Memphis, Cezanne's Garden, and Rerevival

I went to Memphis for our traditional Thanksgiving Holiday gathering, and got back late last night. I had a flight layover in St. Louis this time, and lingered there for awhile. While there, I read Architectural Digest, which I savor, and came upon this article about "Cezanne's garden." Actually the article is called, "Cezanne's Vision." There are pictures of the plantings of ivy, fig, and rosemary that "encroach" upon the entrance of what was Cezanne's studio. He preferred, the article says, "a labor-saving garden filled with more permanent elements of nature that he encountered during his walks around his cherished mountain - woody plants such as juniper and linden and fragrant herbs such as rosemary and thyme - along with limestone blocks that serve as pedestals...." "Art must make nature eternal in our imagination," he is said to have said.

The curator of the place now says that the garden today is an interpretation of Cezanne's garden philosophy rather than a strict interpretation.

His garden is a tapestry of greens.

I read this as I sat in the hustle and bustle of late-night Thanksgiving holiday finish, in the airport in St. Louis; although this holiday hustle-and-bustle was really quite calm, relatively speaking, compared to other holidays. I think people are spreading out the holidays, because of the experience of hustle and bustle in the past.

Reading and savoring the pictures and thoughts of Cezanne and his gardens - what a rough exterior can reveal as we think further to experience the internal - is wonderful, and all the more so as I sit here, in this highly charged atmosphere of neon, slick surfaces, and loud noise. There is no real sense of quiet contemplation and the savoring of greens.

I am all the more moved by this slick experience, on the page, of opulence, the fabric and texture of works of art, as creators create with absolute intention, to create a whole - in a house, an estate, an experience. Each thought and creation can be a work of art, all the more, with absolute intention and the joy of creating. The joy of creating with absolute intention.

Visit Rerevival, where the seahorses image lives.