Not quite, though: The softly stated fluidity with which he handles oil paint belies sophistication, as well as an understanding of culture far and wide. Mr. Fertig isn’t a ham-handed loner given to religious (or perverse) visions. He’s a guy from the tri-state area preoccupied—and how!—with history.

Mr. Fertig’s attentions have long been devoted to the Napoleonic wars. This, in itself, is nothing special, though in our ahistorical age, anyone cognizant of the past is likely to be considered a throwback or a crank. The profoundly eccentric Mr. Fertig is closer to the latter.

It’s not just that he’s peculiarly well-versed in a particular epoch—the period from 1793 to 1815, when Napoleon Bonaparte’s goal of world dominion was at its most ambitious. Mr. Fertig’s eccentricity is better measured by how thoroughly absorbed he is in the era. As his wife puts it, “David really lives in another time.” His knowledge of that time is so deep-seated that it conjures a startling illusion of firsthand experience.

The work’s curious nature owes much to the artist’s expertise, but more to the way in which the images draw in our attention. It’s disconcerting to have Mr. Fertig yank the temporal rug from under our feet. To walk through the exhibition is to be swept away with the painter as he travels through time. His convictions, however quixotic, become our own.

Specificity and historical accuracy count for a lot with Mr. Fertig. When portraying long-dead figures—Jean-Baptiste de Marbot or Captain Best of the 10th Hussars—Mr. Fertig not only conveys a likeness, but a startling sense of the man. How, you wonder, did he capture the flirtatious impudence beneath the noble exterior of Count Kessler, the Duke of Brunswick’s aide-de-camp? Colonel Jacquinot, in contrast, seems a bit of a bore; Captain Best, a thoughtful and compassionate man. It’s as if they were posing directly in front of the artist’s easel.

Mr. Fertig’s access to the past is uncanny. The focus he brings to bear on history is equally (and often more seductively) evident in panoramas depicting sea battles, boats coming ashore, a distant view of Prague and the cleansing light of a crisp blue sky. A couple of the paintings have dates for titles— 1802 and 1793. Due to Mr. Fertig’s adroitness as an artist, we intuit the significance of the year even if we don’t know the event linked with it.

Painters will envy Mr. Fertig’s touch. Affectless, informal and, at times, breezy and brusque, his brush moves with a quiet bravura. Arrant splotches, slippery runs of color, dry drags of a wide brush and hasty accretions of pasty dabs—he handles them all masterfully, sometimes within the span of a single canvas.

The crafting of Safe Harbor (2005), a small painting of four soldiers walking along the beach, is awesomely blunt and alarmingly swift. Within its drift of pale blue, the image comes into being before our eyes. Brushstrokes roil, stutter and sweep, coalescing into an image and then, with calm decisiveness, snapping it into place. Mr. Fertig sums up so much—the gait of the soldiers, the dreadful lull of warfare, an unerring sense of place—with little forethought and even less material.

Only a painter who’s paid his dues could so blithely toss oils around without losing his footing. The pleasures of Mr. Fertig’s paint-handling will appeal almost instantly to contemporary viewers wary of (or befuddled by) his subject matter. Even then, the pictures thwart easy delight. Mr. Fertig’s stylistic approach—an unapologetic clash of 19th-century impulses, a head-on collision of Corot and Vuillard—postdates the events shown. Anachronism powers a subtle tension between image and mode.

Photography informs the work as well. Exactly how is hard to pinpoint, yet its presence is unmistakable. Is it the documentary nature of Mr. Fertig’s pursuit? The silvery tonalities suffusing the imagery? The eerie sense of fleeting events quickly and forever stilled? Gerhard Richter, famously reliant on photographs, could well be a hero of his.

Not that much of a hero, though. Don’t peg Mr. Fertig as postmodern or whatever silly neologism is in fashion; he’s too driven and involved in the work to stand apart from it. Commentary and distance are alien to the work’s overriding aesthetic. Immersion is everything. How refreshing to see an artist brave enough to relinquish himself to his art!

Mr. Fertig’s attempts at larger pictures—nothing too huge: three by six feet or something like that—lack the sureness of the smaller, more typically scaled paintings. Over greater expanses of canvas, his brush sometimes hurries up and peters out. At other times, it takes on a stylistic affectation that makes comparisons with Mr. Richter inevitable and regrettable. The effect is one of effortlessness saddled with scare quotes: Brush strokes feel manufactured and unmoored from the imagery. Mr. Fertig’s skill is rendered stridently conscious, and our pleasure in it is diminished.

