Latest news with #Matisse
Fashion Network
9 hours ago
- Business
- Fashion Network
Pull & Bear brings Matisse's iconic style to life in capsule collection
The Mediterranean, which runs between France and Spain, is the link that Iberian retailer Pull & Bear has chosen to present its new capsule collection, revisiting the graphic universe of Matisse. The painter, who enlivened the art scene in the first half of the 20th century, sees his visual language reinterpreted in a summer collection of garments featuring cobalt blue and organic shapes. The Inditex group's young fashion chain shot the campaign highlighting this product range in Nice, where the artist spent several years and where he died in 1954. The wardrobe blends casual and streetwear shapes (sweatshirts, barrel pants, overshirts, Bermuda shorts, oversized T-shirts, caps, etc.) with works that made the artist famous, such as his "Blue Nude," or his leaf and dove shapes made from cut paper. Pull & Bear included beach towels, phone cases and bandanas in the accessories lineup, with prices ranging from €13 to €46. The brand launched the mini-collection last week at the Carrières des Lumières in Les Baux-de-Provence, hosting several influencers at the event. On the brand's website, product information sheets state that this fashion capsule has been produced "under license," presumably with the agreement of Henri Matisse's heirs. More recently, the artist's motifs have appeared on Ladurée macarons. However, since January 1, 2025, the painter's works can be freely reproduced, as they fell into the public domain seventy years after his death. Founded in 1991, Pull & Bear operates a network of 800 stores worldwide (including some 50 branches in France), and generated sales of €2.469 billion in fiscal 2024, up 4.6% on the previous year.
Forbes
21-07-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
Test-Riding Lidl-Trek's Art-Inspired Tour De France Race Bike
For the 2025 Tour de France, Lidl-Trek is racing bikes finished in an eye-catching Matisse-inspired ... More livery. Waking up early on the West Coast through the first few weeks of July, the excitement of watching Tour de France stages always helps boost the caffeine hit of each espresso doppio while I prepare for the day ahead. This year, a seemingly inevitable repeat of absolute dominance by Tadej Pogačar only grows more certain with each passing stage, as the Slovenian phenom's unbelievable power, talent and racecraft look sure to cement at least a few more race wins and the eventual Maillot Jaune when the final sprint concludes in Paris come July 27. Naturally, Tour de France commentators therefore need to turn elsewhere in the search for drama throughout every morning's hours-worth of television coverage—and in the sprinter's race this year, relative newcomer Jonathan Milan aims to take advantage of an untimely Stage 3 crash by 2023 green jersey winner Jasper Philipsen. Milan snagged his first Tour win for Stage 8, but what caught my eye, other than breathtaking speed, is the stunning Matisse-inspired livery on the bikes ridden by his entire Lidl-Trek team, including American workhorse Quinn Simmons. Speckled in paint, not sweat, at the top of Santa Barbara's infamous Gibraltar climb. Shortly into the Tour de France, Trek offered to send me a bike to experience the pinnacle of modern carbon-fiber and aerodynamic technology. And even just unpacking it from a heavily padded box, the Project One frameset finished in the modern Matisse motif—with perhaps a bit of a Mondrian color scheme thrown in for good measure—definitely didn't disappoint. Trek shipped the bike partially assembled, so I spent plenty of time handling the components while reinstalling the aero bottles and cages, as well as the front wheel and integrated handlebar/stem. The livery dubbed 'couler' almost lends a matte textural element to what would otherwise be a smooth carbon-fiber finish. For the drivetrain, the bike sports Sram's electronically shifted Red Axs 12-speed groupset, with zero visible cables controlling the 48/35T chainrings and 10/33T cassette. The crankset features a Quarq power meter built in, and overall I only spied the last two inches or so of each line running to the front and rear disc brake calipers. Trek's subsidiary Bontrager naturally provided the carbon-fiber Aeolus RSL 51 wheels shod in 28c Pirelli P Zero Race tubeless tires. Technically a Trek Madone SLR 9 Gen 8, the "couler" will fit tires up to 32mm. Prepping for a Long Climb Of course, at the actual Tour de France, racers will switch their setups in wild fashion day to day, varying from full disc wheels to single-chainring groupsets and even skipping bar tape or frame paint entirely. But for me, the physical design of the Madone's 'IsoFlow' seat tube and top tube intersection brought on serious curiosity. In addition to the rest of the frame's stiffness, compliance and whether or not I might