Magic Mountain

Cezanne put it on canvas. Now art lovers are putting it on their summer itineraries.

In addition to Cezanne's family estate, admirers of the painter can also visit his French stuido at Les Lauves. (Provence-alpes-cote D'azur Comite Regional De Tourisme)

It was a blustery Saturday afternoon on the cusp of spring in Le Tholonet, France, and we were spending it as a family of art-loving Americans are expected to in this part of the world -- tromping around the hills just east of Aix-en-Provence and soaking up the landscapes painted lovingly over and over by Paul Cezanne.

We walked down narrow country roads, climbed washed-out rocky footpaths and arrived on a ridge with a magnificent view overlooking the countryside and Cezanne's favorite subject -- Mont Sainte-Victoire, one of the world's most famous masses of limestone. Obscured even as it was by gray cloud cover, the mountain was impressive. Because of the way it dominates the land around it, Sainte-Victoire looks much grander than its 3,300 feet of elevation. And today it resembled a mammoth glacier in the fog.

We sat on the flat stones on the edge of the cliff, which was covered with brush and contorted Alep pines, listening to the wind and staring out in awe with the local guide who had led us up here.

"I've seen it illuminated, in the morning, in the afternoon and the evening," the guide, Stephane, who grew up around Aix and lives in a village at the base of the mountain, was saying in French. "And every time it's different -- it's magic."

On this day at this moment, some of the magic was missing -- namely, the Provencal light that turns the rock of Sainte-Victoire into a riot of color, shadows and shapes captured by Cezanne in more than 80 paintings. In the absence of color, my mind started filling in the blanks of the mountain's distinctive profile with greens and reds and blues and ochers, as if to turn nature into a work of art (or, more accurately, my coffee-table-book conception of Cezanne's work).

This year marks the centenary of Cezanne's death, which followed his final hike through the countryside to capture Sainte-Victoire (he was soaked in a thunderstorm and fell ill). That has refocused attention on not only the artist but the Aixois landscape that nourished him.

The exhibition "Cezanne in Provence," which opened at the National Gallery of Art in January and closes May 7, will cross the Atlantic to install itself June 9-Sept. 17 at the Musee Granet in Aix-en-Provence. With an explosion of belated appreciation, the Aix society that was cool to the master painter in life is welcoming the world to celebrate the Year of Cezanne.

Beginning this month, Cezanne's family estate, known as the Jas de Bouffan, is open for public tours for the first time. This is in addition to Cezanne's studio, which has been a site for art pilgrimages for a half-century. Beyond the museums and historic Cezanne sites is another destination for pilgrims: the Aix countryside and Sainte-Victoire, which in spite of wildfires and the creep of construction, has remained largely and recognizably as it was.

"This year," Stephane said, "people want to walk where Cezanne walked."

Tracking Cezanne

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Tholonet, the tiny hamlet near Cezanne's country apartment, is a few minutes from downtown Aix. We had come earlier that morning -- my wife and 11-year-old son and I -- entering along a single road lined by a stand of plane trees and had found the large municipal petanque terrain being used by a dozen or so players. There is an old mill that now serves as a local museum, an 18th-century chateau and behind that, the arches of a ruined Roman aqueduct, a small church and a couple of restaurants.

Before we walked where Cezanne walked, we ate where Cezanne ate. Just about every business in the little towns around Sainte-Victoire manages to invoke the artist's name, but, according to the village's official history, Cezanne did eat often at Chez Madame Berne, where he dined on favorites such as duck in olives and thick beef stew. That local inn is now known as Le Relais Cezanne, a place whose outdoor tables straddle the local road and seem to take up a good part of downtown Tholonet.

When we arrived, workers on scaffolds were sanding the wood shutters, undoubtedly preparing for the onslaught of summer tourism. On this day it was too cold to eat outdoors, and after I gave a good hard shove on the front door, we entered a typical Provencal village dining room. Perhaps because the place was named after Cezanne, my eyes turned immediately to the walls, on which hung a collection of gloomy amateur paintings.