 | The Path to Bibemus
In 1896, Numa Coste wrote to Émile Zola: “He rented a cottage at the quarries by the dam and spends most of his time there”. In August 1897, Cézanne wrote to Philippe Solari: “My dear Solari, if you are free on Sunday and if you would like to, come to lunch in Tholonet at the Bern restaurant. If you come in the morning, you can find me around eight o'clock near the quarry where you made a study when you came the time before last." This study of which Cézanne speaks is still at the site. Philippe Solari carved an anatomical study in a block of stone, near the cottage Cézanne rented. When Cézanne first set up his easel in the middle of the quarries, they had not been used in several decades. Their exploitation began during the Roman period at the end of the 18th century. The calcareous molasse walls still bore slanted grooves from the blows of the quarry workers' picks as they extracted blocks of stone. In this chaotic deserted landscape, Cézanne painted eleven oils and sixteen watercolors between 1895 and 1904, . Five themes he revisited in his work are still identifiable today: “The Red Rock” is kept at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris, two works entitled “The Bibémus Quarries” reside at the Barnes Foundation and in the Stephen Hahn collection in New York, “Bibémus Quarry” is in Kansas City in a private collection, and “Mont Sainte-Victoire seen from the Bibémus Quarry”, is held at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Cézanne also painted Mont Sainte-Victoire from the terrace of the cottage.
The town of Aix, which owns the grounds, initiated a landscaping renovation in order to open the quarries to visitors. The proposed project for the visitors' center is minimalist and takes into account that the site is an important archaeological excavation; a pile of blocks and home to vegetation that should not be disturbed.
The tour will allow you to:
• compare the original motif (Sainte-Victoire, nature: pine branches, trees in silhouette, but also the geometrical orange rocks that inspired Cézanne's world-famous captivating works that proved a precursor to cubism), and the views before which Cézanne set up his easel,
• contemplate the compositions, geometry, and colors
• locate the cottage where the artist stored his works,
• approach the rocks and the quarry, historical elements of the town of Aix,
•appreciate the ambiance of a well-preserved site spared by time; a place that feels far away from the rest of the world.
These developments were achieved by Philippe Deliau and Helene Bensoam, ALEP, landscape designers at Cadenet.
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