These “big” attempts are new, exploratory and transitional. Mr. Fertig is likely to get a handle on larger formats. Given the integrity of this prolific artist’s vision, we can be sure that, at the very least, the results will be worth looking at. In the meantime, the rewards of Mr. Fertig’s puzzling art are abundant enough.

David Fertig is at James Graham & Sons, 1014 Madison Avenue, until Nov. 11.

Mr. Fertig's paintings you can't pass without a second glance. His pictures of battleships with their flags unfurled, soldiers on horseback, men in rowboats heading ashore and Captain Marbot, an officer in Napoleon's army, are odd and alluring, just short of inexplicable. Mr. Fertig's investment in his subject is never in doubt-the paintings don't lack for a pictorial rationale-yet its import remains elusive all the same.

Were he any more compulsive, Mr. Fertig would be easier to peg as an out-and-out nut, someone we can all get a handle on. As it is, he stands at a sober remove from the tumult of history. During the course of over 60 small panels, Mr. Fertig transforms the Napoleonic Wars in to a stylishly deadpan comedy of manners. There's something caustic about Mr. Fertig's enterprise, though what that causticity portends I wouldn't hazard to guess.

Mr. Fertig frustrates ready comprehension-not an endearing trait, to be sure, yet it can make for compelling art. So, too, can a paint-handler of extraordinary, if somewhat conflicted, gifts. A strange mix of intuition and affectation, of unrelenting rigor and impatient caprice, Mr. Fertig can do anything with oils. Whether smearing, splotching or finger-painting, he creates seductive, abrupt and, at times, harsh passagesofatmosphere,lightand space. Imagine an information-age Edouard Vuillard or a Gerhard Richter withheartand you'll have some idea of the puzzling figure cut by Mr. Fertig. Would that he were capable of ingraining a single image with the authority brought to bear on an entire run of pictures. Once that happens, watch out. In the meantime, watch Mr. Fertig go and marvel at the peculiarities of one man's vision.

David Fertig: Paintings is at JG/Contemporary, 1014 Madison Avenue, until March 5.

Fleeting Fashion

Consider these titles: Man Versus Human Nature, Time to Plant Fears, God Is Dad, Jesus Was Married. Note how each phrase expresses contempt for the big idea it poaches upon. Take a look at the sculptures the titles belong to: Ramshackle assemblages cobbled together from wire hangers, concrete blocks, light bulbs and (just so you know sex is in the mix) panty hose, often tautly stretched.

Read the press release and learn that the work explores "rickety concepts of domesticity and religion" and "assumed linguistic and gender codes." Ponder how inflated jargon is deployed as cover for a paucity of artistic invention. Realize that the artist, Sarah Lucas, gained notoriety during the 1990's as a Y.B.A. (Young British Artist), one of several savvy careerists responsible for turning Dadaism into the defining style of our corporate age. Wonder what happens when a Y.B.A. is no longer Y or, rather, H (hot). Conclude, finally, that the Barbara Gladstone Gallery will come full circle when it dumps Ms. Lucas for the next big and fleeting thing.

Sarah Lucas: God Is Dad is at the Barbara Gladstone Gallery, 515 West 24th Street, until March 14.

Small Charms

If it's ambition-free art you crave, the paintings of Sue Chenoweth, the subject of an exhibition at the CUE Art Foundation, will float your boat. That's not an entirely qualitative distinction: There's something to be said for an art of small moments. Ms. Chenoweth's layered compendiums of rude doodles, collaged cutouts and arrant splatters of acrylic give body to private, all but inarticulate reveries. The images-that is, when they haven't been obscured by Ms. Chenoweth's sanded and scuffed surfaces-can be childlike (women sticking out their tongues), schematic (shambling, fantastic architecture), decorative (geometric cutouts) or weirdly reverent (cartoonish scenes of material and sexual excess hinting at a Bible-thumping righteousness).

None of it adds up to much, which may be the point. Trading in half-rememberedsensations,Ms. Chenoweth errs on the side of the nebulous. The three best pieces, seen on the east wall of the gallery, bring some measure of clarity and structure to an overabundance of imagery, ambiguity and pictorial incident. Unfortunately, they hang adjacent to The Rich Man (2005), a lumpish wall painting crafted from Wikki Stix, a waxy, thread-like and altogether unappealing substance. Painters who capitulate to the installation aesthetic only underscore the belief that painting, somehow, isn't enough. I don't think that was Ms. Chenoweth's intention, yet it's enough to prompt qualms about the work's unkempt charms.

