When in the title of one of his paintings (O Alberi proteggete questa mostra: Sono uno di voi, 1982) Nicola De Maria implores the trees to stand watch over his exhibition because he is, after all, one of their own, we are not dealing with gushing, pantheistic coquetry but with a leitmotiflike expression of De Maria’s artistic credo. His creative impulse is rooted in his childhood and adolescent memories of his southern Italian origins, memories of a world of light, color, and tenderness. In his paintings he conjures up those rare moments of original sensibility to which children seem so much