Few contemporary artists have been able to transcend historical precedents without maligning them. Yet Manuel Saiz has been able to acknowledge the important changes in art of the past few years, drawing on a collective creativity and transforming it for his own purposes. Although he works as a landscapist in the grand tradition, he has claimed a territory that is all his own. His landscapes are circular and dynamic, simultaneously subjective and objective; he reclaims a tradition of the artist as both interpreter and creator. To Saiz, everything is fodder for the artist, but at the same time