Tacked on the wall of a large converted greenhouse in the once exclusive socialite enclave of Tuxedo Park, north of New York City, is an 8th century Chinese poem:
/ would not paint a face, a rock, nor
brooks, nor trees
Mere semblances of things, but
something more than these.
That art is best which to the soul's
range gives no bound,
Something besides the form,
something beyond the sound.
The poem is the credo of Albert Christ-Janer; the greenhouse is the studio where he grows his watercolor studies of something more than nature (see opposite page).
"My pictures are really abstractions," says Christ-Janer, 55,...
