Europe > France > Provence > Aix-en-Provence > Articles > Art & Artists

Wherever you are in Provence it doesn't take long to realise that you recognise this country, that its distant perspectives, its bright splashes of colour and creeping blue shadows, its bold shapes and patterned landscapes are all distinctly familiar. Walk, as I did, along pine-needle paths in the hills above the sail-speckled Golfe de St Tropez, or set out across the sunflower plains around Arles, or through the orchards and vineyards of Aix-en-Provence, and that sense of deja vu is as strong as a slug of eau de vie. Which is hardly surprising, for this sun-drenched land of angular red roofs, dagger-like cypresses, picture-postcard ports, vine-braided valleys and brooding massifs has inspired many of the world's greatest artists.

On every road leading towards Aix-en-Provence the motorist is advised that the countryside he is driving through is Les Paysages de Cezanne. Not that he should need any telling. Dominated by the pewter-coloured peak of Montagne Sainte Victoire which so inspired Cezanne, the landscape is never less than strikingly familiar. Drive east from Aix towards Le Tholonet and Puyloubier, or south into the Arc Valley, and the references become increasingly hard to miss. As well as savouring these eerily familiar landscapes - their stark shapes and shifting colours - you can also visit the atelier Cezanne built for himself in 1897 in what are now the city's northern suburbs or, alternatively, wander through the grand salons of the Musee Granet in Aix itself where he took his first drawing classes. Housed in a former priory of the Knights of Malta, the Granet collection ranges from local archaeological remains, appropriately displayed in the basement, to classics by Ingres, Gericault, David, Largilliere and, of course, by the Master of Aix himself.

If Aix and its countryside belongs to Cezanne, then Arles, that ancient town on the banks of the Rhone, proved equally inspiring for Van Gogh. In Arles itself there is little to see of the places Van Gogh painted (the town's famous bridge and the house where he lived were destroyed in the war) but outside town the fields of sunflowers, the swaying speartip cypresses, the wheeling crows and distant ridges of the Alpilles vividly recall his intense and startling vision.

Although Van Gogh completed more than three hundred paintings during his brief stay, not a single work remains in Arles. But what the town lacks in Van Gogh, it makes up for with one of Provence's finest ethnographic museums. Started by the Provencal writer Frederic Mistral in 1896 and majestically housed in the 16th-century Palais Laval-Castellane, the Museon Arlaten is like a key to the soul of Provence. In curtained salons, their ancient wood floors creaking and their high ceilings lost in shadows, you will find one of the most complete accounts of everyday Provencal life - just as Mistral knew it. Delightfully patrolled by attendants in traditional Arlesian costume, the Museon's 30 rooms cover every aspect of Provencal life, so crowded with exhibits that you could spend a week here. Mistral may not have saved the language of Provence, but he has preserved its traditional way of life with this captivating collection, "a poem", he once remarked, "for those who don't read".

From Arles it is an easy drive north to the walled fastness of Avignon, the jewel in Provence's medieval crown. Here, behind formidable fortifications, stands the fortress-like Palais des Papes, home to seven successive French Popes whose wealth transformed this Roman river port into one of the most splendid courts in medieval Europe.

It is undoubtedly the magnificence of their former residence with its soaring towers and battlements, and the anticipation of exploring its vaulted and frescoed interior, that draws the eye away from a small three-storey building in the north corner of the Places des Papes. Called, appropriately, Le Petit Palais, and built in the fourteenth century as a residence for bishops attached to the Papal court, it now houses an appropriately ecclesiastical collection of Italian medieval and Renaissance art.

