Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985)

Meticulously pieced together in a kaleidoscope of speckled orange, yellow, and earthen hues, the colors, patterns, and texture of the delicate butterfly wings have been collaged into a display of imagery that replicates the dazzling plume of the garden insect. Jardin aux Mélitées, comprised of butterfly wings, ink, gauche, and paper, translates to ‘Garden of Melitaea,’ one of the species of brush-footed butterflies depicted in the work. Describing the butterflies as “a diaphanous iridescent haze, impossible to analyse and richly luminous,” Dubuffet implores the various properties of the insect to mimic their fragile and unique nature (J. Dubuffet, quoted in V. da Costa & F. Hergott (eds.), Jean Dubuffet, Barcelona 2006, p. 61).

Following a summer spent in the French Countryside in 1953, Dubuffet became inspired by the landscape to create the first of his series of assemblages constructed by objects found in nature such as his beloved butterflies. What drew Dubuffet to the assemblages, was not the inert beauty of objects from the natural environment but instead, the simple experiences and objects that humans have and interact with on a daily basis. The artist was interested in what could be represented in a work of art that would be an “immediate connection with daily life, an art which would start from this daily life, and which would be a direct and very sincere expression of our real life and our real moods” (J. Dubuffet, Anticultural Positions: Notes for a Lecture Given at the Arts Club of Chicago, December 20, 1951, p. 30).