Goatfell Arran

Thick slabs of paint do all the work here. Peter King builds this view of Goatfell, the highest peak on Scotland's Isle of Arran, out of ridges and smears left by a palette knife rather than a brush. The mountain rises as a wedge of deep blue against a whipped-cream bank of cloud, and the foreground water breaks into chunks of navy, turquoise and sudden orange. Stand close to a painting made this way and the surface reads almost like a relief map, with peaks of dried oil paint catching the light in ways a photograph flattens out.

Goatfell is a granite hump of 874 metres that dominates Arran's skyline, and the island is often called "Scotland in miniature" because it packs highlands, lowlands, beaches and glens into one small package. The mountain's name probably comes from Norse settlers who called it goat mountain, though some argue for the Gaelic for windy hill, which anyone who has climbed it in bad weather will find convincing. King's version is not concerned with getting the ridgelines exactly right. The orange strokes along the shoreline are a painter's decision, not an observation, and they keep the whole expanse of blue from settling into monotony. Look for the small initials in the lower right, pressed into the paint while it was still wet.