In One Life for Two, The Autobiography of Irving and Marilyn Lavin, art historian Marilyn Aronberg Lavin succumbs to the temptation to settle scores. But the 400-plus diaristic pages present more fascinating anecdotes and informative accounts than a revenge narrative.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s spectacular Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature is the first major survey of his paintings and drawings in the United States. Only five Friedrich paintings are owned by US museums; many of the more than seventy-five works in oil, pencil, and ink came from substantial repositories of Friedrich’s work at the show’s German co-organizer museums in Berlin, Dresden, and Hamburg.