David Bates’ bucolic subjects are not the loaded or melodramatic stuff typical of current painting. In Fall Fire, 1984, for example, a young man wearing a brimmed hat, a sleeveless sweater, and Hush Puppies rests on freshly raked grass, contemplating a small pile of burning leaves and the local color. Beside him lies his black and white collie, a retrieved stick between the dog’s paws. A red-handled rake leans against the same tree as the contemplative young man. Nothing untoward occurs here, nothing out of joint. No art-historical allusions present themselves, save, perhaps, the eccentrically