actually notice any gains in aero efficiency from riding the same frame as the Tour de France's potential green jersey winner this year (assuming the apparently inimitable Pogačar decides against going all-out himself, that is). I planned to ride the couler up Santa Barbara's famous Gibraltar climb, a 6.16-mile quad scorcher that snakes up the Santa Ynez range at an average 8.2-percent grade. The current king of the mountain time on Strava? None other than 2019 Tour winner Egan Bernal, who in 2018 logged a ridiculous 27:12 effort for the 2,551-foot ascent. Of course, this Trek frame prioritizes aerodynamics at speed versus pursuing lightness at all costs in the name of conquering steep climbs, but I still wanted to establish a baseline, so out came the Park Tools DS-1 bicycle scale. I spun on my Speedplay pedals, mounted my Garmin Edge 540, slipped on my Silca Mattone saddlebag packed to the brim with an inner tube, two CO2 cartridges and a nozzle, a multitool and my trusty Pedro's tire levers. All in, ready to ride other than empty water bottles, the Trek weighed 18 pounds 14 ounces. With just pedals and cages, the scale read only 16 pounds 13 ounces. Strapping my Silca Mattone saddlebag beneath the carbon-fiber rails probably cost me a pound or so ... More of weight. Those numbers sound paltry compared to the bikes I typically ride, an early-2000s LeMond titanium frame that I built up from scratch with full Campagnolo 11-speed Super Record and Bora WTO 45-millimeter tubeless wheels, or the Time RXRS Ulteam I built with Campagnolo 12-speed Super Record and Mavic Cosmic Pro Carbon UST 40-millimeter tubeless wheels—the latter bike arguably representing the pinnacle of lugged-carbon construction maybe 12 years ago. The Trek's geometry presented a challenge due to the seatpost design. I needed the taller 190-millimeter seat mast, but it wouldn't match the Matisse livery. Those sharp angles at the seat tube and top tube intersection limit the physical adjustability, however, so I wound up riding with the seat about 20 millimeters lower than I typically prefer. That's not a huge number on paper, but for road cyclists dialing in long-distance performance, even 5 millimeters makes a big difference. And headed up the hill, Gibraltar quickly turned into a much more difficult climb than expected, probably because I pushed too hard for the 1,000 feet of climbing or so before actually arriving at the start of the official segment. Disc or rim brakes? I'm still not sold, but can admit that disc brakes make me more confident on ... More steep descents. Unbelievably Stiff, Without Sacrificing Comfort Those rough Santa Barbara roads revealed where Trek scrounged up so much more compliance than typical of any other monocoque carbon frame I've ridden (so far). Clearly, that seatpost must not only improve aero, but also damping through the frame itself. And yet, as I got deep into the climb and started standing up out of the saddle to stomp out watts on sections of 12 to 14-percent grades, I also noticed almost indiscernible flex at the bottom bracket, indicating minimized power losses and inefficiency. The Sram electronic drivetrain worked well, for the most part. The integrated power meter turned on quickly and connected to my Garmin every time (despite the numbers reading lower than my ego desperately craved, anyhow). And the rear cassette shifted moderately quick, while spinning mostly in silence other in the biggest sprockets. On my own bike, I'd run Silca Synergetic to prioritize smooth shifting and silence rather than the dry lube on this drivetrain. Regardless, I did experience one bad moment when the rear derailleur shifted to the tallest gear at the worst possible moment without me touching anything, and throughout, the longer hoods and levers lacked some of the ergonomic comfort of my Campagnolo components back at home. Tour de France riders will summit the hardest climbs of the year in the big chainring, but I needed ... More every last climbing gear to make it up Gibraltar. As the road tilted steeper and steeper ahead of me, Sram's climbing gears helped me keep the legs pumping. I had hoped to crack the hour mark, at this tail end of my fitness journey, but ended up a few minutes over by the time I reached the end of Strava's official segment (plus a few hundred yards, just to be safe). Time to catch the breath, eat a Clif Bloks Margarita chew (or two) and rip back down the hill. I started out conscientiously slowly, making sure that nothing had worked loose on the bike's inaugural long ride, as I readjusted myself to the chassis geometry, braking stability and aero while pedaling at high rpms. At first, I found the Trek slightly touchy while descending, not quite as smooth as expected given the integrated handlebar-stem and long hoods. Usually, longer stems increase stability, but otherwise the bike absorbed every bump and crack quite well, as gobs of grip