Watermelons, peaches, pears and other fruit in a landscape, Giovanni Stanchi (Rome, c. 1645-1672). Christie’s Images LTD 2015.

Look closely at the watermelon in this painting by seventeenth-century Italian artist Giovanni Stanchi. Yes, that watermelon, in the lower right corner: with its light pink flesh and swirling seed pockets, it doesn’t look much like the melons you’ll find at the supermarket. But that’s what the fruit looked like 350 years ago.

Horticulture professor James Nienhuis PhD’82 uses paintings such as this to show his students how fruits and vegetables have changed over the centuries. He takes his World Vegetable Crops class to the Chazen Museum of Art to look at Renaissance still life paintings so that his students can see in detail how people have bred characteristics into and out of plants.

“With grains, archaeologists can look at actual samples to learn what people ate,” says Nienhuis, “but then, grains are dry. Vegetables, by their nature, have a lot of moisture, so they’re delicate. They don’t last. But still life paintings show us what they looked like.”

Nienhuis says that, in spite of the course’s official title, he calls it Vegetables: Works of Art You Can Eat. “That’s what vegetables are like,” he says. “They’re like rolling up a Monet like a taco and eating it.”

Japanese artist Manabu Ikeda sketches out another small section of the mural he’s creating at UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art. At ten feet by thirteen feet, it’s a massive work, but the overall size is only a small part of the story. Every inch of the artwork is packed with tiny details, all painstakingly rendered in pen and ink. Ikeda’s piece presents a theme of hope springing from despair, and it combines elements that will be familiar to Madisonians with images that resonate with a global audience.

Ikeda has been working on the mural since spring, drawing in the Chazen’s studio lab and trying to complete a section of about three square inches each day. As an artist-in-residence, he opened his studio four days a week through the fall so that visitors could watch him work and ask questions. Take a look at some of the detail pictures and see if you can spot anything that looks familiar.

A major element is a vast, crashing wave, recalling the tsunami that devastated Japan’s Pacific coast. In the wreckage of this wave, look for a billboard from the Wisconsin Dells.

On one slag heap of smashed cars and buildings, a bright red Motion W peeks from the debris.