Rocks at L’Estaque FWN 29 1865 21cm x 33
Actually, Cezanne was a fairly active guy: he enjoyed swimming and walking through-out his life; in the 1860’s, his family regularly rented a small cottage in the little fishing village across the bay from Marseilles called L’Estaque. Cezanne and his mates, especially Marion, would spend their days walking, swimming and exploring the geology and geography of the lovely sunny coast round as far as to Marseilles. Cezanne’s first painting of L’Estaque was in 1865, and his last was in 1885 – 20 years exactly, five paintings in the ‘60s, 13 in the 70’s and 11 in the 80’s. It was hard work to paint outdoors in those days – you had to grind the pigments down yourself, and mix them together; and then put the paint into pig’s bladders to transport around with you; and you had to do this each and every day! The quality of the paint thus varied each day, there was a lot of waste, and it was difficult to use, or thin (with turpentine). But in 1840, an American Artist, John Rand, invented metal tubes – like toothpaste tubes, only using thin metal, with screw top and everything: how wonderful is that! Renoir is quoted as saying that, "Without paint in tubes there would have been nothing of what the journalists were later to call Impressionists." It was during these twenty years, that Cezanne gave his life to painting: “upon reflection,” he would muse later in life, “it was at L’Estaque that I finally understood Pissarro, a painter like me; he worked relentlessly. Insane love for work took over me.” Cezanne discovered that for him painting was not a hobby, or indeed a profession; it wasn’t something you could just do when you felt like it, or set aside for a week or two. Actually it was a calling, a vocation; it had a certain life of its own; it filled every aspect of his life; everything he did was referenced to it. And so, his act of painting, or rather, his living the life of a painter, was like the way he painted: progressing by painting all the canvass all at once. Cezanne’s life and work are one.
But yield who will to their separation,
my object in living is to unite
my avocation and my vocation
as my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
and the work is play for mortal stakes,
is the deed ever really done
for Heaven and the future's sakes.
Robert Frost, Two tramps in mud time