Rosier-feuilles 1946

Marcel Barbeau made Rosier-feuilles with paint, working process oriented, letting the gesture lead the way. The overall impression is of a wild array of scribbled, whitish lines over a murky, dark ground. Looking closer, the surface has real variation. The lines are not all the same: some are thick, others are thin, and they behave differently, some bunching together while others stand alone, or even drip downward. The ground is not a uniform black, but a mixture of colors, with blues, grays, and browns creating depth and texture. This pushes the idea of gesture a bit further, into a total field of play. If you look at the bottom left, you can even see the spatter from the artist's hand. All this reminds me a little bit of Cy Twombly, or maybe even some of the automatic drawing of the Surrealists. It's a great example of how art can embrace the accidental and the open ended.