Ambitious museum shows in Tulsa, Richmond, and Louisville left an imprint. Jasper Johns, Maya Lin and Latino artists shone. And the high quality of gallery shows of women was dizzying and gratifying.

Assessing the state of any art form can be tricky: Cast your net too broadly and grand pronouncements can seem disjointed; limit your scope too much and those pronouncements seem far less than grand.

Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts never owned a Vermeer, but it has something even rarer, a painting Vermeer copied in two of his own paintings. Dirck van Baburen’s lascivious and satirical “The Procuress” ...

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is using modern technology to stir appreciation for ancient artistry — including an Athenian potter’s transformative “discovery” of red. By Tanya Mohn This article is ...