233, 276, and 278). It was here, too, that Cezanne painted his famous views of Mont Sainte-Victoire and began to shed entirely the Impressionist brushstrokes that had defined so many of his earlier canvases.
Eschewing the rapid brushwork that the Impressionists employed to register the ephemerality of a moment, Cezanne instead endeavoured to paint a motif’s structure and form. He had begun to feel that Impressionism could no longer serve him and this new approach matched his aims: ‘I proceed very slowly,’ Cezanne explained, ‘for nature reveals herself to me in very complex form… One must always see one’s model correctly and experience it the right way and furthermore express oneself with distinction and strength’ (op. cit., 1948, p. 121). After carefully observing a vista, Cezanne would apply his pigments in a regimented manner, with each stroke deliberately and methodically laid down. The resulting tapestry-like pattern yielded a unified composition while simultaneously calling attention to the inherent artifice of painting. Moreover, this deliberate brushwork also affected how depth was conceived, and Maison de Bellevue et pigeonnier appears to be governed by its own gravitational force. As Cezanne later described, ‘I try to render perspective through colour’ (ibid.).
Cezanne has endowed the Maison Bellevue with a sense of solidity and presence even if the image lacks any narrative reference. The almost hermetic nature of the paintings of this period mirrors Cezanne’s own life: during the 1880s, he largely lost touch with the greater world. Maison de Bellevue et pigeonnier, however, coincided with a moment of greater contact. His art had begun to attract attention in the latter half of the decade, and Cezanne had been invited to exhibit with the avant-garde group Les XX in 1889. That same year, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who had previously visited Cezanne in Aix on several occasions, rented Montbriand from the Conils. While there, he too painted the striking structure of the pigeonnier (Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia) as well as several other landscapes around Bellevue. Suffused in a rosy glow, Renoir’s rendering of the pigeonnier is lighter and more dreamlike, whereas Cezanne’s Maison de Bellevue et pigeonnier evinces a geometric intensity that ties the canvas to the real world. When together, the two artists often worked alongside one another, and Renoir’s use of a more structured, systematised brushwork suggests the influence of Cezanne.
Works such as Maison de Bellevue et pigeonnier make clear that Cezanne truly was the ‘Master of Aix’ as Maurice Denis referred to him (quoted in P. Conisbee, ‘Cezanne’s Provence’, in exh. cat., op. cit., 2006, p. 3). Yet far from a passive observer of the landscape, Cezanne, in fact, was decidedly purposeful when it came to selecting what to paint, choosing motifs with distinctive characteristics or harmonies that appealed to his eye. Cezanne, it seems, possessed a stubborn desire to extract everything he could from a particular place. As the critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote of the artist, ‘His interest in the visible world was unquenchable’ (‘My Struggle with Cézanne’, The New Yorker, 21 June 2021, online).
Maison de Bellevue et pigeonnier, painted circa 1890, dates from the end of this period, a moment when Cezanne was moving away from the rigorously classical compositions of the early 1880s towards a more abstracted treatment of his motif. Depicting a view of a clutch of buildings partially obscured by trees, the painting is defined by Cezanne’s rich use of dimensional colour. The ochre ground and vivid green vegetation are bathed in the heat of summer sunshine. The brushwork is varied across the canvas, alternating between swooping lines and the artist’s signature constructed stroke, which can be seen in the foreground of the painting.
The Bellevue estate was one of the largest properties in the region to the east of Aix-en-Provence, comprising a house with a courtyard, stables, farm buildings, the titular pigeonnier, and a former chapel as well as olive groves, vineyards, and vast, rolling fields. For many years, it was believed that the property was owned by Cezanne’s younger sister Rose and her husband, Maxime Conil. In fact, they had purchased the neighbouring Montbriand.
Bellevue and its environs offered the artist a wellspring of inspiration, with plenty of opportunities to seize ‘the essence of nature’ in paint as he sought to refine his approach (P. Cezanne quoted in R. Verdi, Cezanne and Poussin: The Classical Vision of Landscape, exh. cat., National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1990, p. 36). As John Rewald noted, ‘[Cezanne] preferred [Bellevue] to the landscapes of the north… there was a difference of colour and light’, a feeling enthusiastically evoked in the present work (Paul Cezanne, London, 1959, p. 121). Cezanne depicted the main buildings in several canvases, nearly all of which are now in museum collections (FWN 268-270; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Musée d’Art et de l’Histoire de la Ville de Genève, The Cleveland Museum of Art, and Kunstmuseum Basel, respectively). He also painted views of the so-called ‘Bellevue plains’, examples of which are held in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum & Fondation Corbaud, Cologne, the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. (FWN 233, 276, and 278). It was here, too, that Cezanne painted his famous views of Mont Sainte-Victoire and began to shed entirely the Impressionist brushstrokes that had defined so many of his earlier canvases.
Eschewing the rapid brushwork that the Impressionists employed to register the ephemerality of a moment, Cezanne instead endeavoured to paint a motif’s structure and form. He had begun to feel that Impressionism could no longer serve him and this new approach matched his aims: ‘I proceed very slowly,’ Cezanne explained, ‘for nature reveals herself to me in very complex form… One must always see one’s model correctly and experience it the right way and furthermore express oneself with distinction and strength’ (op. cit., 1948, p. 121). After carefully observing a vista, Cezanne would apply his pigments in a regimented manner, with each stroke deliberately and methodically laid down. The resulting tapestry-like pattern yielded a unified composition while simultaneously calling attention to the inherent artifice of painting. Moreover, this deliberate brushwork also affected how depth was conceived, and Maison de Bellevue et pigeonnier appears to be governed by its own gravitational force. As Cezanne later described, ‘I try to render perspective through colour’ (ibid.).
Cezanne has endowed the Maison Bellevue with a sense of solidity and presence even if the image lacks any narrative reference. The almost hermetic nature of the paintings of this period mirrors Cezanne’s own life: during the 1880s, he largely lost touch with the greater world. Maison de Bellevue et pigeonnier, however, coincided with a moment of greater contact. His art had begun to attract attention in the latter half of the decade, and Cezanne had been invited to exhibit with the avant-garde group Les XX in 1889. That same year, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who had previously visited Cezanne in Aix on several occasions, rented Montbriand from the Conils. While there, he too painted the striking structure of the pigeonnier (Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia) as well as several other landscapes around Bellevue. Suffused in a rosy glow, Renoir’s rendering of the pigeonnier is lighter and more dreamlike, whereas Cezanne’s Maison de Bellevue et pigeonnier evinces a geometric intensity that ties the canvas to the real world. When together, the two artists often worked alongside one another, and Renoir’s use of a more structured, systematised brushwork suggests the influence of Cezanne.
Works such as Maison de Bellevue et pigeonnier make clear that Cezanne truly was the ‘Master of Aix’ as Maurice Denis referred to him (quoted in P. Conisbee, ‘Cezanne’s Provence’, in exh. cat., op. cit., 2006, p. 3). Yet far from a passive observer of the landscape, Cezanne, in fact, was decidedly purposeful when it came to selecting what to paint, choosing motifs with distinctive characteristics or harmonies that appealed to his eye. Cezanne, it seems, possessed a stubborn desire to extract everything he could from a particular place. As the critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote of the artist, ‘His interest in the visible world was unquenchable’ (‘My Struggle with Cézanne’, The New Yorker, 21 June 2021, online).