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Rembrandt used drawing in the 17th century the way 21st-century artists use photography: to record people, places and things, and as source material or preparatory studies for his works. There is no consensus on how many drawings he produced, but some estimates place the number in the thousands. A selection from his prodigious output is on view in ''Drawings by Rembrandt, His Students and Circle From the Maida and George Abrams Collection,'' which features more than 50 drawings by nearly two dozen artists. Rembrandt's drawings reflect an environment that, in certain respects, wasn't so different from our own. Amsterdam in the 17th century was a wealthy and cosmopolitan trading center, and Rembrandt, unlike many of his European peers, did not travel for education or inspiration; he got what he needed right there. The art market in which he worked rose and fell along with persistent wars and speculative economies, like the tulip mania crash of 1637. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Can artists change the world? They aren't granted as many opportunities as politicians or armies. But when all else fails, the visionary thinking of artists has become public policy. Ten years ago an artist turned mayor painted dilapidated buildings with bright primary colors in Tirana, Albania, performing a kind of art therapy on a depressed city. And in Bogota, Colombia, traffic police were replaced with mimes in the hope of supplanting corruption and violence with playful street theater. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 1980s were a complicated decade for American art. New York was back from the brink of bankruptcy, but gentrification was killing bohemianism. The art market flourished, but it also created a lopsided demand for painting and other market-friendly mediums. Art stars were born, but artists were dying of AIDS. All of this serves as a backdrop for ''Circa 1986'' at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art in Peekskill. The show features 65 works by 47 artists, made between 1981 and 1991, and was organized by John Newsom, Astrid Honold and Nicola Trezzi: a painter, a curator and an editor. The works are all drawn, however, from six private New York collections, including that of the founders of the art center, Marc and Livia Straus, and their children, Ari and Sarena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When is a painting finished? For the old masters, it was pretty straightforward: when the varnish went on, the painting was finished. Later, things got murkier. The Impressionists were criticized because their canvases looked, to their contemporaries, like dashed-off preliminary sketches. ''Fairfield Porter: Raw/The Creative Process of an American Master'' at the Parrish Museum in Southampton provides a more recent, but similarly complicated, case. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reviews the exhibitions "Moroni: The Riches of Renaissance Portraiture" "Betye Saar: Keepin it Clean", and "Nari Ward: We the People" being held in New York City.