from the Pirelli tires (tubeless, so inflated to 70 psi) inspired more and more confidence the further and further I started leaning over. Not just for aero: The mind-bending IsoFlow seatpost absorbs bumps amazingly, but makes bike fitment ... More more of a challenge. Rinse and Repeat A few miles down the hill and the brakes started to heat up, squealing in protest each time I hauled down speed. My mind adjusted to the bike, too, and by purposefully throwing some additional weight onto my outside foot, I found more stability and speed. This kind of a technical descent leaves little time to focus on aerodynamics, however, but once I reached sea level again next to the beach, despite the lactic burn still lingering in my quads, I almost started sailing in a heavy crosswind. Then I went and did the whole ride again two days later, and took almost 40 seconds off my previous time. Chalk that up to local knowledge, since I naturally felt less fresh the second time around without time for a recovery ride in between. But I also noticed once more that in Santa Barbara, road cyclists still wave to each other—a welcome respite from the growing indifference among devotees of aerobic suffering down in Los Angeles. Each day, multiple people asked me about the bike, curious to learn more about the eye-popping livery and confirm that I, surely, wouldn't be racing in the Tour de France. Aero bottles and cages might help Jonathan Milan win a 1,940-watt sprint after four and a half hours ... More of racing, but tight cages and angled bottoms make life difficult for mere mortals. For me, I spent my time with the Trek amazed at how far monocoque carbon-fiber bike frames have come over just the past few years. The newfound ability to mitigate prangy buzz while further stiffening and reducing flex around the crankset and chainstay definitely make a new bike tempting. For a racer, the whole package matters—for me, the ability to stay comfortable over the course of challenging rides, on something so clearly designed to maximize each and every last watt, matters just as much as the power and efficiency. I'm still partial to my old Ti and lugged-carbon frames, exactly for that reason, as well as Campagnolo quality and mechanical shifting, if just to avoid having another two batteries to charge regularly (check Primož Roglič's shifting issue with a Sram front derailleur on Stage 4 this year, which may or may not have contributed to another former front-runner losing about half a minute to Pogačar). And yet, it's still hard to believe that in the Tour de France, where pure performance matters most, anything can get much better—or more striking—than this art-inspired frame from Trek's Project One custom bike department.
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Travel + Leisure
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Travel + Leisure
This City is the Underrated Star of the French Riviera, With Chic Hotels, Stylish Boutiques, and a Sense of Timeless Cool
If I could offer one piece of advice to someone planning a trip to Nice, it would be this: Don't tell anyone you're going to Nice. The gateway to the French Riviera, the city has long been dismissed as a way station to smaller resort towns, the erstwhile stomping grounds of Matisse, Chagall, Baldwin, and Fitzgerald. Most of the time, people are actually thinking of places like Monaco and Menton, or influencer traps like St.-Paul-de-Vence and Antibes. Or Italy, which is not in France. A dated but amusing British expression regarding the Nice airport is 'Gentlemen turn right.' To the right await the cypress-covered hills of Villefranche-sur-Mer and the coves of Cap Ferrat, the most expensive square footage in the country. But to the left is yacht-dotted St.-Tropez, so to an outsider, this is a baffling piece of local sociology. Either way the message is clear: one drives away from Nice; one does not loiter in the gateway. These people are, in fact, the ones missing the boat. Le Negresco hotel's dome, seen from the Promenade des Anglais. For my flight from New York, I downloaded Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the 1988 comedy starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine that takes place in the fictional Nice enclave of Beaumont-sur-Mer. The film was a reminder of the city's outdated clichés: a place where a con man could live lavishly by relieving shoulder-padded women of their fortunes. A plausible premise, inspired by history. During the 19th century, Nice was a winter destination for the European aristocracy. When the French instituted paid annual leave in 1936, it became a popular summer destination and, by the end of the 20th century, a port for people allergic to living modestly (or, in the immortal words of Somerset Maugham: 'A sunny place for shady people'). By the start of this century, however, Nice had fallen out of fashion, both with discerning tourists seeking