La Sixième Heure 1958

Alfred Manessier made "La Sixième Heure" with oil paint, and I love how he's built up the surface. It’s not just about representation; it’s about the doing, the layering, the scratching back. You can almost feel him wrestling with the paint. The colors are like embers, mostly reds and blacks, creating a kind of fiery tension. Look at the black lines that form a grid; they’re not perfect. They waver and break, adding to the overall sense of something organic trying to find structure. It’s a lot like life. I see connections here to Bram van Velde, another artist who wasn’t afraid to let the process be visible. Manessier seems to be saying that art isn’t about neat answers. It's more about the questions we ask and the way we keep searching, even when things get messy.