Notebook III

It’s the fin de siecle in the 19th Century and this painterly mess appears on the walls – “oh, Putain!” Paul, I’m sure, had quite the rep around town in Aix. Can you imagine the loneliness of his life? How many locals would understand or care about what he was doing, the struggle in which he was involved? So in order to connect, to talk, to meet other artists he wrote them letters and imported them from Paris. Paul must have been extremely convincing about the magic of the place, because they came south to see and experience the color and the light, the landscape and sea. Renoir and Pissarro are the best known of his painting guests – and for each of them – the South and Cezanne’s understanding of it – changed their understanding of Modernist painting. This started a flood of painters headed toward the Mediterranean, and once there, these artists found not only the exotic light and color, but the structures and forms of the Classical past. This was the beginning of 20th Century Modernism.