The remarkable story of Ancient Song. From a distance, it is simply a magnolia blossom, a meter of creamy white petals opening across the canvas, built up thick with a palette knife. Step closer and something else emerges: a shape, deliberate, half-buried in the strokes of the painting. It is a word, written in ancient Hebrew, and once you see it, you cannot unsee it.This is the quiet signature of Evgeny Maximov, 50, a Russian-born painter who makes his home in the countryside near the palace town of Mafra, 40 kilometres northwest of Lisbon. Maximov and his wife arrived in Portugal in 2007, drawn, like many, by the light, the landscape, and the relaxed rhythm of life. This is where he paints, in a sunny house surrounded by fields and flowers, within reach of the shores of the Atlantic.In h