In the final room of the exhibit Hudson River School Masterpieces from the New-York Historical Society, now on view at The Society of the Four Arts through Sunday, there are two striking portraits of the men considered to be the fathers of the movement: Thomas Cole and Asher Durand.

One could also pronounce them the fathers of American art because, during their lifetimes, they gave credence to the United States as a place where artists could find unparalleled inspiration – and make a viable living with their work.

Thomas Cole was merely 22 when his work was discovered, in 1825, in a New York City shop by Durand and two other painters, John Trumbull and William Dunlap. They quickly purchased all three of his paintings (for a mere $25 each) and Trumbull remarked to the dealer, “I am delighted, and at the same time mortified. This youth has done at once, and without instruction, what I cannot do after 50 years of practice.”

Durand and Cole would develop a bond of friendship that lasted until Cole’s untimely death in 1848.

When you look at the portraits of Cole and Durand, you are looking at two men who are emblematic of the idealism that dominates the work of the Hudson River School. These painters boldly traipsed the “path less taken” and returned, not just with pretty pictures, but with pictures that would later be recognized as ones that built a national identity.

The portrait of Cole was done by his friend, Daniel Huntington. In it he looks like the kind and humble man that he is often portrayed as. Durand painted his own self-portrait in which he shows himself as an earnest young man who seems to be on the verge of doing something great.

The Hudson River, which flows south 315 miles from its origin in the Adirondacks to the port of New York City, was the epicenter of American art because of both its proximity to the city, a major center for commerce and therefore a place where wealthy collectors would congregate, and because of its unbridled beauty. The painters worked from the city northward and that is how the exhibit is arranged.

“The paintings are grouped together to illustrate a trip up the Hudson River into the heart of the Catskills and beyond and then also further afield,” said curator Linda Farber, senior art historian for the New-York Historical Society.

As you travel northward on the river from the city, you move into the valley that surrounds it. It is a place of sublime beauty. There is a plethora of magnificent vistas that can still be seen today, though not quite as uncluttered. These are what inspired Cole, Durand and their followers.

Those that have seen it know that the river has moods. These depend on season and light. In the winter it can be stark and foreboding. In the autumn it can be glorious surrounded by a myriad of changing colors.

“There is dramatic weather on the Hudson and in the Catskills,” Farber said. “Artists would use this to evoke an emotional response.”

There is one mood, though, that seems to dominate and that is the serene mood that is evoked by the glow of sunlight found at either the beginning or the end of the day. This famous glow actually led to the second generation of artists – such as Frederick Edwin Church and John Frederick Kensett – to be later aptly named the Luminists.

The glow is evident, at the beginning of our journey, in New York Harbor, N.Y., by Francis Augustus Silva. It was the Hudson, after the completion of the Erie Canal, which contributed to the vibrant growth of New York City. Here, Silva captures both the busy port and returning boats with a quiet stillness.

But it was actually to escape the bustle of city that artists fled northward into the Hudson River Valley for retreat and respite. The most famous paintings of this era are of unblemished views of the valley awash in greenery with little other than nature, and an occasional traveler or animal, to dominate the canvas. Nature plays the starring role in these works, causing many to view these painters as the first environmentalists. For many, nature represented not just an escape from the banal, but also a spiritual mecca.

You can see the type of worship that was bestowed on the natural landscape in paintings such as Adirondack Mountains, N.Y., by Asher Durand. It would be easy to think that Durand may have embellished in the work, perhaps making the scenery more beautiful than it actually was. But admirers of the Hudson Valley, even today, will tell you that this is actually how beautiful the region is. So one sees through Durand’s eyes how even more awe-inspiring it was before there were houses, shopping malls and corporations dotting the landscape.

This exhibit also draws attention to the fact that many of these artists traveled to Italy as an additional source of inspiration. Cole studied and lived in Italy twice. You can see this influence in works such as his Study for Dream of Arcadia. Italy is beautifully depicted in View of the Roman Coliseum at Sunset, Italy, by Thomas Hiram Hotchkiss, amongst others. Italy represented a place of romantic ideals and historical lessons learned.

