In August, galleries hang casual fare for accidental tourists, put their feet up, and wait for fall. All the more reason, then, to applaud Forum Gallery for a vigorous selection of contemporary landscapes. Each of its 20-plus paintings, drawings, and watercolors is worth the viewing.

Go first to Israel Hershberg’s “City Center, Jerusalem” (1990-91). Painted from the window of a high-rise, the view drops precipitously in the foreground, gradually fanning outward toward surrounding hills. Color intensity accumulates at the base of the vantage point, gradually dimming into the indescribable neutrals of a sustained haze. The painting is saturated with mood and the fragility of its moment.

Mr. Hershberg makes no secret of his admiration for Antonio Lopez-Garcia, the great contemporary Spanish realist. His composition paraphrases Lopez-Garcia’s “Madrid desde Torres Blancas” (1976-82); his sense of light derives from the same contemplative patience and austerity. More than a professional nod, Mr. Hershberg’s cityscape expresses the reverence of a painter who recognizes his own soul in the sensibility of another. Such feeling, expressed on an almost preternatural level of achievement, is rare in contemporary painting.

Robert Bauer’s small landscape of southern Spain and three gossamer drawings are a fine accompaniment. They share Mr. Hershberg’s humility before the visual world and his unconcern with fashion. Bauer’s landscape drawings also are particularly compelling for their receptivity to the abstract mysteries of depiction. Silvery hatchings in hard pencil travel lightly over the paper, caressing the subject more than describing it. Sudden dark notes, made by the sharpened point of a softer lead, tether near-immaterial marks to the singularities of a locale.

Craig McPherson’s haunting monochrome pastel on canvas is based on Edgar Thompson’s historic photos of American steelworks. Points of light punctuate the atmospheric sfumato that rises from clustered smoke stacks. Think of Seurat descending into Pittsburgh in its industrial heyday. Certain persuasions might interpret this as a sulfurous vision of hell; to me, it is elegiac and poignant.

Joseph McNamara frames the haze of sundown through the strict geometry of a dry dock. Fading light in the distance is captured in pale pinks and violets that weave through the bedarkened greens and blues of the foreground structure. It is a more sophisticated excursion into the uses of color than the bravura exuberance of Brian Rutenberg’s “Until 2” (2002), despite that painting’s palette-knifed dash and kaleidoscopic charm.

Davis Cone’s meticulous, brashly colored Art Deco movie theaters strike the right balance between homage to cultural artifacts and wry recognition of the transience of Style Moderne. Tula Telfair ‘s “Early Utopian Ideals” (2003) is lovely to look at and a good choice for anyone who prefers the idea of landscape – their own mental image of the sublime – to the disconcerting specifics of real places. Based on reproductions of 19th century American landscape painting, it has a bookish feel to it. But that is fine if you love books, as well.