exclusivity and with younger Europeans, who associated the place with their parents. Now the tide is turning once more. New hotels, restaurants, shops, and bars staffed by passionate locals and patronized by an in-the-know clientele have begun to push Nice back into the spotlight. The crown jewel of this renewed glamour is Hôtel du Couvent, an 88-room, monastic-chic hotel housed in a 17th-century former convent. Situated on Castle Hill in the city's old town, the property had been neglected since the 1980s. About 10 years ago, Valéry Grégo, a financier turned hotelier, visited the site at the behest of Nice's mayor. Grégo was so inspired by the historic structure that he would eventually sell his collection of boutique hotels around France and spend the next decade meticulously restoring the convent and its 2½-acre grounds. The dining room at Maison Joia. After entering the hotel grounds (with four buildings, it's more of a campus), I walked through a stone passageway into a courtyard surrounded by tiered gardens and was presented with a freshly baked madeleine at reception. Then I was escorted past the on-site bakery, library, and apothecary (yes, apothecary) by one of the hotel staffers, who explained that her uniform—head-to-toe oxblood cotton—was a tribute to the Visitandine nuns who once lived on the property. My tower suite featured shuttered windows on all sides that cried out to be flung open. I obliged, leaning the upper half of my body out the window, scanning the sun-faded rooftops and, in the distance, an ultramarine strip of ocean. This, I thought, is a view with a room. From left: A veranda at Hôtel du Couvent; a housekeeper at the Hôtel du Couvent. Hôtel du Couvent's austere design is another nod to the function of the original building, with unpretentious furnishings and a generous use of taupe. Every fixture and texture—be it the ecru sofa or the hefty square dining table—is precisely tailored to the space, and special touches like fresh flowers, silver bar accessories, and vintage books provide decorative flair. Exploring my airy suite, I found I could hold New Nice and Old Nice in the palm of my hand: little balms and lotions from au courant perfumer Azzi Glasser and pistachio marzipan from the 200-year-old confectionery Maison Auer. The courtyard at the Hôtel du Couvent. Nice itself dates back to 350 B.C., and many establishments mix the past with the present. But I don't know that I've felt the imprint of the old and the new in a city as clearly as I did during my stay at Hôtel du Couvent. And to make it extra apparent that I'd arrived at Nice's hotel of the moment: I had taken a surreptitious picture of a fashionable couple in business class who deplaned ahead of me (her with a softened Goyard tote, him with some manner of satchel I was sure I could sell for rent money), only to see them again, sharing a bottle of rosé in the courtyard as I left to explore the old town. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Nice's new, refined energy is where that energy is concentrated: in the touristy heart of Old Nice, amid the souvenir shops, alongside street performers playing 'Every Breath You Take' on the electric guitar. There are cool new restaurants like Lavomatique, an eight-table bistro with bar seating where thirtysomething patrons spill out into the street late at night, gossiping and laughing after consuming vegetarian small plates. Or Frisson, an ice cream parlor/coffee shop/concept store started by former Colette employees that served a 'detox' sorbet (kiwi, apple, and spinach). Or Marinette, a bright boulangerie that I visited three gluttonous mornings in a row for its cinnamon rolls. I paired them with coffee from Cafés Indien, which roasts its own organic blends. From left: A sitting area at Hôtel du Couvent; breakfast at the hotel. There are also carefully edited gift shops like Trésors Publics, which has become a New Nice institution. 'We believe in the renewal of the old town,' said Nicolas Barbero, the shop's cofounder, who grew up in Cannes, about a half-hour to the west. Each winter, Barbero and his business partner, Antoine Bourassin, travel around the country selecting French products (candles, sandals, tooth-fairy boxes) that give their store a feeling of assemblage as much as curation. Many of the manufacturers of those items have been in business for centuries. From the outside, Trésors Publics looks like a set piece from a Wes Anderson film. From the inside, it traffics in what Barbero calls 'the real local,' with a story behind every French-made item. Barbero has also noticed what he calls 'the return of good tourism'—visitors who appreciate the authenticity of Nice beyond the sunny beaches. He credits not only the city's vibrancy post-pandemic (when many Parisians moved south to the city) but also a fatigue with über-trendy destinations. 'You see people going to Ibiza, Mykonos, and Croatia and that's fine,' he said. 