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uk/art/artworks/dubuffet-the-exemplary-life-of-the-soil-texturology-lxiiit00868/text-catalogue-entry
Jean Dubuffetborn 1901 [- 1985]
Vie exemplaire du Sol (Texturologie LXIII)(Exemplary Life of the Soil (Texturology LXIII)) 1958
Inscribed 'J. Dubuffet 58' b.l. and on back 'Vie Exemplaire du Sol | Octobre 58 (Texturologie | LXIII) | J.
Dubuffet'
Oil on canvas, 51 x 63 3/4 (130 x 162)
Purchased from the artist through the Galerie Beyeler, Basle, and the Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris
(Grant-in-Aid) 1966
Exh:Jean Dubuffet, Museum of Modern Art, New York, February-April 1962 (151) as 'The Example set
by the Soil'; Art Institute of Chicago, May-June 1962 (151); Los Angeles County Museum, July-August
1962 (151);Painting and Sculpture of a Decade 1954-64, Tate Gallery, April-June 1964 (53, repr.);Jean
Dubuffet: Paintings, Tate Gallery, April-May 1966 (93, repr. in colour);Jean Dubuffet, Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam, June-August 1966 (82, repr. in colour);Jean Dubuffet: A Retrospective, Guggenheim
Museum, New York, April-July 1973 (96, repr. in colour; colours very inaccurate);Jean Dubuffet, Grand
Palais, Paris, September-December 1973 (113, repr.)
Lit:Jean Dubuffet in exh. catalogueJean Dubuffet 1942-1960, Muse des Arts Dcoratifs, Paris,
December 1960-January 1961, pp.189-97; Max Loreau,Catalogue des Travaux de Jean Dubuffet XIV:
Clbration du Sol II, Texturologies, Topographies(Paris 1969), No.59, pp.50-1 repr. in colour
Repr:Peter Selz,The Work of Jean Dubuffet(New York 1962), p.141;Studio International, CLXXIII,
1967, p.126
This is one of the series of 'Texturologies' which occupied Dubuffet at intervals between September
1957 and October 1958. He has described (op. cit., pp.189-94) how this series grew out of his desire to
create a cycle of largepaintingscelebrating the soil. As his original idea was to make these using
anassemblagetechnique, he began by making a number of basic paintings depicting the elements that
compose the soil which he could cut up and assemble in different juxtapositions. He wanted to create
'soils' without any specific forms, a vast expanse of soil that could be endlessly extended.
'Certain of these elements, intended for my assemblages, were the result of a special technique which
consisted of shaking a brush over the painting spread out on the floor, covering it with a spray of tiny
droplets. This is the technique, known as "Tyrolean", that masons use in plastering walls to obtain
certain mellowing effects. But instead of brushes, they use little branches of trees - juniper, box, etc. and they have different ways of shaking them to get the particular effect they want. I combined this
technique with others - successive layers, applications of sheets ofpaper, scattering sand over the
painting, scratching it with the prongs of a fork. In this way I produced finely worked sheets that gave the
impression of teeming matter, alive and sparkling, which I could use to represent soil, but which could
also evoke all kinds of indeterminate textures, and even galaxies and nebulae. But I then decided to
keep most of these paintings intact, instead of cutting them up for my assemblages, and gave them the
name "Texturologies" ...'.
The first 'Texturologies' I-X were made in Vence in September-December 1957, then the series was
resumed in Paris in March 1958. Between then and October 1958, Dubuffet made the further
'Texturologies' XI-LXXIII, the pictures being numbered in the order in which they were completed. The
Tate's work, which was one of the last, was executed at Vence on 13 October 1958. The series came to

an end later the same month, when Dubuffet destroyed a number of thecanvasesor cut them up,
without however changing the original numbering.
Published in:
Ronald Alley,Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British
Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.182-3, reproduced p.182