BERNARD BUFFET (PARIS, 1928 – TOURTOUR, 1999) Treboul, the bell tower and Rue Vieille (Finistère) 1975 Oil on canvas 89.5 x 130.2 cm. Signed top left and dated top right; on the reverse, titled and inscribed ‘AH66 ’ Provenance Galerie Martal Ltée., Montreal Private collection, Montreal (acquired from the previous owner in 1984) Certificate Galerie Maurice Garnier, Paris. In a subtle balance, the façades of this Breton street echo one another through their massing and design. The steeply sloping street they line splits into two sections separated by a parapet. Occupying each side of the painting asymmetrically, the rows of houses are aligned in a straight line on the right but are spaced out on the left, separated by a porch opening onto a courtyard. Through this opening, light streams in, casting exaggeratedly elongated shadows on the ground as it moves along. It is for their visual effect that the painter has stretched them in this way, so that they counterbalance the slender silhouettes of the trees and the bell tower of Saint-Jean Chapel, which stand at the centre of the painting. Within this grid of x- and y-coordinates, which is characteristic of his style, Bernard Buffet traces, aligns and squares his canvas with his rectilinear drawing. Whilst his incisive black line is more discreet in this landscape, one can sense it underlying the arrangement of his structured, almost orthogonal design. It is also in his choice of a nuanced palette of greys that the painter’s restraint is evident. The cold, dark-green mass of the foliage is counterbalanced by the warmer shades of ochre and khaki of the granite blocks that define the edges of the buildings. The only element spared the addition of grey, the azure sky streaked with white clouds conveys the luminosity of a summer’s day in Brittany. Bernard Buffet (1928–99) was undoubtedly one of the most prolific French painters of his generation, working across all media from watercolour to lithography. Having taken up painting at a very early age, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris at the age of 15 and exhibited his first painting three years later. Success came quickly. His highly distinctive style is characterised by a black, angular line that outlines forms and often streaks his backgrounds with jagged hatching. His signature is, as it were, a manifesto of this style. Described as an Expressionist, his nervous brushwork exudes a certain melancholy, as evidenced by his series of portraits of sad clowns that punctuate his career. A portraitist, landscape painter, still-life artist… Buffet tries his hand at all genres and techniques, always with success. The composition of this landscape follows the same principles of construction as his other canvases, always firmly underpinned by masterful draughtsmanship.