Here, in the barrel-vaulted halls and beamed salons of what is now the Musee du Petit Palais, are gilded annunciations and adorations by the score, gruesome crucifixions, massacres and martyrdoms, serene Madonnas and dimpled baby Christs, haloed saints and plump-faced angels with cheeks as pink as Provencal rose. First assembled in the nineteenth century by Italian collector Gian Pietro Campana, the paintings and sculptures on show date from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries and include not only unrivalled masterpieces by Botticelli, Carpaccio and Giovanni di Paolo, but rarely-seen work by Provencal artists like Enguerrand Quarton and Josse Lieferinxe. Le Petit Palais may be smaller than its lofty neighbour, but it's where the real treasures of Avignon are to be found.

When the lure of the Provencal coast becomes too much to bear, the only good advice is surrender and head south. Bouillabaisse, beaches and Bardot have all contributed to make this coastline the most celebrated in the world. And the famed Riviera of Nice and Cannes, you'll quickly discover, is only half the story. From St Tropez to the Rhone Delta this southern shoreline is a treat to savour, its delightful fishing ports, pinewood paths, rocky coves and sandy beaches as irresistable now as they were when Derain, Dufy, Picasso and Braque set up their easels at L'Estaque, Cassis and St Tropez.

No matter how many super-yachts tie up in its old port, or how many visitors swarm through its narrow streets and along its cafe-crowded quays, St Tropez is still a name to conjure with. And what magic. Stand on the ramparts of the 16th-century Citadel and look across the gulf towards Sainte Maxime and the villa-freckled slopes of the Massif des Maures, and even the most jaded traveller must admit a freshening of the spirit.

Certainly it worked its spell on the painter Paul Signac. When bad weather forced his yacht into St Tropez's harbour in 1892, so enchanted was he with its pastel-fronted houses and the luminous quality of the light playing along its shoreline that he promptly bought himself a villa here and invited his friends to join him. And join him they did - artists like Vlaminck, Matisse, Bonnard, Marquet, Camoin and others, their work now exhibited in St Tropez's quayside Musee de l'Annonciade. Originally a sixteenth century chapel where fishermen once prayed for full nets and fine weather, its walls are now covered with some of the greatest names in modern art, one of their favourite subjects the preposterously pretty port which lies beyond the chapel's open windows.

Many of these same artists, and a host of others, are displayed in the stately salons of Marseille's Musee Cantini, a few blocks from the restauraunt-lined Vieux Port and just round the corner from the art-deco Opera. Housed in a seventeenth-century mansion, the Cantini collection traces the various movements that contributed to the evolution of modern twentieth-century art, from Fauvism and Cubism to Surrealism and Neo-Realism. Here are Signacs and Schnabels, Picassos and Picabias, Miros and Magnellis, more than 250 first-division artists whose ranks are regularly swelled, thanks to the Cantini's energetic and imaginative approach to acquisition. Amongst the most recent arrivals are Picasso's Tete de Femme Souriante, Giacometti's Portrait de Diego and works by Matisse, Signac and Chagall. At the Musee Cantini you can bet your last sou there'll be something new and exciting to see every time you visit.

West of Marseille, across the muscular waters of the Rhone, the salty shallows of the Camargue and the vast flatlands of the Crau, lies Provence's lesser known but no less agreeable neighbour, Languedoc-Roussillon. Stretching from the weather-whipped highlands of the Cevennes to the wooded slopes of the Pyrenees, this region is one of France's undiscovered delights. Its hilltops are studded with castles, its valleys ranked with vineyards, and its ancient towns a patchwork of pantiled roofs, church spires and the leafy crowns of plane trees, marking out sun-shaded boulevards and squares.

As skylines go, Nimes has always fitted this traditional southern pattern. But now there's a newcomer in town. Where the colonnaded opera house once stood, a massive square of blue green ice the size of a city block now shimmers in the heat. Not ice, of course, but glass, a giant cube of glass called the Carre d'Art.

I had come to Nimes to see its collection of contemporary French art, more than 300 works dating from 1960 and ranging from Neo-Realists like Klein, Arman and Hains to Supports-Surfaces artists like Viallat and Hantai. But nothing had prepared me for the collection's new home, this ice-cube square of glass and steel designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster and opened in 1993. With its cathedral-sized interior and glass central stairway, its high-ceilinged, aisle-like galleries and crypt-like libraries, Nimes' new museum is as much an attraction as the collection it houses, as unexpected and avant-garde as any work on show.

