Portrait

It's hard to imagine an artist more thoroughly out of fashion than the great 17th century Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens. Even the adjectives with which his name is associated are out of style. A contemporary woman described as "Rubenesque" certainly would be affronted and, in Los Angeles, probably reduced to tears. High Baroque, the style in which he painted, is nowadays synonymous with pointless complexity. The classical texts that inspired so many of his masterpieces are nowadays little read outside specialized academia.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — A South African art gallery that displayed a controversial painting showing the country's president with his genitals exposed announced Tuesday that it was closing its doors temporarily because of threats. The decision came after vandals defaced the artwork earlier in the day. Lara Koseff, spokeswoman for the Goodman Gallery, said there had been numerous threats made against the gallery after its display of "The Spear," by Cape Town artist Brett Murray.

In the remote northeastern corner of Guatemala, archaeologists have found what appears to be the 9th century workplace of a city scribe, an unusual dwelling adorned with magnificent pictures of the king and other royals and the oldest known Maya calendar. This year has been particularly controversial among some cultists because of the belief that the Maya calendar predicts a major cataclysm - perhaps the end of the world - on Dec. 21, 2012. Archaeologists know that is not true, but the new find, written on the plaster equivalent of a modern scientist's whiteboard, strongly reinforces the idea that the Maya calendar projects thousands of years into the future.

Willie Robert Middlebrook, a photographer who sought to enlarge public perceptions of the African American community through painterly depictions of its people and places, died Saturday at Brotman Medical Center in Culver City. He was 54. The cause was complications of a stroke suffered last month, said his daughter, Jessica Middlebrook. Middlebrook's death came just a week after the unveiling at the new Expo/Crenshaw Metro station of one of his largest public installations, a series of 24 mosaic panels based on his photographs.

I want to commend you for the article about the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer ("Whose Art Is It Anyway?" by Anne-Marie O'Connor, Dec. 16). I was fascinated to read about the political climate during World War II, when the Nazis stole precious jewelry and paintings from the homes of Jewish families. I have been to Maria Bloch-Bauer Altmann's home many times because I buy my dresses and suits from her. I have always admired the copy of the famous painting of her aunt and heard about Altmann's attempts to get it back.

Fashion stylists once worked behind the scenes, their faceless names relegated to the credit pages of magazines. But lately some have been stepping into the spotlight (hello, Rachel Zoe), gaining recognition for the important role they play when it comes to trends, the red carpet and popular culture. Artist Kimberly Brooks became so enamored of stylists that she has dedicated an entire exhibition to the trade. "The Stylist Project" opens with a public reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday at Taylor De Cordoba in Culver City, and the fashion world will be watching.

Skittles candies have been front and center lately, usually accompanying an image of Trayvon Martin -- the 17-year-old who was carrying the confection when he was slain by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman. Now a Denver artist has taken the totemic use of the rainbow-colored candy a step further and spun it on its head, or rather, Zimmerman's. Art student Andy Bell used purple, yellow, orange and lime-colored chews to construct a 36-inch by 48-inch mosaic portrait of a Zimmerman mugshot.

SANFORD, Fla. - For many Americans, George Zimmerman has become the face of barbarous vigilante justice. For Olivia Bertalan, he was the face of compassion: a neighbor of consummate graciousness and low-key gallantry. About six months before Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in his town house complex, he was standing in Bertalan's doorway, asking what he could do to help her. A group of young men had just broken into Bertalan's town house as she and her infant cowered in a locked bedroom.

Standing beside the faux cruise ship at the Crossroads of the World, Hollywood's landmark office complex with a 55-foot tower and globe that has been spinning since 1936, Diane Keaton spoke of her love for L.A. "People malign this city, but what we have here architecturally is unlike anything in any other city," said Keaton, who hosted the Nov. 19 launch of "Los Angeles: Portrait of a City," along with the book's publisher, Benedikt Taschen, Vanity...

I was knocked out by one of the best photos I've seen in years -- Ken Hively's portrait of Sam Raimi for "Spider's Man" (June 27) on Page 4. As stylistically complex as a Karsh portrait with Hitchcock's menace, the photo masterfully evokes the formal rigor and psychological complexity that Raimi captures in his films. Please consider a full noir-ish portrait series of other auteurs by Mr. Hively. This one really rocks. Kerry Kugelman La Crescenta

Against Wind and Tide Letters and Journals, 1947-1986 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, edited and with an introduction by Reeve Lindbergh Pantheon: 358 pp., $27.95 "A woman writer is 'rowing against wind and tide,'" Anne Morrow Lindbergh told her daughter Reeve in 1972, quoting Harriet Beecher Stowe. "We cannot - or only with the greatest difficulty - produce a great 'body of work.'… And it isn't just being a woman. It is some other deeper conflict between art and life.