The exhibit also brings you to areas beyond the Hudson where these artists traveled for additional respite, recreation and inspiration. Jasper Francis Cropsey’s Greenwood Lake, New Jersey depicts the location of his summer home. It’s the place where he met and courted the woman who became his wife. Additional works show other areas throughout New England where these painters traveled for inspiration. It’s a joyful journey—one that has not just artistic, but deep historical, significance.

The most important part of the legacy of these artists is that they bore witness to a nascent country that would soon be engulfed by the effects of industry, which would forever change this landscape. They captured a moment and their work defined our nation to outsiders before modern communications devices were available to capture or transmit images and sounds. They felt it was their duty, and — for many — their calling, to do so.

They would convey on canvas how one feels — the quiet gasp for air — that results when being overwhelmed by the powerful beauty of nature.

Jenifer Mangione Vogt is a marketing communications professional and resident of Boca Raton. She’s been enamored with painting for most of her life. She studied art history and received her B.A. from Purchase College.

Hudson River School Masterpieces from the New-York Historical Society is now on view at The Society of the Four Arts until March 20, 2011. Hours for this exhibition are Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $5. For more information call 655-7226, or visit www.fourarts.org.

Two of the current shows at the Boca Raton Museum of Art are easy to miss. But you don’t want to.

One gives us the dramatic touch of Goya, the playful Miró and the erotic side of Picasso. The other is a good bite of Latin American art. And I’m not talking Diego Rivera, Amelia Pelaez or Frida Kahlo. Believe it or not, Latin America has more where they came from.

More than 60 graphic works including lithographs, etchings and woodcuts encompass Romanticism to Modernism: Graphic Masterpieces from Piranesi to Picasso, running through June 19.

This is a black-and-white show for the most part, with six etchings from Francisco Goya’s series The Disasters of War as preamble. The 80-etchings series, published 35 years after Goya’s death, was not only a crystal-clear statement against the war but a steady one. That the artist produced more than 80 in a 10-year span (1810-1820) speaks to his strong unwavering position. As if the graphic content of the works did not speak loud enough, we get the artist’s comments as titles.

In Tampoco, (Nor this) violence and struggle are taking place right before our eyes. Much like Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari (minus the horses) and Michelangelo’s Battle of the Centaurs, Goya’s figures appear intertwined, bodies pulled, twisted, folded in uncomfortable positions. The arms, legs and heads are hard to trace back to a source.

But the more you look, the clearer it becomes that the battle is already lost. Two swords lie to the right of the panel. The expression on the male figure in the foreground is one of pain and defeat. From his compromising position his left hand still tries to push the enemy away, but it’s already too late; he is too weak.

Cruel Lastima! (A Cruel Shame!) gives us a frail-looking man holding a hat who is left with no choice but to beg for money or food. He looks tired and his clothes seem dirty. At his feet, sitting on the ground, is a woman holding a child that could be dead or alive. Another child, with not even a full head of hair yet, lies facing the land. He is one of several corpses. It is a moving, somber depiction of misery and hunger that can still inspire compassion today, even from an audience daily fed with vivid accounts of tragedies.

The Pier with Chains, Plate XVI, from the series Carceri d’Invenzione (Imaginary Views of Prisons) continues the dark tone of the show but with a much more elaborate composition full of arches, columns and stairs. The shadowy little figurines appear to be adornments more than actual humans. That the structures seen here appear imaginary is no surprise: This is one in a series of prints by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, an Italian artist who is recognizable for his architectural fantasies and fictional representations of ruins. The style, known as caprice, usually welcomes the viewer in to examine the spaces and travel around the structure as if we were really there.

A departure from these dark visions of reality comes later with colorful pochoirs (stencils) by Joan Miró and works by Marc Chagall, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Georges Rouault, who offers probably the boldest lines in the whole show with his infant-like pieces sharing the title: Cirque de l’Étoile Filante (The Shooting Star Circus).

Two samples from Miró’s famous Constellation Series are here, along with one of his most surreal prints: Personnages devant le mer (Figures by the sea) in which a couple reaching out to each other run the risk of becoming one and the same person. The female, shown with a frown and black and white breasts, is to the right.

