Contemplating with Cezanne at the Gianadda

This morning we took the Train Regional from Territet to Montreux to pick up the Inter-Regio train that would take us to Martigny, to meet our old friend Wendy from our Geneva days, and visit the Gianadda Gallery together. The half price discount fare card also entitles you to a reduction on the CHF20 entrance charge. In our case as pensioners, it's 30% off. When we lived in Geneva, and even after we moved to Cardiff and made return visits, we'd make an effort to go to the Gianadda to see an exhibition, besides, the gallery is in such a beautiful setting, it's worth the efort.

The main exhibition was the work of Impressionist painter Paul Cezanne, mainly his landscapes, but also a selection of his portraits, and of a series of small paintings done over decades of mostly women river bathing. His last master work was a two metre wide painting on this subject, unfinished at the time of his death in 1906, but considered a masterpiece nonetheless. Known as 'Les grandes baigneuses' it wasn't in the exhibition you have to go to Philadelphia to see it. There was however, a marvellous photo of the artist posing in front of the work itself in 1905 at the early stage of sketching on canvas. Also on display was a collection of Cezanne documents, drawings and other photos of him in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Fascinating.

It seems to me, looking at Cezanne's landscapes that he invested much of his creative energy in the perfection of conveying his impression, his environmental 'look and feel'. Picasso, whose work Clare and I saw in Malaga two months ago was forty years younger than Cezanne and developed his own mastery of impressionist technique, but did different things with it. To my mind, Cezanne is a contemplative painter, offering us an idea about how his world and its qualities can be perceived, whereas Picasso enquires and investigates reality and will use any kind of artistic medium to hand to convey his findings. Rich food for thought this summer, that's for sure.

On show, in addition is a separate exhibition of photographs of artists and other celebrities taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson. It includes a whole series of Henri Matisse at work, and just a few of Picasso, gazing impassively, observantly at the photographer. They're not as revelatory or engaging as the great collection of pictures of the artist at work taken by the American photographer David Douglas Duncan, but Picasso was distrustful of the celebrity circus, sociable only as long as he was able to get on with his work.

We had lunch in the garden restaurant, and after another look around the exhibition, we walked to the 1st-2nd Roman amphitheatre, and looked at the remains of a variety of other buildings which have been excavated or are still being excavated under cover as part of a long term archaeological project. Martigny was a prominent trading post in an alpine valley just one mountain pass and a few days walk from Chamonix, a place where trad routes between eastern and western Switzerland had met for centuries already at that time. Hence the wealth of Roman remains.

The town's Catholic Parish Church of the Annunciation is mediaeval, but there were other churches on the site before it, the first in 381, built by  St Theodul, Valasian Patron Saint. He was the first bishop of Octodurum, which is Martigny's Latin place name. Remnants of a fourth century baptistery excavated are visible in the south arcade of the nave. The Protestant Parish Church looks as if it was built in the early twentieth century, what makes it remarkable and worth a visit is the fact that all its dozen stained glass windows were designed by centenarian Swiss artist Hans Erni, and realised thanks to the patronage of Leonard Gianadda, whose Foundation gallery is but a few hundred metres away.

We concluded our visit and reunion with Wendy over tea and tarte aux murs in the town's Migros restaurant, then caught our respective trains in opposite directions. After a forty minute journey, we arrived in Montreux to hear an announcement that our connecting Train Regional had broken down in Vevey, so we started to walk back to Territet instead. We could have caught a bus, but estimated we could get back in the waiting plus journey time, and we were correct. The bus overtook us, just as we approached the pedestrian crossing nearest the church. A great excursion. You'll find some photos here.