Into the austere, windy surf scene on the opposite page, into the realistic but unreal city below it, Raymond Breinin (rhymes with winin' & dinin') has put the quality that sets him apart from most of his Midwestern contemporaries: his mystical imagination.
Many of Breinin's imaginary landscapes, like The City, introduce medieval figures of religion or enchantment into modern, urban scenes. Others actually show medieval streets peopled with monks and harlequins. Still others, like The Beach, are dry, pastel-shaded landscapes in which human figures take on the impersonal quality of the sand and...