Magic Mountain

The prominent picture in the room, an oil of a shipwreck during a storm, dangled crookedly. I tried to straighten it but only made things worse. We were the first lunchtime customers that day, but after a few minutes, we were joined by about a dozen petanque players who filled the place with laughter and smoke. (Petanque has been called the national pastime of Provence -- the leisurely equivalent of Italian bocce, played with smaller metal balls and a small jack.)

After a lunch that could be described as decent in a rib-sticking way (I ordered a plate of pasta smothered in squid, washed down with red wine from the vineyards at the southern foot of Sainte-Victoire), we met up with Stephane, who led us to the edge of the town and into the woods.

The earth was vibrant red; wild rosemary and thyme were everywhere along the sides of the trail. And from time to time, as we climbed the hillside, Stephane would squat down next to patches of wildflowers: tiny wild orchids and narcissus, for example.

"In every season here there are flowers," he explained. "What makes this area special for me is the ambiance -- the smells, the wind, the different colors of green, the colors of the rock, everything."

Stephane, who has never lived far from Ste. Victoire, is the founder of Evana, a small mountain guide company that leads tours throughout Provence. Though he is not an art historian, through his walking in Cezanne's steps he's developed a great appreciation for the artist's work, as well as the mountain.

The path led us to a plateau of sand-colored stones cut in squared-off shapes. This, Stephane explained, whipping out a small Cezanne reproduction from the portfolio under his arm, was the back way into the abandoned Bibemus quarry. Its large cubes of cut stone had met Cezanne's brush to produce what art historians say were the precursors of cubist painting.

From the small Cezanne reproduction, little seemed to have changed. It was easy to understand why the artist was attracted to this intimate place. Small clearings were once made by stonecutters carving out boulders by hand. Their work left behind masses of yellow stone cubes, which have been covered over the centuries by vegetation and trees. If the place didn't exist, a painter would have had to invent it.

As we moved along the path through the quarry, we came upon a group of young men with white chalk on their hands who were staring at a boulder that stood about 15 feet tall. A video camera was perched on a tripod. The men each took turns approaching the boulder, one after the other scaling the side of it, toehold by toehold, fingertip by fingertip. The quarry, they explained, has become a sort of training center for rock climbers.

After that, Stephane led us to the plateau with his favorite vantage of Sainte-Victoire -- above the valley that inspired the artist's paintings of bathers. As we headed back down to Tholonet, I asked him how different groups react to this countryside.

"Americans come because of Cezanne," he said. "When you speak of love of Cezanne -- it's the Americans.

"The Swiss and Canadians like the nature," he continued. "And the Japanese -- they appreciate the mountain itself as a symbol. They have a culture in which the mountain is a symbol of the power of tranquility and wisdom."

As we arrived at Tholonet, the clouds parted, revealing blue sky. We approached the mountain from a closer vantage after a short drive and a walk of a couple of hundred yards. There we saw Sainte-Victoire transformed. In a matter of minutes, the stone had turned from a deep gray to almost white, with large bands of purple hues, patches of gold and red, and areas of shimmering green vegetation.