Cool, anonymous and morbid

If you were to wander round the Luc Tuymans exhibition at Tate Modern (until 26 September) without any previous knowledge of the artist (and with a disinclination to read the information panels), you might come away with the impression that here was a rather traditional painter, eclectic as to subject matter, with a distinctively pale, washed-out palette. The portraits, still lifes and occasional landscape would reassure with their pseudo-familiarity. The faded, emotive colours might even seduce aesthetically. You might enjoy what you construed as a fey poetic vein in the artist, or an attractive intimacy of statement. But you would be wrong. Tuymans deals in banality and horror, and his work is about the nature of history and memory. The trouble is, you have to be told this before the work starts to harbour these meanings. This is art which is entirely reliant upon verbal explanation.

There is, for instance, a beguiling vertical triptych in the fourth room of the exhibition, painted in an unusually soft and muddy orange.