In Aix-en-Provence, a real estate project threatens a landscape painted by Cézanne
Nina Hubinet, in Aix-en-Provence
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This photograph shows a color reproduction of French painter Paul Cézanne's work "Montagne Sainte-Victoire," with the Montagne Sainte-Victoire in the background in Aix-en-Provence, taken on May 6, 2025. MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP
As the Aix-en-Provence town hall celebrates the Cézanne year, a real estate project intended to accommodate 10,000 residents threatens a landscape depicted many times by the painter, warns a group of associations, which has just filed a legal appeal.
Below slender pine trees, butterflies flutter among the tall grass. Above, all that's visible is the Sainte-Victoire, towering behind the buildings of Aix-en-Provence and the nearby highway, whose roar can't drown out the spring birdsong. It was here, around the hill and valley of Constance, that Paul Cézanne painted some fifty paintings. "He came from Jas-de-Bouffan on foot, and went as far as the Bellevue country house, where his sister lived," says Didier Bonfort, vice-president of the association Sauvegarde des paysages de Cézanne. An island of greenery whose tranquility could soon be disturbed by construction machinery.
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