One of my favorite stencils here – The Cock, by Miró -- features bright reds, yellows and greens and the central figure of a bird singing to a red sun up in the sky. Looking at it we can almost hear the animal’s cry; it’s less of a song and more like scream, a loud necessary stance against that bloody sun or, perhaps, because of it.

The exhibit delivers the final touch with 21 of Pablo Picasso’s graphic works, including etchings from the Vollard Suite such as Faune Revealing a Sleeping Woman (Jupiter and Antiope, After Rembrandt). Here a hairy muscular man-beast gently uncovers the sleeping Antiope. As if ordered by gods, the sunlight travels from left to right revealing more than the female’s curves.

Combat de Centaures IV is a simple depiction of a battle where one has already lost. Think about conveying drama and aggression in a few words. Picasso does it here with minimal lines that travel freely from the right side of the print to the left, delivering a fatal touch.

Yes, some of these you have seen before, but it is worth revisiting just because of the references to gods and ancient myths, things Picasso did not usually have time for, not until he turned to Southern France, away from city lights. Before this, Paris was his god. Not here. Here we get Bacchus, knights and pages. Also, watch for the artist’s take on old Degas at a brothel surrounded by girls.

Romanticism to Modernism tries on dark, bold, then childish, sensual and provocative. Housed in the Education Gallery room, the show feels intimate and personal and is certainly worth our time. Unfortunately, because it is next to the colorful costumes exhibit (the main star among the shows now running) visitors are seduced away from it.

This is the same problem with the second show: Latin American Art from the Museum's Collection, running through May 1. Most works here are done large-scale and are equally fascinating as those in the first show, though way smaller in number. But it is running in the auditorium, which means next to the museum store, and if you passed the admission/information counter you have already missed it.

At only 20 pieces, Latin American Art is meant as an introduction of important artists whose works portray themes many have expressed before: politics, society, cultural roots and the search for cultural identity. It is the diverse ways in which this group of artists, sharing the same culture, expresses these ideas that makes this a very nice show.

That internal journey/struggle to find one’s place in a new land is externalized here in SubRosa, a large-scale piece by Cuban artist Arturo Rodriguez, who has lived in Miami since 1974. The painting is divided into various panels shaped as tree leaves, each depicting a different event or scenes from the same story. The figures are almost always losing balance. They are either hanging, holding on to a rope or drowning.

In a few cases, they manage to fly aided with wings made out of leaves. The central figure is not an angel or a savior. Nobody is looking at her for help. It seems to me she is in the worst spot of all. Trapped in a blue middle, she is either being sucked in by the sky or from down under, maybe both at the same time. Everything is possible. A boat, in another panel, is sinking in a pool.

It is an image of chaos, constant movement, unpredictability. There is no place for certainty here or reassurance of any kind. And then, just like that, we step into Julio Larraz’s Atlantida, a set of three pieces offering tilted views of the sky and the sea. This Havana-born artist is known for his cloud studies and indeed, clouds are impressively depicted here.

If you have time, sit, take a minute or two to breathe the clean air. Imagine yourself on a speedboat or skydiving. From this high up, it is the dark deep blue sea that commands attention, respect and even fear. Don’t look down. Focus on the sky and be at ease.

These Larraz paintings are amazing in that very quickly they place us in the middle of a panoramic adventure no matter where you are standing in the room. One look at them is enough to take us there.

But one thing is true here. Every single piece, even those that may seem comical, carries a serious tone. Such is the case of Star of the Gardens, which Chilean artist Roberto Matta (1911-2002) created as a take on the man-machine interaction. Green has taken over the entire space. The figures do not look human, either.

To begin with, they have helmet-like heads. But two of them (the little ones to the left) give each other signs of affection while two “adults” (to the right) stare. Above the small figures a white star is erupting: There is hope (I guess).

Innocence plays a definite role in The Giraffe, by Uruguay’s Ignacio Iturria, and the work is done in real-kid fashion, meaning on cardboard, but the dark, limited colors take the fantasy away, replacing it with the vision of a seemingly tougher childhood.

