Landscape 1961

This is Jules Engel's starkly expressive 'Landscape.' The composition is immediately striking, dominated by broad, gestural strokes of black ink against the stark white paper. These bold marks coalesce to suggest a landscape, but one abstracted to its most essential forms. The heavy application of ink creates a dense, almost impenetrable mass in the foreground, while the upper portion features more open, linear strokes. These evoke a sense of depth and space. The contrast between these areas creates a dynamic tension, pulling the eye across the surface. Engel’s use of abstraction invites us to question our perceptions of space and representation. The landscape here is not a literal depiction but rather a semiotic field, where signs of nature are reconfigured into new meanings. Ultimately, this work functions as both an aesthetic object and a site of intellectual inquiry, reflecting Engel’s broader engagement with abstraction and its potential to disrupt conventional modes of seeing.