Belgian painter Luc Tuymans (born 1958), one of the key figures in the 1990s revival of figurative painting, is also one of contemporary art's great history painters, tackling historical traumas and their representations in a restrained--though resolutely painterly--style and pale, muted palette. Far from accepting painting as obsolete or inadequate, throughout his career Tuymans has used painting to engage with the most painful, urgent subjects of...