Le tumulte à la mâchoire crispée 1946

Marcel Barbeau made this painting, “Le tumulte à la mâchoire crispée,” with big, energetic strokes of yellow, red, and black. I love to imagine him building up the layers, maybe starting with broad gestures and then adding more and more, each one a response to what came before. Looking at the surface, I can almost feel the physicality of the paint, how it might have felt sliding off the brush or knife. There's a real rawness here. Do you see how the yellow streaks seem to cut through the darker masses? It's like he's trying to push through the chaos, to find some light within the tumult. Barbeau was part of a generation of artists exploring abstraction, pushing the boundaries of what painting could be. The title makes me think the artist must have been feeling something while making this, and that feeling translated into the material and process. We’re all in conversation, and artists make marks that shift our sense of the world.