Sue Chenoweth is at the CUE Art Foundation, 511 West 25th Street, until March 12.

He's prolific, too. Over the course of 47 smallish pictures, Mr. Fertig is a remarkably consistent paint-handler, able to sustain pictorial clarity when working with closely valued scumbles of color. His gift for abbreviating form while remaining true to its specifics is stunning. True, some of the paintings do get splotchy; and when he runs a comb through a patch of wet oil, he makes me grit my teeth.

Mr. Fertig transforms influence to singular effect, creating a haunting, uncategorizable art from sources as diverse as Sergei Eisenstein, John Marin, Saul Steinberg, R.B. Kitaj and Gerhard Richter. Tapping into history with uncanny ease, Mr. Fertig shows up painters like John Currin, Lisa Yuskavage and Julie Heffernan for the callow dabblers they are. Like most postmodernists, they can't imagine not pretending. Mr. Fertig, in contrast, loses himself in history's flow, respectful of its authority but refusing to be cowed by it. That's how he manages to put brush to canvas like it's 1809 without straining credulity-it's the place where he lives. And when we're looking at his elusive images, it's a place we don't want to leave.

David Fertig: Paintings is at James Graham and Sons, 1014 Madison Avenue, until Nov. 8.

Penitent Joy

A curmudgeon might describe the collages of Janet Malcolm, currently on display at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, as the extracurricular dalliance of a renowned highbrow journalist-and the curmudgeon would be right. Maybe. Ms. Malcolm crafts small abstract collages from sources mundane (old ledgers, tattered letters), mass-produced (vintage magazines) and charged (Nazi insignia). She's content to tread in the byways of precedent. Kurt Schwitters and Kasimir Malevich-both of whom are acknowledged by name-provide the compositional model; Joseph Cornell and Anne Ryan, the fragile diaristic tone. The ephemeral scraps Ms. Malcolm has collected evoke the troubled culture of early 20th-century Europe. The elegiac tone is unmistakable, as is the gentle knack for suggestive juxtaposition.

Ms. Malcolm takes tempered, almost penitent joy in cutting and pasting. It's as if she were relieved to discover that the optimism inherent in making art, though sorely tried by world events, endures. That's exactly the kind of delicate truth a curmudgeon would miss. The rest of us are free to acknowledge the quiet candor of Ms. Malcolm's accomplishment and give her a hand when occasion merits. Take a close look at the understated beauty of Bible (2003) and Ascension Day (2002) and you'll see occasion merits, and then some.

Janet Malcolm: Collages at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, 50 East 78th Street, No. 2-A, until Nov. 26.

Non-Precious

The Ryan McGinness exhibition at Deitch Projects is notable only as an example of a common phenomenon: The young, ambitious artist happy to piss away his talent for the sake of notoriety. Mr. McGinness overlaps absurdist logos-Viking women, businessmen punctured by safety pins, an intestinal tract as blandly anonymous as a deer-crossing sign-against glossy fields of pungent oil color. He has a knack for organizing his free-floating, ornamental arrangements of icons, and he has a knack for screen printing (he ably manipulates the transparency of the process). What he doesn't have is integrity.

Mr. McGinness' pictures replicate the sterile uniformity of assembly-line product-the Warhol thing again. The maze of mirrors, emblazoned with the artist's signature decals, partakes of the funhouse aesthetic typical of trendy mainstream art. He offers a line of custom-designed skateboards and long-sleeved T-shirts. We're told that his approach provides an "antithesis of the traditional art-world concept of the precious original." A picture by Mr. McGinness can set you back $6,500-that's a chunk of change for non-precious merchandise. Never trust an artist who uses theory as camouflage for his careerist hypocrisy.

Ryan McGinness: Worlds Within Worlds is at Deitch Projects, 76 Grand Street, until Nov. 1.

