The clearest and most unequivocal feeling that viewers gleaned from this show of Pieter Vermeersch’s work—conceived by the artist specifically for the spaces of M-Museum in Leuven and curated by Eva Wittocx—was one of complete immersion, space after space, in what we might call the essence of painting: thought distilled into color. Vermeersch provided this potent sensory experience in part via the installation of five monumental painted walls, or what he calls “gradient murals.” He achieved the murals’ monochrome fading via innumerable tonal variations—yet the effect felt physically real, as if