'But maybe they got bored paying 200 euros to see a sunset,' he added, referring to the pricey beach clubs of certain Mediterranean isles. Nice's old town. That evening, I decided to watch the sunset, free of charge, while wandering down the seaside Promenade des Anglais, with the iconic pink dome of Le Negresco hotel in the distance. I grabbed an outdoor seat at Babel Babel, a Mediterranean café and wine bar that serves snacks like hummus and chickpea fries. Behind me, I overheard a pair of girlfriends in their 20s, talking over music and the rattling sound of skateboard wheels, discussing a speakeasy in a church. After some debate, I decided to deploy my terrible French: Pardon? Church? Bar? Quoi? Yes, I had heard correctly. Even the churches of Nice are enticing a younger crowd and have a robust Instagram presence. Upon entering the stone nave of St.-Jacques-le-Majeur, I observed the usual House-of-God fare: cracked Baroque frescoes, a statue of a saint, a few earnest late-night souls creaking in pews. I was about to leave, thinking I'd gotten the wrong place, when I saw a pod of twentysomethings emerge from behind a velvet curtain next to the altar. One of them made eye contact with me, grinned, and winked. ' Oui, ' he said, ' c'est là .' Through another passageway I finally arrived at Le Bethél, a bar inside the church courtyard. There were string lights overhead, a chess game in the corner illuminated by candelabra, and older friends drinking wine. A Parisian rave scene this was not, but there was something undeniably charming about this wholesome bar (no hard liquor) drawing a multigenerational crowd. From left: Hôtel Amour Nice; Paloma Beach, east of Nice in St.-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. The truth is that, if one goes to Nice in search of over-the-top glamour, or the cultural panache of Paris, one will leave empty-handed. It's a city that is still getting its sea legs as an upscale tourist destination—or, rather, getting its sea legs back. But Nice is not interested in imitation. It's interested in embracing what makes it distinctive. It is in this spirit that new hotels like Mama Shelter Nice, Hôtel Amour Nice (from the beloved Parisian chain), and Hôtel Amour Plage (same brand, closer to the shore) have opened. Meanwhile, young chefs are reviving regional dishes to delicious effect. The elegant and meticulous Maison Joia is a prime example. The restaurant combines flavors from across France, including chef Julien Pilati's native Champagne and the Brittany of his wife, Laetitia. The standout of the cheese plate was a creamy wedge from Corsica. Bread from the couple's favorite Portuguese bakery is served to 'really open up the appetite,' as Julien explained. In Nice, most haute cuisine dishes are some manner of regional fusion (think olive oil instead of butter) but at Maison Joia, the experience is seamless. Nota bene: dining in this bright box of a space, with its single-flower centerpieces, feels a bit like being on the set of a play about a restaurant. But reader, I did not suffer. Perhaps, with time, Maison Joia will join international favorite Les Agitateurs, also in Nice, which was awarded a Michelin star in 2021. From left: The rooftop restaurant at the Anantara Plaza Nice Hotel, in France; the Promenade des Anglais. Late the next morning (turns out alcohol has the same effect on the body, even if you consume it inside a church), I took a swim in Hôtel du Couvent's lap pool, a spectacular oasis atop the gardens. I then consumed the best niçoise salad of my life ( Was it the scallions? I thought afterward, zooming in on the photograph I'd taken) while sitting in the shade of an olive tree. Then I said goodbye and packed my bags for a very different view of the city. From left: Grilled chicken with red kuri squash and amba sauce at Lavomatique; the restaurant's exterior. The Anantara Plaza Nice Hotel, which occupies a Belle Époque building that dates back to 1848, feels a world away from a former convent. The 151-room hotel and spa was renovated in 2022 and has a clublike rooftop restaurant from which I could see the planes land at Nice airport. 'You can almost scratch their bellies,' joked Gaudéric Harang, the general manager. 'Even the shops are being renovated,' he added, gesturing down at the row of luxury boutiques that included Hermès, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton. 'They reflect the elevation of luxury and what the city has to offer.' While this is an accurate metric of Nice's commercial popularity, it was wasted on someone who, until very recently, was zooming in on photos of scallions on her phone. I was more curious about his favorite local spots, since he is a local himself. From left: Fanny Vedreine and Louis Girodet, owners of the Fanfan & Loulou café; socks for sale at Trésors Publics. 