2020 Theses Master's

A Bioregional Provence: Ecocriticism and the Landscapes of Paul Cézanne

Sopcisak, Lowell

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) has been analyzed repeatedly by scholars, most often through the methodologies of formalism and psychology loosely defined. However, Cézanne has never been considered through the methodology of ecocriticism. In this thesis I analyze Cézanne through an ecocritical lens, arguing that Cézanne's landscape paintings of Aix-en-Provence and the nearby coastal village of l'Estaque form a bioregional picture of his native environment, or bioregion, of Provence, while also arguing that Cézanne was environmentally aware. In analyzing the bioregional elements of Cézanne's landscape paintings, I explore subjects including the artist's biography and his friend Émile Zola's (1840-1902) environmental writings, ecocritical scholarship and art history's relationship with it, environmental history in Provence, and photography.