Livre Vins de Cassis

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édifices mettent en valeur la fameuse pierre de Cassis, qui était extraite des falaises calcaires qui jouxtent la calanque de Port-Miou. Avec la pêche et la vigne, les carrières qui, elles aussi, s’appuyaient sur le transport maritime, ont été les grandes activités de Cassis tout au long de l’Ancien Régime.

UN HAUT LIEU DE LA PEINTURE

Il faut attendre la construction de la ligne Marseille-Toulon, et de la gare de Cassis, en 1859, pour que le village entre vraiment dans l’histoire nationale. C’est à cette époque qu’arrivent les premiers tou- ristes. Rapidement, les rejoignent des artistes, et notamment des peintres, attirés par la beauté du site, ses couleurs changeantes, sa lumière, tout autant qu’à L’Estaque : cette école que l’on qualifie de «marseillaise » est très cassidaine. Bon nombre des œuvres ont Cassis pour cadre, et principalement celles de Ponson, de Monticelli et de Signac, leur peinture évoluant du classicisme au pointillisme ; puis, au tournant du xx e siècle, le fauvisme et le cubisme, avec Bonnard, Derain ou Picabia, entre autres. Jusqu’à la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Cassis est le petit Montparnasse de la Méditerranée, l’enclave des peintres épris de liberté et de modernité. Le musée municipal de Cassis, place Baragnon, garde la trace de cette effervescence picturale.

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When peace returned, those still living in the castle left this huge stone vessel for the village of Cassis below. The maze of picturesque lanes, alleyways and flights of steps in the old fisherman’s village around the port contrast with the aristocratic homes further east, of which Cassis’ town hall - an early 17th-century private mansion — is an excellent example. Naturally, these beautiful buildings celebrate the famous limestone of Cassis, quarried from the limestone cliffs flanking the creek of Port-Miou. Alongside fishing and winegrowing, the quarries, which also relied on maritime transport, were the three major industries of Cassis throughout the period of the ancien régime that preceded the French Revolution. But it wasn’t until the Marseille-Toulon railway line and the Cassis station opened in 1859 that the village truly became part of French history. And it was the railway that brought the first tourists. Very soon they were joined by artists — mainly painters - attracted by the beauty of the area, its changing colours and its light, and nowhere more so than L’Estaque: the style may be referred to as the ‘Marseille School’, but in reality, it is more accurately the ‘Cassis School’. A focal point for painters

Many paintings of the period have Cassis as their subject and background, especially those by Ponson, Monticelli and Signac, whose style evolved from classicism to pointillism; then at the turn of the 20th century came Fauvism and Cubism with Bonnard, Derain and Picabia, amongst others. Until the Second World War, Cassis was the mini-Montparnasse of the Mediterranean; an enclave of painters in love with freedom and modernity. The Cassis Municipal Museum in the Place Baragnon celebrates this period of pictorial proliferation. Whether interpreted through agriculture, art or architecture, there is a real and indomitable strength of identity here. They may welcome more than one million tourists every year, but the 8,000 or so residents of Cassis are committed to cultivating their own distinctive identity. Buzzing, cosmopolitan Marseille is a close neighbour, but is light-years away in terms of its pace of life. A picnic on the water looking back on the coastal creeks, playing cards on a terrace in the port, sunbathing on sandy inlets, walking along the cliffs as the blue sky takes on the pink of evening, and when Cap Canaille is set ablaze by the setting sun... all these small pleasures so Strength of identity

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