Underneath the Pavement, A Swelling of Grief

On my first rushed visit to the Saint Louis Art Museum—a museum far bigger than I anticipated—I stopped in front Jean Dubuffet’s Texturologie XXXI, from April 1958.  It’s only later that you can start to sort out why a particular work exerts its pull. I had little time. Running late, I only wanted to get a sense of the collection, and was mostly fast-walking and glancing. But something about this painting stopped me.

I looked for a while. At first glance, the painting seems like pure abstraction. Or, like a pock-marked and dirtied but otherwise blank sheet of medieval parchment, too large and perfectly rectangular to be made from any sheep, goat, or cow. But the surface was dry like stone, not oily like animal skin.

I’d never seen Dubuffet like this, so seemingly blank.The wall text indicated he’d usedWhen I left, I realized that the only two images I took with me from the museum, captured on my phone, were a shot of the Dubuffet painting and another of its label. On the label, I now see, the artist is quoted: “I meant to evoke any area of bare ground—preferably esplanade or roadway—seen from above.”