Aire reveuse 1958

Jean Dubuffet made this lithograph, "Aire reveuse," sometime in the 20th century, using a process that embraces chance and texture. The surface buzzes with dark speckles on a shimmering, golden ground. Up close, you can see how the lithographic crayon seems to have skipped and danced across the surface of the stone, leaving behind a constellation of marks. It's like looking at a microscopic world, full of tiny, teeming life. The way the dark ink sits slightly raised on the paper gives the whole image a tactile quality, almost like you could reach out and feel the grit and grain of the earth itself. Dubuffet reminds me of Paul Klee, in the way he coaxes the extraordinary out of the ordinary. Both artists invite us to get lost in the details, to find poetry in the everyday, and to remember that art is just as much about the process of seeing as it is about the thing being seen. It’s a dreamy atmosphere indeed!