Bernard Buffet - Untitled

The urban landscape was already a popular subject in the Middle Ages and the Modern Era, but predominantly in an idealized manner. Scenes of city life became typical themes with a more realistic interpretation starting in the 19th century. It's worth remembering how, immediately following the realist movements of the 19th century, the Impressionists also placed great emphasis on the everyday, on everyday life, with a certain predilection, however, for the frenetic pace of the city, its crowds, traffic, and typically bourgeois settings. In this cityscape by William Nuzzo, the quotidian aspect prevails, the frank and sincere realism of everyday life in a city setting.

Bernard Buffet's works display a marked expressionist vocation, which tends to emphasize the expression of emotions. Expressionist art seeks to proclaim its moods to the world and flaunt them with passion. Formally, this translates into a summary rendering of figures, through a highly nervous and animated line, as well as the use of a violent color palette. These characteristics are found in the historical avant-garde movements of expressionism, such as Fauvism and, above all, the Die Brucke movement in Germany, to which Buffet seems to draw most. Indeed, the key characteristic of his language is the broken, angular rhythm of the composition, which, in Buffet's case, is dictated by a characteristic, thick, black line. It is this line that synthesizes the objects according to a rigid, angular geometry. This same geometry determines the space of the work, which seems to be constructed precisely around the broken movement of the objects. In urban views such as the present one, however, Bernard Buffet seems to keep his expressionist excitement in a more rational compositional order, inspired by the regularity of buildings and architecture.

Bernard Buffet, born in Paris in 1928 and died in Tourtour in 1999, was one of the leading exponents of French Expressionism. The pivotal moment that led him to adopt this style of art was the existential angst of the post-World War II era, which prompted him to form the group "L'Homme Tèmoin" with Mottet and Rebeyroll. From that moment on, Buffet moved away from his initial abstraction to adopt a spare, angular figurative style. Among the most recurring themes in his paintings are landscapes and still lifes, as well as clown figures and scenes from the Passion of Christ. His key characteristic is the use of broken black lines and the choice of suffocating hues.

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