'Honestly, the amount of small, very good restaurants in the old town is insane,' Harang said, lighting up, 'I love the institutions, too, like La Petite Maison. Nicole Rubi, the owner, is in her 80s. But Nice is still a hub. To be here is to use the city like that. You have to explore.' A fine point if there ever was one. As delightful as it is to plow through what's new in any city, it can start to feel like consuming the foam from a cappuccino and tossing the coffee. Yes, it was time to pluck from those well-meaning recommendations from friends who had been to the surrounding areas. Spend a day in St.-Paul-de-Vence. Go to the Matisse Chapel. Sit on the same barstools that Picasso used to sit on at La Colomne d'Or. Find Chagall's grave, then see so much mid-century art at the Fondation Maeght that you can't remember a time when you were not looking at mid-century art. From left: Giacometti sculptures outside Fondation Maeght; viewing a Chagall at the Fondation Maeght. This is to say nothing of the merits of a day spent on the area's better beaches. I am partial to the understated Plage Paloma, on Cap Ferrat, to which blue-and-white VW buses transport beachgoers from the marina. Or Plage Mala, farther to the east on Cap d'Ail, where I watched an elderly man wade into the water, smoking slim cigarettes, while a woman in a glittery bikini twisted a beach umbrella between the rocks like she was boring a hole into the earth. Perhaps the only notable shift in Nice's infamous beach culture is a reduction in toplessness, thanks in part to the prevailing presence of camera phones. But Nice proper feels like an exciting and current place to come home to after hitting the classics. On my last night, my stomach stuffed with miniature lobster rolls from the beachside restaurant L'Eden Plage Mala, skin soaked with sun—take that, anti-aging facial—I sat down for a glass of natural wine at Fanfan & Loulou. The two-year-old café and wine bar is run by a couple from Paris, Fanny Vedreine and Louis Girodet. It's beloved for not only its selection but also its origin as a wine delivery service during the pandemic. A lone bicycle was the duo's mobile wine cellar, as well as a way of getting to know their new home. From left: A sea view from the Anantara Plaza Nice Hotel; the hotel's lobby. 'We arrived three months before COVID,' Vedreine said, pouring me a glass of German Riesling called Space Dream. 'We thought, 'Okay, we have no friends and no connections. But we found such a community here.' ' In addition to running the wine bar, Vedreine is a new mother and a writer with a focus on feminism and art. I wondered if she ever missed the energy of Paris. 'I worked in nightclubs and bars and journalism in Paris,' she said. 'I have good memories. But I want to do something for myself, to live life for myself.' From left: Anantara Plaza Nice Hotel; a guest room at the hotel. As she said this, we looked over our shoulders to see three stylish Americans approaching. One of them was tearing his face away from his phone, looking embarrassed to be lost and sheepish to have missed what he and his friends were looking for: the fanfan & loulou sign painted in massive letters over the doorway. Vedreine smiled at me and excused herself to greet them. 'This is the place,' she assured them. Oui, c'est là . From left: Place Charles Félix, in Nice's old town; a cantaloupe dessert at Maison Joia. A version of this story first appeared in the August 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline "Nice Dreams ."
Web Release
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Web Release
Ladurée x Maison Matisse: A Colorful Homage to Artistic Legacy
This summer, Ladurée collaborates with Maison Matisse to honor the vivid artistry of Henri Matisse. The partnership introduces a limited-edition macaron box inspired by Matisse's 1952 masterpiece, La Perruche et la Sirène, reflecting the shared creative spirit of both houses. The 12-macaron box features bold blue, vivid orange, radiant red, and shimmering pink hues, echoing Matisse's signature cut-outs. Inside, a vivid blue interior reminiscent of a summer sky with a handwritten quote from Matisse's 1947 Jazz album: 'There are flowers everywhere for those who want to see them.' Executive Pastry Chef Julien Alvarez draws inspiration from Matisse's fondness for vanilla and citrus, crafting the new gourmet collection. The macaron blends notes of vanilla, mandarin, clementine, and yuzu, while the Matisse Vanilla & Citrus Entremets combines shortbread biscuit, soft biscuit, caramel, orange-clementine marmalade, and vanilla cream. The Ladurée & Maison Matisse collection will be available from May 28, 2025 with the Matisse Vanilla & Citrus Entremets for AED 55 at Dubai Mall and AED 52 at all other UAE outlets; and the macaron box for AED 210 at all UAE outlets. Experience a fusion of art and patisserie that celebrates the joy of color and flavor. For more information, please visit or @ladureeuae on Instagram.