On your way out, make sure to take a look at the three small figurative sculptures by Francisco Zúñiga (1912-1998), a Mexican artist born in Costa Rica. The ones here are done in bronze with green patina. Seated Nude, my favorite, is to the left. At 6 inches tall, it depicts a female squatting, slightly leaning toward the left and looking curiously at something. Both hands rest on her left foot, as if she had been there for a long time already.

As anticipated, Latin American Art leaves me wanting more. It is not that the works shown here do not impress me. It’s just that I’m greedy, which is why I like the idea of having more than one show to explore.

To have two exhibits of manageable sizes running at the same time makes more sense to me than putting together one huge show. Although when it comes to retrospectives, more is understandably the way to go. But this is not the case here. A tease is better than surfeit.

I don’t suggest you visit the museum and miss its main start. If you get pulled in by the eccentric fashion styles of Jack Sparrow and the Duchess, that’s perfectly all right. Just remember there are two additional shows hidden, like treasures, waiting to be noticed. They will not wait forever.

Frames always come down and news ones go up. But at least here, for now, you can have it all.

The Boca Raton Museum of Art is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, noon to 7 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Tickets (through April 17) are $14, $12 for senior citizens, $6 for students. Call 392-2500 or visit www.bocamuseum.org for more information.

There's something to be said for the sort of tradition that manages to intrigue upon each arrival, and when it does so in the guises of filigreed robots, childhood make-believe, or the lipsticked grit of a Bayou starlet -- all the better, I say.

So unfolds this year’s southXeast: Contemporary Southeastern Art at Florida Atlantic University’s galleries, which presents the efforts of 13 Southeastern artists, including three of Florida’s own (Carl Knickerbocker, Clive King, and Beatriz Monteavaro). Housed in both the university's Schmidt and Ritter galleries, the show strips the term “regional” of its aw-shucks connotations and addresses the texture that may be found when playfulness is executed with an eye towards the hallucinatory, whether rooted in the real or in the wholly imagined.

Let’s be clear: this assembly of works is not reinventing the aesthetics of identity. The collage, installation, video, drawing, and paintings found here utilize recognizable tropes to address gender, or to lift the banal into loftier realms of contemplation. Pop-culture personalities such as Elvis, or the racially charged appropriation of a “Sambo” character, for example, are once again introduced as metaphors for desire or perception.

But our recognition of them serves as context for many of these studies, and as a way of entering the psychologies they inhabit. Thus, the familiar is but a doorway to enjoyment, particularly of the skillful use of materials found here.

Upon first entering the Schmidt, visitors will encounter Renella Rose Champagne, a hard-knocked but hopeful singer whose life is portrayed by Louisiana-based performance artist Stephanie Patton. The clichéd details of a life are pinned to the gallery wall like dead and dusty butterflies: turquoise cocktail napkins stamped with Renella’s wedding date, cheap nylon nighties, a CD listening station (You had your eye on everyone at the party/All the girls resembled Pamela Anderson Leeee...), and some photos of Renella as a spokesmodel for weirdo comfort products, such as an anxiety harness and a heart pillow (“a soft cushion that gently supports the weary heart”).

The impression is twofold: First, Patton, who has played Renella for 18 years, confidently speaks to how humor and the careful indexing of personal objects can be used to explore the self. Second, the installation preps viewers for the works to follow, many of which also use levity and the commonplace to investigate how we present ourselves and how we are perceived.

We see this in Kathy Yancey’s mixed-media collages; they enshrine the wishful thinking of the young in settings which blend fables with the common, such as a Hieronymus Bosch-like garden assembled from the plastic petals and leaves one might find at a dollar store. Within this thicket, a little cowgirl rides a white pony alongside Elvis Presley, who appears in pre-bloat form and looks upon her with fatherly love.

A thumbnail of this same image appears as a painting in Yancey’s Vision in the Waiting Room, which also portrays how invention can allow us to escape our immediate surroundings and transport the self from drudgery, or even misfortune, to faraway places filled with color and light -- in this case, an ocean buoyantly cluttered with bright fish and coral. Yancey’s nod to Bosch, as well as Matisse’s dancers, gives another layer of context to her assemblages, and they are some of the most accomplished offerings found in the show.

Also notable are Damond Howard’s transformative wall-sized charcoals of African-American men. Their side-by-side analysis of legitimacy and stereotyping expand figurative drawings into historical and social condemnations.

