La rascasse rouge, 1963
Oil on canvas, signed and dated upper left.
81 x 130 cm
Provenance:
Private collection, France
Certificate of authenticity issued by the Bernard Buffet Endowment Fund.
With his sharp black lines and a restricted palette dominated by red and black, Bernard Buffet gives this fish an almost sculptural presence. Placed on a stand like a specimen from a natural history museum, the animal appears both motionless and menacing, its spines forming a graphic network of dramatic intensity.
The contrast between the light background, scored with hatching, and the incandescent red of the body heightens the sense of visual tension. True to his style, Buffet elevates a simple subject into a striking image, where the rigor of drawing and the chromatic violence convey a singular expressive force.
Dated 1963, this work belongs to a period when Bernard Buffet produced numerous representations of animals and still lifes. These subjects, which he treated with the same graphic rigor as his figures and landscapes, became for him powerful icons. The fish, mounted on its stand, takes on the appearance of a specimen, poised between scientific curiosity and tragic vision, reflecting both the artist’s fascination with the strange beauty of living forms and his desire to underscore their expressive power.