David Kroll’s self-conscious immersions into a specific art-historical genre are so fully conversant with the milieu of his sources as to constitute a kind of esthetic necrophilia. His recent paintings depict a wistful neo-Romantic world where nature and humankind coexist in uneasy and poignant relation, where balance and order are tenuous. Kroll employs a certain formula—in the background he always depicts wispy and puffy trees in a manner reminiscent of Gainsborough. These trees and the skies around them are rendered in misty sepia hues of brown and caramel that give these works the appearance