“It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here. Rilke said, ‘Being here is so much,’ and it is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed. We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free.” John O'Donohue
Not directly facing the house as he had done in Medan, not so as to look down the rows of apple trees in the orchards as he had done with the chestnut trees of the Jas de Bouffan, not focused on the buildings through the trees – no - Cezanne chose on this day to situate his easel within the wild copse of windswept trees, their limbs and branches gazing at the rough cloudy blue sky.
On this day, he needed re-wilding.
The Orchard (Hattenville) FWN 180 1882 60 cm x 49.5
‘Brandade de Morue’, his mother had cooked for Renoir – “a dish to die for”: milk-soaked salt fish, potatoes, bay, garlic, peppercorns, fennel, lemon, gently cooked down and then thickened with cream and served with a little nutmeg, glug of olive oil, sliced truffle and sliced toasted baguette – bon appetit! Renoir had written to Victor Chocquet that he had been taken ill in Aix: “I can’t tell you how kind Cezanne has been to me. He was keen to lay everything at my disposal;…and this brandade de morue – nectar of the Gods!” Now, Cezanne, Hortense and young Paul had come by invitation to stay for the whole summer with Victor and Marie Chocquet; Marie’s mother had sadly passed away, leaving the Chocquets a large inheritance, and this farmhouse in Hattenville, just north of Le Harve, Normandy. Marie and Hortense got on very well together, and Hortense would be good company for Marie in her bereavement. Victor, now retired by some years and just turned seventy and Cezanne, merely a young man, just turned forty – got on like a house on fire; Victor could quietly watch Cezanne paint for hours – a privilege not adorned on many! And they loved to talk about art. Renoir was convalescing in the Midi, otherwise he might have joined them. Victor had commissioned a portrait of Marie in 1875 from Renoir, and it hung in the dining room. Here in Normandy, on the kitchen table, it was ‘Tarte aux poires’ – the sweetened rich pastry, a layer of crème Anglaise, sliced apples, and a glaze of Calvados – the apples of Normandy taste like soft and ripe pears!
On this day, Cezanne needed to paint a domesticated impressionist motif in the morning, and then, with the glaze in his eyes, take a siesta in the afternoon.
Farm in Normandy (Hattenville) FWN 181 1882 64 cm x 80
Shin-Rin-Yoku Forest Bathing
On this day,
you stand beneath this canopy of trees,
surrender will, hold still. You close your eyes
and listen as the rustling of the leaves
and lapping breeze-blown waters tranquilize.
Inhaling deeply, you can breathe the smell
of dew-damp soil, the scent of pungent pine,
organic emanations. All is well,
you’re in the zone in nature’s forest shrine.
Permit your eyes to open, now you see
the beauty of extraordinary things:
moss-covered rocks in shades of verdigris,
sun-dappled flapping of some insect wings.
Immerse yourself in all your senses, feel
the peace of this retreat restore and heal. (Betsy Hughes)
The Enclosure, Normand (Hattenville) FWN 182 1882 50 cm x 65
On this day, Cezanne is invited by what the oil on canvass unfolds, under the arch of branches gently swaying, forgetting to finish those half altered saplings, leaving it all slightly out of focus, stooping underneath the foliage - his heart is drawn towards the wild of thicket and undergrowth.
This is the day, of the year 1882, when Cezanne discovers the wildness of undergrowth: sous-bois. Sous-bois will gradually become a favourite motif, colourful, entangled and wild.
Rewilding is the large-scale restoration of ecosystems where nature can take care of itself.
It seeks to reinstate natural processes and, where appropriate, missing species – allowing them to shape the landscape and the habitats within.
Rewilding encourages a balance between people and the rest of nature where each can thrive.
It provides opportunities for communities to diversify and create nature-based economies;
for living systems to provide the ecological functions on which we all depend;
and for people to re-connect with wild nature.
Farm in Normandy in the summer (Hattenville) FWN 183 1882 49.5 cm x 66
(the titles of the Hattenville paintings are somewhat arbitrary, and have been adjusted a number of times over the years – Cezanne did not entitle his landscape paintings except when they were to go in an exhibition; and even then, he often left it to the exhibition organizers. In this case he did not entitle these because they were a gift for the Chocquets).