Apartment Houses, Paris 1946

Jean Dubuffet painted 'Apartment Houses, Paris' with a palette knife, layering sandy greys and browns into being, and then scratching back to reveal the forms. Imagine Dubuffet wrestling with the canvas, smearing and scraping to suggest the dense urban architecture, and, like, how cool is it that he’s not interested in a polished view! The surfaces are so rough, and the little figures, kind of like doodles, are ghostly, peeking out from windows or parading in the street. He’s doing something very fresh here, taking cues from graffiti and the raw energy of street art. Dubuffet’s vision reminds me of Soutine and his gnarled landscapes, or maybe Guston’s later paintings, you know, the clunky, cartoonish figures. These painters aren't just depicting a place; they’re conveying a whole mood and attitude. In 'Apartment Houses, Paris' Dubuffet pulls us into a Paris that's about texture and feeling over accuracy. It’s an ongoing conversation, each artist responding to what came before, pushing painting in a new direction.