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"Vertumnus," 1590, is a portrait of a Habsburg ruler, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. Arcimboldo betrays a knowledge of plants from the New World: corn and pumpkins. This painting may suggest Rudolf II's worldliness and the bounty of his reign. In the tradition of L eonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Durer, 16th century painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo used his artistic skills to record his knowledge of the animals, plants, birds and fish, and he combined the seemingly opposite disciplines of art and science in a unexp ected way. The National Gallery exhibition of his paintings is called Arcimboldo 1526-1593: Nature and Fantasy. The paintings on display are primarily portraits. But instead of recognizable faces with traditional features, he composed his portrait heads of painted vegetables, fruits, flowers, fire, fowl, fish and frogs. His human beings are a rich composite of the natural world. Arcimboldo worked in Vienna as the court painter for the Holy Roman Emperor, first...

The National Gallery of Art in Washington has acquired a fascinating portrait, "The Four Seasons in One Head," now on view with the Arcimboldo exhibition . The artist painted this composite of the seasons in 1590, while still in service to the emperor but after he had returned to Milan. He chose a naked, gnarled tree stump of winter for the man's head, but draped it in spring flowers for a necklace. Further up the head are branches holding summer wheat, then several branches that translate into horns. Cherries hang over the left ear, while apples and autumn grapes poke through the branches for his headdress. Curiously, this ugly creature smirks at us with crooked eyes in a 3/4 view. A closer look at this allegorical head shows that Arcimboldo peeled away the bark of one branch growing out of the head and signed his name on the exposed wood, perhaps indicating it is a self-portrait. The artist gave this painting to a friend. Experts have suggeste d that the painting ref...

I have often thought the Mannerist style of late Renaissance art had a lot in common with the Surrealism of the 20th century. After viewing the National Gallery's Arcimboldo exhibition, this analogy seems stronger. Arcimboldo was a Mannerist from Milan who worked for the Court of Maximilian II in Vienna, and for his son, Rudolf II, in Vienna and in Prague. It is interesting that his reputation went down for a number of years until the Surrealists of the 20th Century revived the interest in his art. "Librarian," 1566, could easily be mistaken for an early 20th century Surrealist painting, at first glance. Arcimboldo painted various professions. "The Jurist," also on display at the National Gallery, is a scathing portrayal of the legal profession. Mannerism came after the High Renaissance style of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, which had lasted only about 20 years. The idealism of their style seemed to perish as Europe descended into the wars and devastat...

In My Mother's Home There are Many Mansions, 1994, by Kerry Jame s Marshall , Denver Museum of Art Kerry James Marshall, a preeminent artist of today, presents a strong voice of an identity for a middle-aged African American who has witnessed changes in his lifetime. H e addresses issues of race and culture in a Po st-Modern style that recognizes past, current and other issues that his generation has faced. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1955, but moved to the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1963, a fact not lost on the subjects of his paintings. Marshall paints large acrylic canvas and plexi-glass images with wit and irony. Sometimes he's influenced by comic books and in other ways he commands the authority of histo rical paintings, using a structure he says is inspired by artists like Gericault. In his Post-Modern style of art, it's easy to see the inspiration of many twentieth century movements, such as the collage effects of Cubism and splashes like an...

Edvard Munch's The Scream is so powerful that the other works of this great Norwegian artist are overlooked. Other art by Munch articulated his feelings about the sad passages of life--sickness, death and breakups. Currently at The Nation al Gallery of Art in Washington is an exhibition of Munch's graphic art which represents man y of the other themes he dealt with intensely, includin g illness, love, los s, and loneliness. The museum has pulled together prints from its own collection with images from two private collections to present a fuller view of the real artist. In f act, the sounds of silence in Munch's work are as freq uent and powerful as the voices of pain. Waves of Love, a lithograph Munch also can be subtle. He explores the possibilities of images morphing into something else. In Waves of Love , we see a floating woman but don't notice the man right away. Yet, when we discover him, the work becomes even more powerful. Munch, Vampire II, 1895, lithograph wi...

In the hills of central Sicily the Cathedral of Caltagirone--its dome covered with ceramic tiles--is just one the many wonders in this city of colorful tile (Baroque and A rt Nouveau buildings, too). Ceramics everywhere.......I resisted the temptation to buy more pottery (my house has enough and there's no more room), except one small putto, because I can look at these beautiful photos and remember how it felt to be there. The green pinecone i s a prominent symbol in this region. It reminds me of the pineapples in Williamsburg. A stroll through the local park reveal planters, light fixtures, fences in a variety of colors. The common colors for the tiles are blue, green, yellow and orange, in an endless variety of creative patterns. Figural designs and shapes are thoroughly Italian, especially with the masks, but some geometric designs in the tiles hint of an Arabic background. Nearby is a ceramics museum. Scalloped arches are an Islamic feature. The town'...

The Cathedral of Sircusa (Syracuse), Sicily is built within the colonnades of Greek temple to Athena from the early 5th century BC. Byzantine Christians converted the ruins of it into their Cathedral in the 7th century. The fluted columns are engaged in the outer side wall, along with triglyphs, metopes, etc. (the parts of the Doric Order in Greek architecture). The arched windows and crenelated top date from the Middle Ages. (It even had been a mosque at one time.) However, around the corner, the facade is thoroughly Baroque, built in 1700s! Old and new don't clash, though -- because they aren't seen simultaneously. Behind the door of this Cathedral's Baroque facade, the simplicity of an actual Doric temple colonnades are hidden. The medieval barrel vault comfortably meets the ancient Greek colonnade to form a side aisle. The temple's floor plan easily adapts to the 7th century Basilican plan church. The darkest components of this plan belong to the origina...