Hopefully, by the time you read this (or shortly thereafter) the Cincinnati Art Museum will have opened 'Imperishable Beauty: Art Nouveau Jewelry,' the twice-delayed exhibition of more than 100 turn-of-20th-Century pieces from the finest American and European designers and jewelers.  

When is a tiger not just a tiger? An eagle more than an eagle? When they're painted as messages about social and political conditions, philosophies about leadership and cultural values. This was the case during the Chinese Imperial Court between the 11th and 19th centuries, when its painters used animals as symbols. Many of the meanings of these images had been lost, but Hou-Mei Sung, curator of Asian art at the Cincinnati Art Museum, has rediscovered them.  

This wonderful new documentary, which is about some unusual contemporary art collectors, has broad human-interest appeal because of its affectionate yet inquisitive look at what makes people want to live with art and seek to acquire the best they can find. It's also a profoundly patriotic and pro-American government movie, perfect for Labor Day. Grade: A.  

Expect a jam-packed fall season with a variety of colorful shows from the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Contemporary Arts Center, Taft Museum of Art, the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Gallery, Carl Solway Gallery, Country Club, Manifest Creative Research Gallery and the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center.  

Two popular art museum shows are disproving the notion that the public rarely flocks to prints/graphics shows: 'The Psychedelic Experience: Rock Posters from the San Francisco Bay Area 1965-1971' in Denver and 'Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand' in Boston. The latter show comes to the CAC here in February.  

At the turn of the 20th Century, when a woman's most acceptable occupation was motherhood, Bessie Potter Vonnoh succeeded professionally as a sculptor, flouting convention by focusing on a career instead of raising children. Her success as an independent working artist rested on subject matter that supported traditional notions of women, which makes the Cincinnati Art Museum's current exhibition of her work all the more fascinating.   

Cincinnati Art Museum has launched so many new exhibitions this summer — large and small — that it's hard to keep up with them all. But 'Outside the Ordinary: Contemporary Art in Glass, Wood and Ceramics' from the Wolf Collection is a don't-miss-it stunner.  

Before discussing the Cincinnati Art Museum's recently announced plans for its 2009-10 exhibition season, it's worth noting that the museum is coming off a high point: The just-concluded 'Surrealism and Beyond' show of work from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem drew more than 40,000 visitors.  

It isn't yet as big as Opening Day, but the Fountain Square Floral Carpet is becoming a local Rite of Spring. The carpet consisting of some 24,000 potted pansies, with lettuce plants providing verdancy, was installed April 7. But that doesn't mean it won't change over the course of the next several weeks.  

As the Cincinnati Art Museum enters the last month of 'Isn't It Great to Be an Artist?,' the debut exhibit of its bold new Robert A. Lewis Collection of (mostly) folk and outsider art, the show has sparked much discussion about the perennial question of "What is art?"