An Outstanding French Artist. (Bernard Buffet 1928 - 1999)

I will hold my hands up and say I know nothing about art. I don't know what is expressionism or abstract. I've never taken the time to learn because the world is full of wonderful and variable things. I like it when something strikes me in a raw and sometimes rude way.

In one of my blogs, I wrote how Vincent Van Gogh just happened to me. His artwork grew and somehow I liked the work of this fine painter.

Well, I was looking through Google and tapped great French artists into the search engine. I was flooded with many great artists with little portraits to click onto. Then I came across a photo of Bernard Buffet. I was a little surprised by the surname of Buffet because it did not sound that French to me, and I, was probably pronouncing it wrong by letting the '...et' at the end of the word sound like 'it.' You know the way working-class English might say it: 'Bernie Buff-it'

Perhaps in French, it might be Bernard Boofay in sound, I don't know. I suppose I'm being a bit of a pleb. 

Well, I clicked onto this French artist and what joy. I was mesmerised by how striking and compelling his paintings are. I'm always perplexed by drab looking things that draw me in with other points of interest. I thought Bernard Buffet's paintings were like George Orwell's writing. Stylishly dull but full of wonderful detail. His work has clear and defined lines and the observer can clearly see what his picture is of, but there is also a clean drab look about everything that goes on in his work.

His name does not sound French to me, but his gorgeous art most certainly is France in all glory. That special word that the French say, 'jour ne se qua.'

This great French artist lived from 1928 to 1999 when he committed suicide because of the onset of Parkinson's disease. He could no longer work and create his wonderful paintings. He was classed as an artist of expressionism and ant-abstract paintings. Whatever this actually means, I don't know but the man's work has the 'jour ne se qua' for me. 

Bernard Buffet's paintings are truly wonderful to behold.  I enjoy his landscapes most of all. There are thousands of paintings by the man in museums all over the world and one museum in Japan dedicated to him.