Obituaries in The New York Times give account of the lives of the people around us — what they accomplished and how they lived — and reading them can be an exercise in discovering, or rediscovering, the marvelous things they left behind.

Here is a sampling of such legacies from recent weeks.

A World of Color

Carlos Cruz-Diez luxuriated in color. His installations, light constructions and paintings were suffused with rich hues that brought viewers into what this Venezuelan artist called “chromatic situations.” His work appeared on the hull of a ship, an airport floor, a Los Angeles crosswalk. He was one of Latin America’s most important artists in the second half of the 20th century and beyond.