Still Life 1964

Bernard Buffet made this still life painting with oils on canvas, and what strikes me is its vibrant unease. Look at those heavy black outlines wrestling with the warm, almost saccharine, orange background. I can imagine Buffet, in his studio, intensely focused, pushing and pulling at the paint, trying to pin down some essential truth about these everyday objects. I wonder if he felt a kind of tension between wanting to capture their simple beauty and a deeper, more unsettling feeling. The paint is applied thickly, especially in the background, giving it a textured, almost palpable presence. Those vertical strokes create a sense of depth but also confinement. I’m reminded of other painters, like Giorgio Morandi, who also found endless inspiration in the humble still life. It’s like they’re all in conversation across time, each adding their own voice to the ongoing exploration of what it means to see, to feel, and to translate that onto canvas. Buffet leaves us with something unresolved, a question mark hanging in the air, inviting us to bring our own interpretations.