Adam’s shimmering “French Landscape,” painted just before his return to America, predicts the artist’s signature Taos style. Already, Adams is playing with the essential geometry of each element: the path is a crisp diagonal; the woman upon it, a right angle supporting a cylinder. Moreover, one can see Adams’s distinct treatment of shadows - as presence rather than absence - in the painting’s rich, jewel-toned pools. Also notable are the paint-laden spikes of foliage. Those same energetic strokes will reappear in Adams’s rendering of New Mexico flora.