Christ and the Doctor c. 1935

Georges Rouault made this painting, Christ and the Doctor, with oil on paper. Look at how he builds up the paint in layers. It’s almost like he’s sculpting the figures with color and texture. The material aspects here are so tactile. You can almost feel the roughness of the paint, the way it catches the light. The black outlines remind me of stained glass, which is interesting because Rouault apprenticed as a glass painter. The color is so intense, especially that ochre yellow. Notice how he uses the thick black lines to define the forms, almost like he’s trapping the light within them. It gives the painting a sense of depth and weight. There’s something about the way Rouault uses paint that feels both raw and refined. For me, this resonates with the emotional weight of the subject matter. It reminds me a bit of some of Beckmann’s claustrophobic portraits, but with an even more direct, confrontational edge. Ultimately, the conversation between the painting’s form and content leaves room for interpretation, so we might bring our own understanding to the work.