Femme au poulet 1947

Bernard Buffet painted 'Femme au poulet' in 1947, and it's a painting that really gets under your skin, doesn't it? Look at the scratchy lines that make up the yellow background - it's like Buffet's digging into something, and the colours, a bit sickly, hint at something not quite right. There's this starkness about the whole scene, the thin paint barely covering the surface. It's like he's not trying to hide anything, laying bare the process, you can feel it in the textures, the roughness of the lines, the awkward angles. And then there's that chicken, hanging there, almost geometrical in its rendering. It's hard to look at but it's also impossible to look away. You can see the way Buffet picks up on some of the same pared-down, angular forms as Picasso, but he's not interested in playing games; he's searching for something raw and true. It's a painting that leaves you with more questions than answers, which, for me, is exactly what art should do.