Jean Dubuffet on Painting

Lay It On Thick
"A painter's basic action is to besmear, not to spread tinted liquids with a tiny pen or a lock of hair, but to plunge his hands into brimming buckets or basins and then rub his palms and his fingers across the wall offered to him. He has to putty it with his soils and thick paints, grapple with it, knead it, impress upon it the most immediate traces of his mind, of the rhythms and impulses that drum through his arteries and course along his innervations. He has to employ naked fists or else, if they happen to be available, improvised instruments (a chance blade or small stick or stone chip) as good conductors that neither cut off nor weaken the currents of waves. After that, it scarcely matters whether you find few or many colors there or which colors they may be! How trifling an issue whether the white is a bit dirty or the yellow a bit drab. All you need is mud, nothing but a single monochromatic mud, if you really want to paint, and not just color some silk neckerchiefs."