The Irish Museum of Modern Art’s working title for this unashamedly heterodox survey of twentieth-century European painting was “A Case for Painting.” This was replaced at a relatively advanced stage with the less-defensive moniker “The Pursuit of Painting.” While the earlier title aptly reflected IMMA’s customarily skeptical approach toward aesthetic tradition, the later one echoed the more celebratory attitude of the show’s guest curator, the painter Stephen McKenna. The museum’s programming has regularly called attention to the fractured, and indeed fractious nature of twentieth-century art