And Makes Its Home in the PastThe first thing you might think upon entering James Graham and Sons' ground-floor space on Madison Avenue is that the gallery has mounted an overview of an unheralded 19th-century painter, something along the lines of the Walter Gay show seen at the same venue last spring. The pictures of castles, duels, naval battles and soldiers on horseback in full military regalia smack of a pageantry whose time has long gone. The smoky post-Impressionist dabbing-as dense as Vuillard, as yielding as Bonnard-has strong period connotations. Compositional strategies hint at a knowledge of Japanese prints, an important resource for painters like Degas and Whistler. Just as you're about to conclude that you've discovered a mysteriously neglected minor French master, you begin to notice how off the pictures are. Suffused with nostalgia and powered by romance, the paintings surrender to neither; the mood is just short of acerbic and decidedly contemporary. Despite the lusciously applied paint, the work is dry, disinterested. The artist, David Fertig, alive and working somewhere in New Jersey, is a conundrum.

He's prolific, too. Over the course of 47 smallish pictures, Mr. Fertig is a remarkably consistent paint-handler, able to sustain pictorial clarity when working with closely valued scumbles of color. His gift for abbreviating form while remaining true to its specifics is stunning. True, some of the paintings do get splotchy; and when he runs a comb through a patch of wet oil, he makes me grit my teeth.

Mr. Fertig transforms influence to singular effect, creating a haunting, uncategorizable art from sources as diverse as Sergei Eisenstein, John Marin, Saul Steinberg, R.B. Kitaj and Gerhard Richter. Tapping into history with uncanny ease, Mr. Fertig shows up painters like John Currin, Lisa Yuskavage and Julie Heffernan for the callow dabblers they are. Like most postmodernists, they can't imagine not pretending. Mr. Fertig, in contrast, loses himself in history's flow, respectful of its authority but refusing to be cowed by it. That's how he manages to put brush to canvas like it's 1809 without straining credulity-it's the place where he lives. And when we're looking at his elusive images, it's a place we don't want to leave.

David Fertig: Paintings is at James Graham and Sons, 1014 Madison Avenue, until Nov. 8.

Penitent Joy

A curmudgeon might describe the collages of Janet Malcolm, currently on display at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, as the extracurricular dalliance of a renowned highbrow journalist-and the curmudgeon would be right. Maybe. Ms. Malcolm crafts small abstract collages from sources mundane (old ledgers, tattered letters), mass-produced (vintage magazines) and charged (Nazi insignia). She's content to tread in the byways of precedent. Kurt Schwitters and Kasimir Malevich-both of whom are acknowledged by name-provide the compositional model; Joseph Cornell and Anne Ryan, the fragile diaristic tone. The ephemeral scraps Ms. Malcolm has collected evoke the troubled culture of early 20th-century Europe. The elegiac tone is unmistakable, as is the gentle knack for suggestive juxtaposition.

Ms. Malcolm takes tempered, almost penitent joy in cutting and pasting. It's as if she were relieved to discover that the optimism inherent in making art, though sorely tried by world events, endures. That's exactly the kind of delicate truth a curmudgeon would miss. The rest of us are free to acknowledge the quiet candor of Ms. Malcolm's accomplishment and give her a hand when occasion merits. Take a close look at the understated beauty of Bible (2003) and Ascension Day (2002) and you'll see occasion merits, and then some.

Janet Malcolm: Collages at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, 50 East 78th Street, No. 2-A, until Nov. 26.

Non-Precious

The Ryan McGinness exhibition at Deitch Projects is notable only as an example of a common phenomenon: The young, ambitious artist happy to piss away his talent for the sake of notoriety. Mr. McGinness overlaps absurdist logos-Viking women, businessmen punctured by safety pins, an intestinal tract as blandly anonymous as a deer-crossing sign-against glossy fields of pungent oil color. He has a knack for organizing his free-floating, ornamental arrangements of icons, and he has a knack for screen printing (he ably manipulates the transparency of the process). What he doesn't have is integrity.

Mr. McGinness' pictures replicate the sterile uniformity of assembly-line product-the Warhol thing again. The maze of mirrors, emblazoned with the artist's signature decals, partakes of the funhouse aesthetic typical of trendy mainstream art. He offers a line of custom-designed skateboards and long-sleeved T-shirts. We're told that his approach provides an "antithesis of the traditional art-world concept of the precious original." A picture by Mr. McGinness can set you back $6,500-that's a chunk of change for non-precious merchandise. Never trust an artist who uses theory as camouflage for his careerist hypocrisy.

Ryan McGinness: Worlds Within Worlds is at Deitch Projects, 76 Grand Street, until Nov. 1.