Arnold’s landscapes want you to pay more attention to their interruptions than the subject itself. If you imagine the painter mounting a ladder in some field so he can reach the treetops on his large, thickly covered canvases, you would also need to notice the meteorite brutally cutting the sky in half. How the artist survived its impact, before witnessing it again the next day, is the very question of art and nature.
This trick is disarmingly simple, of course, as is the exhibition’s pairing of Arnold’s paintings with Baer’s off-hand architectural follies. One dare not ask for more.
