La maison aux deux chemins (The House with Two Paths) 1951

Jean Dubuffet made "The House with Two Paths" with oil paint, choosing a palette that feels like earth itself. It’s like he dug these colors right out of the ground. You get the sense that for Dubuffet, art wasn't about perfecting an image but about the messy, wonderful act of making itself. The paint is thick, almost sculptural in places, giving the surface a really tactile quality. If you look closely at the house, you can see how he's layered the paint, scraped it back, built it up again. It's a history of gestures, each one leaving its mark. It’s so physical, you can almost feel the energy of his hand at work. That house in the center, it’s not just a building; it's a monument to process, to the idea that art is about what happens when you get your hands dirty. Dubuffet reminds me a bit of Guston. Both were interested in embracing the so-called ‘low’ or ‘ugly’ in art. They invite us to find beauty not in perfection, but in the raw and imperfect, in the stuff that feels real.