On to the Ritter Galleries, where the exhibit continues in darker confines that are illuminated by Carl Knickerbocker’s raw and garish palettes. In this self-taught artist’s hands, what might typically appear as a cheering living room is instead a fairy tale gone awry, sort of along the same lines as Neil Gaiman’s novel-turned-movie Coraline. As with many of the works in this show, all is not as it initially appears, and one is left to consider not only what’s before the eyes but what has been left out, and why.

In Knickerbocker’s work, this includes the featureless face of an elongated woman, looming in a doorway while a smaller version of herself emerges from a garden pot. It sounds amusing, but the artist’s disjointed perspectives indicate something is wrong.

SouthXeast closes with an installation by Miami-based artist Beatriz Monteavaro: We Saw Creatures groups 62 drawings, four amorphous soft sculptures, four latex heads and a “Serpent to Sting You.” First off, black light rules, and is an element woefully underused in contemporary art because ignoring it discounts the power of time travel. By this I mean black light’s ability to instantly transport us to the tastes of pre-adolescence, such as collecting glow-in-the-dark posters or visiting haunted houses at county fairs.

Monteavaro, however, is unabashed in her tribute to this age, and her monster art features devils, mummies, lizard creatures, and other old-school horror villains. The whole gallery has become the room of a child who’s spent hours reading horror comics or watching Creature Features. Rather than gruesome, the installation is nostalgic and delightfully innocent in its backward glance toward youth, before we learn that there are worse things in the world than the ones we dream up.

southXeast: Contemporary Southeastern Art runs through April 9 at the Schmidt Center Gallery and through March 5 at the Ritter Art Gallery, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton. Hours: 1-4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 1-5 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free; donations welcome. Call 561-297-2966 or visit www.fau.edu/galleries.

Certain media, subjects and sizes benefit an artist more than others. And something in the creation process usually gets lost, while going from one to another. Some highlight skill while others harm it. Some encourage innovation while others enforce limits.

It is hard to be consistently extraordinary. But the Flagler Museum’s current show focuses on a man who was.

Named appropriately The Extraordinary Joseph Urban, running through April 17, the show gently introduces us to the world created by an architect, illustrator, set designer and artist who went on to design sets for the opera stages of Boston and New York and for the Ziegfeld Follies, as well as buildings throughout the world.

The exhibit is housed in three gallery rooms and consists of watercolor design drawings, illustrations, sculptures, set models and some furniture pieces designed for hotels and restaurants. We find the occasional photographs of the artist and the only surviving rendering of the demolished Oasis Club, in Palm Beach (here in the second room). It is a 1926 piece done in watercolor over pencil on board. There are also the only surviving vintage copies of Urban's elevations of the Mar-a-Lago estate.

All in all, the show is a tiny drop of a brilliant career that officially began at age 19 with a commission to design a new wing for the Abdin Palace in Cairo. Consider that by the time he died, in 1933, Urban had designed more than 500 stage sets for more than 168 productions.

Urban (1872-1933) could not have been born in a better place at a better time. The Vienna of those years saw an artistic explosion that included, but was not limited, to artists, composers, poets and philosophers. Inner exploration, the search for the true self and the true mind were no strange practices either. It has been suggested that Urban was influenced by some radical theories that were starting to circulate then, courtesy of Dr. Sigmund Freud.

He trained as an architect and admired personalities such as Gustav Klimt and architect Adolf Loos. In fact, hints of Klimt are found in numerous small pieces here but are most undeniable in the figural wooden sculpture from 1904 standing in the second room. It is not just the touch of gold here and there on this piece that makes us think of the painter, but the shape of the hair and the posture of the half-naked woman. This reminds us of Klimt’s Salomes or Judiths.

The connection is there again, on the hairpiece of the female dressed in black in Urban’s 1909 drawing titled: Costume Designs for Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin at Stuttgart’s Hofopera. Take a close look at the golden, circular patterns. Look familiar?

Adorable illustrations that Urban created for the Grimm brothers’ fairy tale books and calendars as well as for Hans Christian Andersen books, figure in the first room. They are soft and no doubt intended for a young audience, but in them no detail is forgotten and no expression is faked.