The Guardian
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Back to the land: revisiting the streets of Aix-en-Provence, the birthplace of Paul Cezanne
When I was 12 years old, my parents moved my sister and me to Aix-en-Provence, the birthplace of and inspiration to Paul Cezanne. In truth, Cezanne had nothing to do with their choice of destination. But his mountain was the one thing my father knew of the region. He was three years into a four-year fine art degree (he painted portraits of the two of us daughters for his finals), steeped in painting and its history. When we landed at Marignane airport in nearby Marseille on 29 August 1989, a wildfire was ravaging the Sainte-Victoire, that celebrated mountain subject of so many of Cezanne's works. In the tumult of the days that followed – our family unhoused, the mountain unrecognisable – my father hustled between estate agents with the sound of sirens ringing in his ears. 'Cezanne must be turning in his grave,' he remembers one saying. In the 119 years since he died, Cezanne (no acute accent; it's how he spelled it himself) has been crowned the father of modern art. It's the lineage a host of disparate painters claimed in his wake. For Matisse he was 'the father of us all' and for Picasso, 'the mother who protects her children'. Futurists, cubists and fauvists felt the same. The symbolists said his was 'pure painting'. And Gauguin, well: he bought six Cezannes when he was flush and only parted with them under duress when he wasn't, having said, of the fabled Still Life with Fruit Dish from 1879-80, that he'd sooner sell everything he owned than lose it. Aix, by contrast, has mostly been famous for hardly owning any Cezannes at all: first because it didn't care to and then, when it was too late, because it couldn't afford to. This summer the town celebrates Cezanne 2025, a season dedicated to rewriting that story. The town set aside a budget of €26m for the full programme. This has included restoring and opening to the public the Bastide du Jas de Bouffan (the family's country home of 40 years); the Lauves studio to the north; and the Bibémus quarries in the foothills of the Sainte-Victoire where Cezanne often worked. Also included is a major exhibition at the Musée Granet, which opens on 28 June, and reassembles for the first time works now housed in museums all over the world that Cezanne made in Aix; along with three other exhibitions in the town and a programme of live events. It is a family reunion. I have come back home to retrace Cezanne's footsteps, literally, in a kind of reductionary process I liken to the expert restorers' painstaking scraping off of decades of paint and paper on the walls of the old bastide. Growing up in Aix, 'Cezanne' was a local lycée, 'Bibémus' the rocks on which I learned to boulder, and the 'Jas', the neighbourhood in which I learned to drive. Returning to Aix, I want to walk where he walked to scrape these words back to their earlier meanings – to let these familiar landscapes be his once again. Cezanne was born in 1839 in the old town centre. He lived in various homes in these narrow streets and, at 13, befriended the author Émile Zola on the school benches of the Collège Bourbon, now the Collège Mignet. His hatmaker father, Louis-Auguste, made so much money selling rabbit-skin wares (the big Aixois industry of his day) that he invested in a bank, in the process becoming even richer. When Cezanne was 20, his father purchased the bastide as a country retreat. From then on, and until his mother's death in 1899, it would be what the president of the Société Paul Cezanne and co-curator of the exhibition, Denis Coutagne, calls 'the centre of gravity' of Cezanne's world. It is where he painted his first big works as a twentysomething, directly on to the decorative walls of the ground-floor Grand Salon. Recent restorations have revealed further Cezannes no one knew about – a scene of a port entrance he then partly painted over with a scene of a game of hide and seek. When the latter was removed to canvas by the home's new owner, along with the Four Seasons and other famous panels, and sold on to museums, these fragments were simply papered over and forgotten about. In 1880, Louis-Auguste, who definitely viewed the property as something to boast about, nonetheless built Cezanne a studio: an enviably large room on the top floor, with a remarkably modern double-height window that bluntly interrupts the symmetry of the mansion's facade. As Laforest puts it, that in itself puts paid to the myth that the father did not support the son's endeavours. I stand at the window. But for the military row of cypress trees forming an extra barrier inside the property wall to the right, I know the mountain is right