Smile 1962

Jean Dubuffet made this print, Smile, with lithographic ink on paper, and well, it’s a trip! First off, the colors—earthy reds and yellows, like a desert sunset, but all mottled and porous. Then you notice the face, primitive, cartoonish, like a child’s drawing on a cave wall. I’m immediately drawn to the nose, or rather, that abstract cross shape floating in the middle of the face, as if the nose is an afterthought, or a symbol rather than a feature. It’s crude, sure, but also full of intention. Dubuffet’s all about that rawness, that immediacy. It’s like he wants to get back to the basics of mark-making, to tap into something primal. He definitely owes a debt to Paul Klee, who was similarly interested in the art of children, and using these forms to unlock a more intuitive way of looking at the world. And isn't that smile… kind of menacing?