Image at left: Still Life with Apples, 1893-94 The Impressionist palette, no matter how wild the paintings may have seemed to be at the time, was restricted to only about a half-a-dozen colors – and the palette eliminated black altogether. It relied heavily on using complementary colors to create light and shadow instead of gray [...]
Photo Of The Day: Backstreets Of Aix
The travel and tourist brochures always show the prettiest spots in town, especially of the towns in the South of France, and if a traveler only looks for the places and sites that the brochures say to look for, they miss the entire underbelly of the city. This is a back street, or alley, in [...]
Photo Of The Day: Sainte-Victoire
Sainte-Victoire juts out of the Provencal landscape, far enough to make it seen for kilometers, impossible to ignore. If Cezanne hadn’t made this mountain famous in his paintings, someone else surely would have. The photograph to the left was taken on the day that I visited Jardin de les Lauves, the spot where Cezanne took [...]
Photo of the Day: Under the Aix Clock Tower
The clock tower stands in the oldest part of Aix-en Provence, on the edge of Place de L’Hotel de Ville and Saint-Saveur, and funnels pedestrians in and out of the old city center through its arch. Erected in 1510 on old Roman foundations, the top of the tower houses an astronomical clock that was added [...]
Photo Of The Day: The Cathédrale St-Sauveur in Aix
The Cathédrale St-Sauveur is amazing in that it has a lot of eye-candy for the architecturally inspired. That would be me. I love Romanesque, Gothic and – not so much – the Baroque styles of architecture and this cathedral supplies all three, except that you wouldn’t know that by looking at the cathedral from the [...]
Traveling Without A Guidebook
Exploring without a guidebook takes me off the beaten path. No itinerary, no book, no maps.
Calissons
If there is one known gourmet specialty of the town of Aix, it would have to be the Calisson – an almond or diamond shaped confection made from sweet almond paste and preserved fruits, crystallized Cavaillon melon, essence of orange, rice paper, and icing. The recipe itself is a closely guarded secret, and each house [...]
Savon de Provence
Soap can be purchased anywhere in the world, even le savon from the South of France. Many shops carry it, many grocery stores carry it. But there is nothing like being in a street market in Provence, with tables full of various brand names and the plentiful aromas of Savon de Provence. Such was my [...]
Sainte-Victoire
Climbing the hill, walking past the studio of Cezanne and on to the Chemin de la Marguerite, I continued walking until I reach la colline de le Jardin de les Lauves – The Garden on the Hill at Les Lauves. Finally reaching the entrance to the park, I realized that my climb was not yet [...]
Atelier Cezanne
This is my workshop, nobody goes in but me. But as you are a friend, we shall go in together. — Paul Cezanne Paul Cezanne spent most of his life in Aix-en-Provence, and painted much of the area’s landscape and scenery during his lifetime. In 1901, after having to sell the beloved family property at [...]