From Nimes I travelled north into the rugged highlands of the Cevennes. Dominated by the summits of Mont Lozere and Mont Aigoual at the southernmost edge of the Massif Central, this is one of Languedoc-Roussillon's most dramatic and isolated landscapes, a wild and magical place whose inhabitants shelter in the clefts and valleys of a lofty tableland, and where mysterious stone menhirs point back to a distant and shadowy pre-history. Hot and dry in summer, bitterly cold and exposed in winter, the Cevennes may be a harsh and unforgiving land but it possesses a raw, savage and inspiring beauty.

One of the best ways to understand this unique and remarkable region, designated a National Park in 1970 and covering some 600 square miles, is by visiting the Ecomusee du Mont Lozere in Le Pont-de-Montvert. As its name suggests, this is no ordinary museum. As well as describing the region's natural character and showing how man adapted to this most demanding of environments, the Ecomusee goes one step further. Beyond its walls, radiating in all directions from Le Pont-de-Montvert, is a network of well-marked roads, hiking trails and bridle-paths linking a number of traditionally-built homesteads, lodges and working farms administered by the Park authorities. Taken together, the museum's permanent exhibition and the living landscape that surrounds it, the Ecomusee du Mont Lozere serves as a powerful introduction to this remote and extraordinary region.

From the heights of the Cevennes I dropped back down onto the central plains of Languedoc-Roussillon, heading for Montpellier, a stylish and vibrant university town where Rabelais and Nostradamus studied medicine. Here, on the grand, tree-shaded Esplanade de Charles de Gaulle, in a former jesuit college tucked behind the elegant facade of an eighteenth-century town house, you will find the justly celebrated Musee Fabre, probably the finest art collection outside Paris.

First assembled by the painter Francois Xavier Fabre while exiled in Florence during the French Revolution, the collection was presented to Montpellier on his return home in 1825. Substantially increased by Fabre during his remaining years, the collection includes Veronese, Zurbaran, Poussin, Ribera, Greuze and Fabre himself, as well as drawings, engravings and sculptures.

If Fabre had been alone in his generosity, Montpellier could have counted itself fortunate. But following Fabre's death the museum was further endowed by a succession of generous local patrons whose donations included works by Rubens, Teniers, Reynolds, Breughel and Bernini. The greatest of these patrons was Alfred Bruyas who, unable to paint himself, befriended those who could. Spending much of his family inheritance on works by Millet, Delacroix, Tassaert, Corot and, most particularly, Courbet, Bruyus built up an equally formidable collection which he too subsequently bequeathed to the Museum. Amongst the classics he collected are no less than 24 portraits of the man himself by some of the greatest artists of his day, including Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet, which shows the artist meeting his enthusiastic patron on a dusty Languedoc road.

Despite this patronage and his astute acquisitiveness, Bruyas was by no means infallible. Interestingly, he failed to take notice of Cezanne in nearby Aix, and all but ignored locally-born Frederic Bazille, a friend of Sisley, Renoir and Monet and a forerunner of the Impressionist movement. That the Musee Fabre has anything at all by Bazille is due entirely to yet another benefactor, the artist's family, whose generosity has endowed the Fabre with one of the most important collections of this artist's work.

If Montpellier owes its artistic pre-eminence to the generosity of its many patrons, then the town of Ceret, close to the Spanish border, owes its standing as "The Mecca of Cubism" to the artists who lived and worked here from the turn of the century. The first to arrive, in 1909, was the Catalan sculptor, Manolo Hugue, whose enthusiasm for this enchanting settlement in the foothills of Mont Canigou quickly attracted friends like Picasso, Braques, Juan Gris, Max Jacob and Auguste Herbin. Over the years others followed - Masson, Maillol, Chagall, Saint Saens, Dufy, Dali - lured as much by the companionship and example of their peers as by the agreeable southern climate and the range of subjects Ceret and its mountainous countryside provided. It is easy, as you walk around this pretty, tree-shaded town with its medieval battlements and bread-scented alleyways, to imagine these artists sprawled around tables at the Grand Cafe discussing their work, or writing to colleagues in praise of their new-found home.