In his drawing titled Snow White, the loving prince dressed more as a knight, places his right hand on the glass capsule containing his beloved dead princess. Rather than muscular, dressed in golden armor, he is slim, consumed by grief or love. You can see the resignation taking over him while he stares at her. The gloomy scene is framed by a leaf motif that adds to the sense of death that is already present in the image.

Even if the main subject is a thing of legends (a mermaid) as in The Little Mermaid, why should Urban surrender the towering thick structure or the wooden medieval bridge to a fantastic world, too? No. He paints them old, humid, showing the effects of a real world: cracks and erosion. Meanwhile, the mermaid is a fragile little being with flowers over her long blonde hair looking toward the distance and away from us. She could not be more magical. Realistic spaces can house imaginary things.

Coming from the first room of fairy tales, the second room appears, at first, too serious.

In a watercolor drawing from 1929 titled Elevation of the New School for Social Research Façade, everything is gray and calculated. No decorations or color here. Just the right number of windows and the right number of doors gives it a sleek/modern look. Nothing about it surprises. Not even the fonts chosen for The New School.

But as your eyes travel to the bottom of the building, there you see what Urban imagined would greet visitors and students at the entrance: books inside glass cases. Some of them are shown opened while others show off their colorful covers. A lamp, a curtain, chairs or a fruit basket are elements he uses even when he does not have to. Throughout the evolution of his buildings, he is keeping everything in mind. Buildings, after all, also have an audience, their own language and can evoke feelings, reactions. They are not created simply to store people or stuff.

In 1912, Urban moved to the United States to become the art director of the Boston Opera. Two years later we find him in New York, where his refreshing use of color and line quickly made him many stage directors’ dream in the flesh. He was the perfect combination: a wild dreamer, studied and disciplined.

The third gallery room focuses on this period of his career and includes about 34 works, excluding set models and a fragment of the 1923 film Little Old New York, whose sets carry the Urban touch. At the time, it was the highest-grossing film, selling more than 200,000 tickets (to complement the exhibit, the museum has organized a special screening of it, at 7 p.m. on March 3 in The Grand Ballroom).

One design drawing in particular is of the Klingsor’s Garden and was done in 1920 for the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Wagner’s Parsifal. An explosion of flowers of colors takes over the stone structures, advancing over and between them, spreading like a good disease. To the right, a plant of lavender tones drops down like a delicate rain.

A less dramatic piece is Design Drawing of the Black Elephant scene (done for the Cohan Theatre’s production of Pom-Pom the Pickpocket). The scene is set by arches and two elephant heads made of stone that appear facing one another; their trunks rest on the ground, near treasure chests. The symmetry is broken down with colorful fabrics, banners and ribbons hanging from balconies and lamps. The steps in the middle, illuminated by what appears to be daylight, seem to be the way out. One can imagine an actor will enter the picture anytime now, running, jumping up and down.

That is pretty much how we leave the show: up and down. That is, we are overwhelmed by his superior skill (which we could never match in quality or magnitude) and yet we feel enchanted. Once the three gallery rooms are consumed, it is still very hard to distinguish exactly what was Urban’s weakness. What size? Medium? Subject? At what point do we see a slight decrease in quality?

Another distinction that this show makes impossible to make is the moment in which the artist stops and enters the architect. The two never seem to separate. There is a dramatic effect to his architectural drawings, which from time to time contain little playful details that perhaps would not have been considered by a more serious, less dreamy, architect.

At the same time, Urban’s stage designs, which are based on fictional places and fictional characters, have a touch of reality. As dreamy and fictional as they appear, there is also the suggested possibility that they exist.

This is an intimidating show, the kind that leaves one speechless because the best thing one could say would still do a lame job of describing the works. As you walk the show, keep in mind that before you is not just an artist who took on every project that came his way but one who delivered, extraordinarily, again and again and again.

THE EXTRAORDINARY JOSEPH URBAN runs through April 17 at the Flagler Museum on Palm Beach. Admission is free with a ticket to the museum. Adults: $18; $10 for youth ages 13-18; $3 for children ages 6-12; and children under 6 admitted free. For more information, call 561-655-2833 or visit www.flaglermuseum.us.

