In 1930 a handful of farmers in the Podravina village of Hlebine started painting the year they were living through — reapers, vineyards, floods, deer weddings, snow. They painted in oil on the back of a pane of window glass, laying the highlights down first and the sky down last, so the finished picture reads lacquered rather than brushed.

The system takes that literally. A cold celadon ground stands in for the Podravina sky seen through glass; acid field green, folk red and wheat ochre sit on top, flat and saturated; and every element is drawn shut with the same near-black contour. Depth comes from stacked horizontal bands, never from a vanishing point.