there. On clear days, from the Jas, it appears as a perfect Matisse-like cutout in pale blue against a paler sky. Musée Granet director Bruno Ely, the other co-curator of the exhibition, tells me that the 1989 fire brought the Sainte-Victoire back to something closer to what Cezanne knew: the pine forest that was burning when I arrived is a 20th-century phenomenon. In the 19th century, all these hills were kept closely cropped by flocks of sheep. From the bastide to the Bibémus quarries takes about an hour and a half on foot. Cezanne would hitch a ride with a driver and a cart to get a bit closer, but once in what are now Aix's north-eastern heights, he'd still have to walk an hour to reach the quarry. As I'm walking – from the bastide to the quarry to the dam Zola's father built and down into Le Tholonet, where Cezanne lived later on; then back into town along the petite Route du Tholonet, which culture minister André Malraux had listed and renamed as the Route Cezanne in 1959 – I watch the mountain, this constant presence. You might say that the Mont Sainte-Victoire, as he called it, was to Cezanne what Rouen Cathedral was to Monet. However, his approach was completely at odds with the impressionists'. Monet recorded the changing light: it's right there in the titles ('grey skies', 'sunshine', 'at sunset'). By contrast, Cezanne's concerns, as Coutagne puts it, are 'never documentary', 'never meteorological', never about 'the instant'. In 1876, Cezanne writes to a friend about olive trees having a greyish colour that is 'permanent'. Matisse, Cezanne's junior by 30 years, understood this. He wrote to a friend in 1918 that 'the olive trees are so beautiful at this hour: the full light of day is magnificent, but frightening. I find that Cezanne conveyed it well, happily not in its brilliance, which is unbearable.' Light, sure, but not changing light; essential light. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Art historians have long landed on the notion of 'thingness', to describe what Cezanne sought: not the way a thing looked, but what it was. His allegiance to the supremely local isn't about identifying with the place, but rather that every rock or tree or house he painted is one he saw. That specificity is what makes his work so profoundly, universally resonant. What makes Cezanne's paintings so radical is how he arrived, as Coutagne puts it, 'like a meteor … Nothing, no one prefigures him.' His oeuvre resolutely denies the illusion of all the figurative painting that came before him. It forces the viewer to reckon with his painted surface, to not be duped into thinking that said painting is a window on to the world. Cezanne's Lauves studio, which he built in 1901, is a building site when I visit, inaccessible until later in the summer. Fresh apples have usually been displayed here, much like the fresh lemon left on a pewter plate in the Kettle's Yard gallery in Cambridge, displayed to echo the yellow dot in Joan Miró's Tic Tic, which hangs on the adjacent wall. But perhaps this is why I've never been much inclined to go inside the Lauves studio: with Cezanne, I want to see his apples – that painted appleness – not fresh fruit. Virginia Woolf once wrote about her sister, Vanessa Bell, persuading John Maynard Keynes to lend them a tiny Cezanne he'd just bought – a 1878 still life of seven apples titled Pommes – because their friend Roger Fry wanted to copy it. 'Nessa left the room and reappeared with a small parcel about the size of a large slab of chocolate. On one side are six [sic] apples by Cezanne. Roger very nearly lost his senses. I've never seen such a sight of intoxication. He was like a bee on a sunflower. Imagine … us all gloating upon these apples. They really are very superb.' I finish with a visit to Cezanne's grave in the Saint-Pierre Cemetery. I add a pebble to a few already perched on its aged surface and think about Patti Smith. Her A Book of Days is filled with Polaroids of the headstones of authors she's visited: Rimbaud, Camus, Woolf, Jean Genet. While you can buy a novel for a tenner or read it for free at a library, visiting a writer's grave offers something else, something closer to the unique experience of holding a handwritten manuscript or seeing where the writer sat to write it. A painter's grave though? Standing here, I am both moved and left wanting. It's his actual paintings I want to see. And to see Cezanne originals, you normally have to go on a grand tour, a modern-day pilgrimage, to the big museums of the world. This July, they are, remarkably, all coming to Aix. So I'm heading home again this summer to see those, too. Cezanne at Jas De Bouffan is at Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence, France, from 28 June to 12 October.
