The Stranger

A Bierstadt painting of Puget Sound is at the center of this show of rarely seen 19th-century landscape paintings borrowed from local private collections. And sure, you can focus on that for a little while. But I would also like to bring your attention to a trio of little paintings by Martin Johnson Heade, the coolest American 19th-century landscape painter. Always included in surveys of the Hudson River School, he's not really one of them. He's weirder, and he puts jokes in his paintings. Look for the haystack with a cowlick, the ridiculous clouds, and the ghosts of erased things on his paintings. The man is just a good time. (Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave, 654-3100, 10 am– 5 pm, $15 suggested) by Jen Graves

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