Paul Cézanne, the 19th-century French impressionist painter, once said, “I walk in nature every day, because the views are magnificent.”

One of the views the impressionists loved most was of Sainte-Victoire, the limestone ridge that looms over this southern city. 

“Cézanne painted around 80 different portraits of Sainte Victoire,” said Didier Bonfort, who leads an association called Protect Cézanne’s landscapes. 

On a green plateau, some five miles from the mountain, Bonfort said that here is where Cézanne often set up his easel. And no wonder. Depending on the light and the time of year, the fields and hills leading to Sainte-Victoire can be covered with purple lavender or dotted with red and yellow flowers. Cézanne captured it all, Bonfort said.

“On this very spot, Cézanne painted 52 versions of the mountain,” Bonfort said. “Paintings in oil, watercolor, sketches…”

Bonfort pulled out a print of one portrait from a manila folder he carries. The original was once owned by the late Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen. 

“For me, this is one of the most beautiful renderings of Sainte-Victoire,” he said. It’s strange, though, because in it the mountain isn’t the main protagonist. Stealing the show is the foreground. The delicate light in the trees. The shadows in the fields. 

“That’s exactly why it’s so important to protect this landscape,” Bonfort said. “For this view. All the colors you see captured in the painting will disappear, he says. This is what we’re defending.”

The landscape is being defended from a proposed housing project called La Constance. Where now there is nature, the project aims to replace a large swath of it with 3,600 new apartments in high-rise buildings, an office park and a shopping mall. Bonfort said Aix loves to promote its most famous native son, but it won’t protect his work. 

City officials disagree.

“Cézanne is at the heart of the housing development,” Jean-Louis Vincent, Aix’s planning commissioner, said on local television recently. “The view of Sainte-Victoire will be preserved.”

Technically, that’s true. But at just one spot. According to project plans, the viewpoint will be but a sliver between two buildings. Right now, you can see the mountain from everywhere. But it’s not as if Aix officials don’t understand the value of a view.

A government promo video for Sainte-Victoire offers varied views, including from the land where La Constance will rise. “It’s much more than just a mountain,” the narrator says. “It’s a sanctuary for biodiversity. With centuries of history contained in each … view.”

The problem for the city, officials say, is a really bad housing shortage, especially for young people. It needs to build homes. And it needs land to do that.

In downtown Aix, university student Camille Asuara is on her way to work. 

“Mine is the typical story,” Asuara told The World. “I’m holding down two jobs while I study at the local university. Some students might be lucky and have support from their parents. Otherwise, they’re living in shoeboxes.”

Asuara herself pays $720 a month for a 15-by-15-foot studio. 

The Association to Protect Cézanne’s landscapes states that it isn’t opposed to new housing, but that other potential housing sites wouldn’t harm cultural heritage.  

Sainte-Victoire, the mountain itself, is protected by French law, if not the view toward it. So, activists are hopeful a lawsuit they’ve filed will prosper. In 2023, a judge halted a wind-turbine project in northern France. It was too close, he ruled, to the home of another beloved French artist: the writer Marcel Proust.