By 1950 most of the great names in modern art had visited Ceret and when one of them, the artist Pierre Brune, suggested a museum to celebrate that fact and exhibit their work, the response was immediate. Picasso, Matisse and many others donated work and an old gendarmerie was requisitioned as a gallery. Recently extended and redesigned by Catalan architect Jaume Freixa, Ceret's new Musee d'Art Moderne re-opened in 1993, a cool, white space where some of the world's most instantly recognisable styles are gloriously exhibited, a stunning collection of modern and contemporary work that celebrates not only the artists on show but the part played by this unassuming Catalan town in the history of art.

Suggested itineraries in Provence

A: From Marsilles Second largest city in France famed for its Old Port, Basilicas and Bouillabaisse.

Cassis (20 miles): Fishing port, excellent seafood, boat trips to the Calanques.

Le Castellet (17 miles): Hilltop village, 12th century church, 11th century castle.

Sanary-sur-Mer (11 miles): Palm-fringed fishing port, 16th century chapel.

Ollioules (8 miles): Flower market, romanesque church, medieval castle.

Toulon (4 miles): Major naval port best seen from heights of Mount Faron where Musee Memorial du Debarquement commemorates 1944 Allied Landings.

Le Lavendou (32 miles): Fishing port, seaside resort, gateway to Corniche des Maures, Provence's prettiest coast road.

Ramatuelle (25 miles): Fashionably-restored hill village, arched streets, old houses, romanesque church.

St Tropez (9 miles): Glamourous port, delightful town centre. The only town on Cote d'Azur facing north.

Grimaud (9 miles): Hilltop Saracen stronghold, ruined Grimaldi castle, romanesque church, fine views.

La Garde Freinet (8 miles): Medieval village, craft centre, surrounded by chestnut forests.

Lorgues (25 miles): 14th century gateways, baroque church, pretty tree-shaded square.

Draguignan (9 miles): Colourful saturday market, not-to-be-missed Musee des Arts et Traditions Populaires.

Tourtour (16 miles): Hill village, 11th century church, two ruined castles, spectacular views.

Cotignac (17 miles): Ruined clifftop chateau, troglodyte houses, summer music festival.

B: From Aix en Provence - Stately boulevards, elegant mansions, St Saveur Cathedral, Baptistry, Cloisters, and Op-Art Fondation Vasarely.

Salon (25 miles): Nostradamus museum, 13th century church, Musee Grevin de Provence tracing 2,600 years of Provencal history.

Les Baux de Provence: (24 miles) Hilltop medieval village, ruins of 'dead city', magnificent views. Cathedrale d'Images nearby not to be missed.

St Remy de Provence (4 miles): Delightful Provencal town, Graeco-Roman ruins.

L'Isle sur la Sorgue (20 miles): Antique centre, Baroque church, canals.

Fontaine de Vaucluse (7 miles): Source of Sorgue river, Romanesque church, ruined castle. Once home to poet Petrarch.

Gordes (12 miles): Typical village perche, renaissance chateau housing Op-Art Musee Vasarely.

Senanque Abbey (3 miles): Romanesque monastery, church, cloisters.

Suggested Itineraries in Languedoc-Roussillon

A: From Collioure - Fishing port discovered by Matisse in 1905. Reproductions by Matisse and Derain form Fauvist Trail around town. 13th century Templar castle, 17th century beachside church, medieval chapel.

Elne (8 miles): Hilltop village, 12th century fortified cathedral, exquisite cloisters.

