La bretonne 1959

Here’s a description of “La bretonne” by Victor Brauner. You see a figure emerge, one mark at a time. It's like watching the artist's mind at work: shifting, changing, always feeling its way forward with thin layers of muted hues. I’m trying to imagine the actual painting session. What it must have been like to stand in front of that canvas, brush in hand, wondering what shape, what animal, what face would emerge? What does the flat white fish-like shape that substitutes for the mouth want to say? Is it the Bretonne's soul? And is the artist trying to tell us that identity itself is fluid, slippery like the fish? The painting feels like a conversation Brauner is having with artists like Picasso or maybe even Joan Miró. Artists are constantly talking to each other through their paintings. There is always something new to say, some different angle, some other way to find meaning in the stuff of the world.