The Return of an Odysseus

There is considerable irony in the upcoming events centering on Paul Cézanne in his hometown of Aix-en-Provence, France. Although today there is a large statue of the artist at the city’s central plaza, Place Charles De Gaulle, and the sidewalks are studded with medallions bearing the artist’s name and a large C encircling the city crest, Cézanne was virtually a stranger to his own municipality during his lifetime. Though only a few of his paintings sold early on, in Aix or elsewhere, today many of them are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.