Castelnou (18 miles): Fortified medieval village.

Prieure de Serrabone (18 miles): Remote, isolated priory, 12th century sculptures.

Abbaye St Michel de Cuxa (29 miles): Medieval Catalunyan monastery.

B: From Salleles D’aude - 11 miles from Narbonne. Archaeological site, Musee des Potiers-Amphoralis.

Minerve (18 miles): Fortified medieval village, 12th century church.

St Pons de Thomieres (22 miles): Romanesque cathedral. Gateway to Parc Regional du Haut Languedoc.

Olargues (13 miles): 11th century belltower, humpbacked bridge.

C: From Anduze - 32 miles from Nimes. 14th century clock-tower, chateau, dolmens. Gateway to Cevennes.

Corniche des Cevennes (48 miles): Ridge road to Florac. Magnificent views.

Gorges du Tarn (45 miles): Spectacular drive from Ispagnac to Le Rozier.

Gorges de la Jonte (45 miles): Less well-known but equally spectacular between Florac and Le Rozier.

Le-Pont-de-Montvert (21 miles): Typical Cevenol village. 17th century bridge, toll tower and not-to-be-missed Ecomusee du Mont Lozere.

Climate

Both regions enjoy long hot summers and, apart from highland areas like the Cevennes and Pyrennees, mild winters. The Mistral in Provence and the Tramontane in Languedoc-Roussillon are strong winds that usually bring unsettled weather. Late spring and early fall are the best times to visit.

Major sites

The walled town of Carcassone; the old town of Montpellier; Gallo-Roman remains at Orange, St Remy, Pont du Gard, Arles and Nimes; The Cevennes National Park; the Gorges du Tarn; the ruins of Les Baux.

Shopping

Fruit conserves; plain or flavoured olive oils; herbs; printed cottons; ceramics and pottery; olive wood bowls and utensils. Look for local food and flea-markets.

Events and festivals

February Sea-urchin festival, Carry-Le-Rouet near Marseille; Feria du Carnaval, Nimes; Corso du Mimosa, Bormes-Les-Mimosas.

April Easter bullfights in Arles and traditional rodeos; Winegrowers' festival, Chateauneuf du Pape.

May Bravade de St Torpes, St Tropez; Gypsy pilgrimage, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer; Bullfights in Nimes.

June Theatre Festival, Montpellier; Bravade des Espagnols, St Tropez; Jazz Festival, Aix.

July Theatre Festival, Salon; Cotes du Roussillon Wine Festival, Perpignan; Bastille day - anywhere, but Avignon and Carcassonne are best; Festival Pablo Casals, Prades; Festival de la Mer, Sete; Music Festival, Orange.

August Ferias at Collioure and Beziers; Dance Festival at Ceret, Bullfights at Beziers.

September Music Festival, Elne; Feria des Vendanges and bullfights at Nimes; Nioulargue yacht racing at St Tropez. For complete listings and dates consult local tourist offices.

Food and wine

Garlic and olive oil typify the cuisine of both regions. In Provence ratatouille is a favourite vegetable dish (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, courgettes, onions and garlic - all cooked separately before mixing), Bouillabaisse is the classic seafood dish (with endless variations of soupe de poissons), while beef is usually casseroled in red wine. Lamb is also good, particularly from Sisteron or from the grazing lands of the Crau, cooked with a crust of herbes de Provence or an olive tapenade. In Languedoc-Roussillon cassoulet (a stew of beans, pork, confits and sausage) is a regional speciality and game of any description a favourite. Fruit is abundant and local cheeses (particularly chevre) are glorious.

Both regions produce superb wines. In Languedoc-Roussillon look out for the sweet wines of Rivesaltes and Banyuls, as well as the more usual Corbieres and Minervois. In Provence choose local wines from Cassis and Bandol on the coast or, inland, from the Coteaux d'Aix, Coteaux Varois, Cotes du Luberon and, of course, from the Cotes du Rhone.