The uncanny transformation of Paul Cézanne (1849-1906) from hayseed to metrosexual, so to speak, is aptly proven by "Cézanne in Provence" at the National Gallery of Art, Jan. 29-May 7, 2006. Mounted on the occasion of the centenary of the artist’s death, the show includes 86 paintings, 29 watercolors and two lithographs in eight jam-packed galleries. The overall impression is breathtaking -- Cézanne’s embrace of rusticity produced pictures that now seem unsurpassed classics of 20th-century modernism.
