Lot Essay
In May 1946, Dubuffet opened his second major exhibition entitled Microblus Macadam & Cie Hautes Pâtes at the Galerie Drouin in Paris to both shock and critical acclaim. The public was not prepared for the crude imagery and strange materials Dubuffet used. Impressed with the study of walls, the substance of mortar and stone, Dubuffet developed a paste, Haute Pâte (Thick Impasto) which allowed him to go physically into the surface, literally digging and scratching his images while adding found objects such as glass, stones and string.
In the paintings and drawings that followed, Dubuffet continued to exploit the specific properties of the paint and other substances to achieve a new vision of nature. The works, at once surreal and childlike, yet because of their material connection to reality, are a convincing equivalent to real phenomenon.
In July 1946, following the series of black lacquer Façades d'immeubles (Building Fronts) which depicted city life, Dubuffet leapt into fantasy with a small series of delicately colored gouaches titled Paysages Feerique (Fairytale Landscapes). The pale palette and strong linear articulation anticipated the wonderful Grotesque Landscapes (Paysages Grotesques) of 1949 and 1950.
In Paysage (couleurs pâle), Dubuffet works white, pink, blue and yellow gouache into a shimmery paste. 'The compulsion toward a reduced color scale or even outright monochrome is shown also in the small gouaches of the series titled Paysages Féeriques (Fairytale Landscapes) in which ground and overpainting carry on an intensive dialogue that lends a fascinating dynamic to the overexcited small figures in their grotesque landscape settings' (A. Franzke, Dubuffet, New York 1981, p. 39).
In the paintings and drawings that followed, Dubuffet continued to exploit the specific properties of the paint and other substances to achieve a new vision of nature. The works, at once surreal and childlike, yet because of their material connection to reality, are a convincing equivalent to real phenomenon.
In July 1946, following the series of black lacquer Façades d'immeubles (Building Fronts) which depicted city life, Dubuffet leapt into fantasy with a small series of delicately colored gouaches titled Paysages Feerique (Fairytale Landscapes). The pale palette and strong linear articulation anticipated the wonderful Grotesque Landscapes (Paysages Grotesques) of 1949 and 1950.
In Paysage (couleurs pâle), Dubuffet works white, pink, blue and yellow gouache into a shimmery paste. 'The compulsion toward a reduced color scale or even outright monochrome is shown also in the small gouaches of the series titled Paysages Féeriques (Fairytale Landscapes) in which ground and overpainting carry on an intensive dialogue that lends a fascinating dynamic to the overexcited small figures in their grotesque landscape settings' (A. Franzke, Dubuffet, New York 1981, p. 39).