In a Landscape is Leonardo Anker Vandal’s first journey through the land of form. Always an abstract artist, Vandal was inspired by Song dynasty painters of 12th century China, and for the first time, his paintings take shape – or the hint of it, hovering somewhere between abstraction and landscape.

The technique and palette are familiar from the autumn-hued Adagio paintings that have occupied him for the last decade. His familiar influences are all here, hidden under the surface or in a title: the poetry of Keats, the wistful Lieder of his beloved Mahler, the idea of the artist as The Wanderer or traveler – this latter concept shared by the Song painters.  In some only the merest hint of atmosphere appears, like the sun struggling to show itself through clouds. In others, the dark outlines of mountains take shape. Never to be seen is a human form, as is common in Western tradition. Neither Vandal nor the Song artists painted from life – or at least not external life. Both his landscapes and theirs recall an inner wandering.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde warns that an artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. Vandal breaks this rule. But then again, so did Wilde, and every artist. Vandal’s story is there, but concealed in the ethereal contours of the canvas. So is his hand: like Helen Frankenthaler, Vandal pours the pigment, but it flows where it will. His action is essential, but once taken, the work takes on a life of its own. When Pygmalion wills his sculpture Galatea to life, she is no longer his alone, but must become her own woman out in the world. Where one viewer sees serenity another may see sturm und drang. As Wilde said, all art is surface and symbol. Those who go below the surface do so at their own peril.