Mont Sainte-Victoire

Often the subject of a series of paintings by Post-Impressionist painter and local resident Paul Cezanne, Mount Sainte-Victoire looms to the east of Aix in the Provence Alpes-Cote-d’-Azur. With over 300 days of sunshine and largely unaffected by the cold and relentless Mistral, the area around Aix-en-Provence enjoys a warm and dry Mediterranean climate.

At just over 3,000′ (1120m) Mont Sainte-Victorie, Mt. Holy Victory in English,  was not only an inspiration for Cezanne, who could see the mountain from his home near Aix, but later for Pablo Picasso.  The artist who bought the Château de Vauvenargues at the foot of the mountain,  built a studio there and worked from the late 1950’s until 1962. Although Picasso admired Cezanne and the mountains themselves, he never painted them and even quipped to an art dealer, “Cézanne painted these mountains and now I own them.”

Picasso and his wife are buried on the grounds of the…