Paintings

In times of war, they have proved safer than radios, more nimble than humans, more fuel-efficient than aircraft. Depending on the price of birdseed. Their exploits, though, have tended to go underappreciated here in London, where Mayor Ken Livingstone's long-running war with the lowly pigeon over who controls the territory of Trafalgar Square has tended to obscure the otherwise heroic stature of the ubiquitous waddlers. No more.

The technique of painting in oils was developed in Asia as long as 800 years before it appeared in Europe, according to a new analysis of murals found inside caves at Bamian in Afghanistan. Bamian became notorious when the Taliban blew up two colossal statues of Buddha there in 2001. The Taliban -- whose strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, forbids representational art -- also damaged ancient murals in many caves in the region.

Using a thin beam of synchrotron X-rays generated by a particle accelerator, European scientists have reconstructed a portrait of a peasant woman painted by Vincent van Gogh that had been concealed beneath another painting for 121 years.

In 1995, when the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., rounded up 21 of the 35 paintings known to have been made by 17th century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, the show was billed as a once-in-a-lifetime event. About 4,000 people filed into the specially ticketed exhibition each day -- until a partial government shutdown, caused by a budget disagreement between President Bill Clinton and the Republican majority in Congress, forced the gallery to close.

A portrait of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee not publicly seen since 1868 is being displayed as part of the Museum of the Confederacy's commemoration of the iconic Civil War leader's 200th birthday. The gilt-framed oil painting, about 26 inches high and 21 inches wide, will be the showcase piece of the museum's exhibit marking Lee's birthday Jan. 19. American artist Thomas B.

ITS proper title is "Rhinoceros" -- but most people end up referring affectionately to both the painting and its subject as "Clara." Like the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo, there's something about French painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry's life-size, 1749 portrait of Clara -- an Indian white rhino imported to Europe by a Dutch sea captain who turned her into an 18th century superstar by touring her throughout the continent -- that invites viewers to be on a first-name basis with art.

Thomas Eakins' masterpiece, "The Gross Clinic," which almost left the city until an intense fundraising drive raised about $30 million to keep it, went on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Friday. The iconic 1875 painting will remain at the museum until early spring, when it moves across the city to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the nation's oldest arts institution. The two institutions will share equally in its ownership. Thomas Jefferson University announced Nov.

A North Carolina artist intrigued by the public obsession with celebrity has found herself feeding that obsession with a painting of actress Angelina Jolie as the Virgin Mary hovering over a Wal-Mart checkout line. Kate Kretz has painted for 20 years, but none of her previous work has garnered the attention given "Blessed Art Thou," which showed this weekend at Art Miami, an annual exposition of modern and contemporary art.

In an unusual deal brokered by Eli Broad, a powerful donor with an interest in the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the two Los Angeles institutions will share ownership of an outsized work by L.A.-based artist Chris Burden. The gift, to be announced today by the two museums, is "Hell Gate," a 28-foot-long, 7 1/2 -foot-high model of the Hell Gate Bridge over the East River in New York City, fashioned of metal toy construction parts.

THEY met in Paris in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. He was a struggling painter with a tiny apartment in Greenwich Village; she was a ballerina who lived in Marin County and danced in San Francisco. They married and had two daughters. He became successful enough to make a living with brush and easel. They moved to a tiny farm in Petaluma, where she taught ballet and he painted pricey Irish landscapes and Paris street scenes.