In 1978, Julian Schnabel began adding broken dishes to his paintings, ignoring critics who called the plate paintings “crockery art.” A year later, he started painting on maps. Almost 50 years on, the artist and film director continues to work with ceramics and maps. And his work is more personal than his bombastic character suggests. For instance, when Schnabel visited Italy in his 20s—a trip to see Caravaggio’s paintings in the Scrovegni Chapel—the country’s lush landscapes emerged as a powerful source of inspiration. In his new exhibition at Pace, an ode to his decades-long relationship with Italy, Schnabel has used 18th-century maps and a new shipment of plates to capture the abstract essence of trees in the Italian commune Ansedonia. “They are pictures of something,” he has said of the artworks, “but not really pictures of trees.” —Maggie Turner