Skittles candies have been front and center lately, usually accompanying an image of Trayvon Martin -- the 17-year-old who was carrying the confection when he was slain by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman. Now a Denver artist has taken the totemic use of the rainbow-colored candy a step further and spun it on its head, or rather, Zimmerman's. Art student Andy Bell used purple, yellow, orange and lime-colored chews to construct a 36-inch by 48-inch mosaic portrait of a Zimmerman mugshot.

The family of Abdul Arian remembered the 19-year-old young man who was fatally shot by Los Angeles police officers after a high-speed chase Thursday morning for his desire to become a police officer. "He wanted to be an LAPD cop," said Hamed Arian, the youth's uncle, "and the LAPD killed him. " But as details of Arian's life emerge, the picture of his ambitions becomes more complicated. A police narrative of the shooting on the 101 Freeway in Woodland Hills suggests a troubled end for the young man who placed a 911 call during the pursuit and told authorities he was armed with a gun. Police did not recover a gun from the scene.

There are basically two kinds of fans of HBO's comedy "Eastbound & Down," which wraps up its third, and what will probably be its final, season Sunday. One kind gets the joke. The other is the joke. "They are some scary people," said Danny McBride, 35, the star and co-creator of the series. "They like the show, but for the wrong reasons - like they want to be Kenny Powers. " For those who may not have been properly introduced, Powers is perhaps the sharpest - and certainly raunchiest - satiric portrait of a redneck ever to be loosed on television.

What if they picked a pope and he went AWOL? That's the premise of Nanni Moretti's new film, a gentle fable whose humanist heart beats in Michel Piccoli's nuanced performance. As a man of faith facing a secular crisis — over a life unfulfilled — the seasoned actor is stirring. Yet "We Have a Pope" ("Habemus Papam") is too gingerly to be persuasive. In his imagining of the papal conclave, Moretti aims for basic verisimilitude but avoids grounding topicality. There's only the slightest reference to contemporary troubles in the Roman Catholic Church, and no sense of politics or ambition among the cardinals assembled to choose a new pontiff.

Tony Millionaire spends his nights in the garage. That's where you'll find him, in a space built just wide enough for a Model T, bent over his drawing table until 4 a.m., a beer never far from his fingertips. The wife and kids can hear him in there, listening to talk radio or laughing and shouting, with the occasional crash when things are not going well. He is happy this way, a cartoonist left to his own whims and solitude at his 1926 home in Pasadena, drawing his weekly "Maakies" comic strip about a hard-drinking, suicidal crow or his ongoing series of portraits of the famous and infamous for publications such as the Believer and New York Magazine.

It’s hard to imagine that anyone could survive anything as brutal as a gunshot wound to the head. And yet about 10% of the time, such victims do live. But what happens next? What kinds of lives do – can – people go on to have? To get a sense of the possibilities, staff writer Melissa Healy interviewed four victims of such injuries and chronicled their lives since the event: Leonard Rugh, shot in 1969 while serving in Vietnam; Matthew Gross, shot on the observation deck of the Empire State Building in 1997; Jackie Nink Pflug, shot in Malta in 1985 during an airplane hijack; Danny Rodriguez, shot in 2009 during a run-in with a gang after a party.

SANFORD, Fla. - For many Americans, George Zimmerman has become the face of barbarous vigilante justice. For Olivia Bertalan, he was the face of compassion: a neighbor of consummate graciousness and low-key gallantry. About six months before Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in his town house complex, he was standing in Bertalan's doorway, asking what he could do to help her. A group of young men had just broken into Bertalan's town house as she and her infant cowered in a locked bedroom.

The Odds A Love Story Stewart O'Nan Viking: 179 pp., $25.95 This is how we meet them: "The final weekend of their marriage, hounded by insolvency, indecision, and, stupidly, half-secretly, in the never-distant past ruled by memory, infidelity, Art and Marion Fowler fled the country. " This middle-age Midwestern couple doesn't go far: just to Niagara Falls, where they spent their honeymoon. There is a cache of cash involved and a desperate gambling plan that, if Art has his way, will make everything right.