Legende platreuse 1959

This image is a print by Jean Dubuffet, and it’s an all-over field of marks, a mottled surface in pale lilac and brown. I imagine Dubuffet in his studio, layering these colors with some kind of roller, maybe even a textured rag. It reminds me of a weathered wall or a stone surface, something marked by time and the elements. I can almost feel the texture of the print beneath my fingertips. Dubuffet was into raw, primitive expression, so maybe he was thinking about the kind of art you find scratched into cave walls or scrawled on sidewalks. I wonder if he worked intuitively letting the forms emerge from the process itself. Artists are always in conversation with each other, riffing on ideas across time. Dubuffet probably looked at other artists' marks and gestures, maybe even made art in response. I bet there's a kind of back-and-forth that continues to reverberate, and we can tap into it if we look long enough.