Le Museum: Le papillon rouge 1963

Here we have a painting of a butterfly, made with a scratchy line on a warm yellow ground by Bernard Buffet. I imagine him, maybe a little impatient, using a dry brush to pull the paint across the surface, letting the texture of the canvas show through. Those wings, like stained glass, sharp-edged, a little dangerous, but they make me think about how an artist uses line to trap something delicate but wild, like this red butterfly. Was Buffet trying to catch something fleeting about beauty, or maybe pin down his own feelings? Each stroke feels urgent. Painters are always talking to each other, even across time. Buffet must have known Van Gogh, and maybe even anticipated some of Baselitz's raw vulnerability. It’s this continuous, visual conversation between artists that keeps painting alive, full of surprises and open to endless interpretation. It's never really finished.