The interstate is really the one road that leads to Cassadaga, I-4 to be exact, and it takes travelers from both the east and west coasts of central Florida to this small hamlet of spiritualists, mediums, psychics, and healers.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this 116-year-old Volusia County community draws both believers and naysayers, those seeking answers or escape, and recently, a gifted artist whose own infatuation with magic and otherworldly realms inspired him to document Cassadaga with two vintage film cameras and an eye that lingers on what is often overlooked.

Now showing at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, All Roads Lead to Cassadaga presents 21 chromogenic prints made by Christiaan Lopez-Miro between 2007 and 2009, when he decided to drive from Miami to cold-call Cassadaga’s residents as subjects. The results are as unlikely as the origins of the town itself -- which was founded after a New Yorker was guided to its hilly acreage by a spirit named “Seneca.”

Yes, I know what it sounds like, but here is what’s remarkable about Lopez-Miro’s photographs. They are not imbued with carnival hokey-ness or snark, or pre-ordained eeriness, or any of the approaches one might expect from such outrageous fodder. Instead, Lopez-Miro offers restraint, which is, in itself, wildly unusual for a young artist exhibiting only his second show (The first, Smoke and Mirrors, displayed portraits of L.A. magicians and was also held at the Center).

The images, then, are allowed to unfold as what they are -- the mundane objects and landscapes of a people entrenched in the mystery of the unseen. And Lopez-Miro understands that what is interesting about Cassadaga is not tied to any purported evidence of the spirit world, but is, rather, rooted in the patient faith of the men and women who live there.

Aptly, the show opens with We Are One, an adage inscribed on a marble bench one might find at a gravesite, but here it rests in the yard of a clapboard house. The image was made at night, and a screen porch glows with the blue and green bulbs so often used to illuminate Florida’s hibiscus hedges and glossy shrubs. The familiarity of the setting is inclusive, as is the message carved on the front of the bench -- we are experiencing a quiet, bucolic sort of evening, but we are also bound together by our mortality. All of our roads will eventually lead to the same destination, and there is ordinary beauty found along the way.

Lopez-Miro is also taken with darkness and its many gradations. His negative spaces can appear fathomless, such as in Fountain, in which a slim geyser of water rises into the air and descends on the surface of a basin. Each ripple is precisely delineated, and then dissolves into an impenetrable black. By placing the tangible alongside the unknowable, the artist threads the shadows that surround some of his portraits and still-lifes with a complexity that is at once secretive and forthcoming.

Colby Temple Healing, for example, depicts a tight circle of healers and seekers, with hands raised or laid on the afflicted; light illuminates faces and fingers but not much else of the room. All appear in a trance, yet the photograph welcomes the viewer as part of the proceedings. The image was made from the perspective of someone standing at the edge of this tightly formed gathering, where no one is looking at the camera and all are seemingly unaware of its presence.

This eyes-drifting-elsewhere trait appears in several of the artist’s subjects, and it suits their work and rituals. They are revealed as regular folk, with preferences for velour recliners, wood paneling, or plastic flowers stuffed into a nightstand vase, but Cassadagans are also listening to some off-set music the rest of us do not hear. And the distraction that appears on their faces while they are photographed, whether staged or not, perfectly depicts this.

Lopez-Miro’s aesthetics have widened. His prior show featured traditionally posed subjects, most staring directly at the camera while inhabiting the ornate sets magicians might use in their acts. This current show departs from this people-centric premise and focuses equally on the objects and interiors that charge a place with atmosphere. And there is plenty of it tucked into the modest corners of this place. Daylight films the windows on either side of a church piano, a common green vine is strung with tiny mirrors. In these photographs, a devout attention to detail transforms the quotidian into the wondrous.

Christiaan Lopez-Miro: All Roads Lead to Cassadaga runs through Feb. 20 at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood. Also showing: Lea Nickless: Water and Oil (through Feb. 20) and Abracadabra (through Feb. 18). Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday; noon-4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $7 for adults; $4 for students, seniors, and ages 4-17. Call 954-921-3274 or visit www.ArtandCultureCenter.org.