Mount St. Victoire

On a blistering hot day in August 1983 I found myself heading north on a rickety open sided train from Marseilles to Aix  in the South of France on a pilgrimage to the home of the greatest of modern painters, Paul Cezanne. Arriving midday and finding the ancient town deserted as is usual for any French town at that time of day, I walked through the empty cobblestoned streets filled with timeless heavy ocher colored buildings laden with sculpture and thick wooden doors and shuttered windows hearing only the sound of my footsteps and the many ornate bubbling fountains. By instinct, I headed out of town past the army barracks down a dirt road lined with pine forests and after a short time, breaking the crest of a hill, there it was, the massive rock of Mount St. Victoire raising like a monolith out of a bleached forest valley. Cezanne had painted this mountain many times and one can see why since it so dominates the landscape demanding attention but ever changing as the warm light of Provence passes over its hot white face. I stopped at a beautiful old farm house overlooking my intended venue and asked the old woman at the door if I could sit on her low wall by the house and draw. She smiled and kindly allowed me to proceed with my drawing only with the stipulation, "non-fumeurs si vous s'il vous plait". I slept a deep satisfying sleep that night in cow pasture under a star filled sky and dreamed the dream of being an artist too.