Bernard Buffet was born on July 10, 1928 in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. Buffet started learning to paint when he was 10 years old. He met his first art mentor, Mr. Darbefeuille, at a night school in the Place des Vosges when he was 14. At the age of 15, Buffet entered the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (French National School of Fine Arts) and interned at Eugène Narbonne’s studio. Buffet’s talent was already beginning to be recognized during the internship. At age 19 in 1947, Buffet held his first solo exhibition, where all of his works were instantly sold. At the Autumn Salon during the same year, Buffet’s work titled L’Homme Accoudé received many positive reviews from critics. Raymond Cogniat also bought Le Coq Mort for the French government. Buffet had a successful career at the mere age of 20. In 1948, he met the boy genius, Pierre Bergé, who would change his whole life. (Pierre Bergé later became Yves Saint Laurent’s lifelong business partner and lover.) With Bergé’s support, Buffet reached the peak of his career before turning 30. During this course of eight years, Buffet created the famous and iconic Horreur de la guerre: Les fusillés. In 1954, he became a representative figure in French Expressionism that took figurative painting as the predominant style; he was a young “expressionist” artist who resisted abstract paintings after the war. Despite having a shy personality, Buffet is the type of person who never compromises in front of art. However, he experienced many ups and downs throughout his life as he became famous at such a young age. Paris was still the vigorous capital of art at that time, and the 20-year old Buffet joined the Anti-Abstract Art Group in 1948. Buffet met Maurice Boitel and Louis Vuillermoz, both of whom later initiated La Jeune Peinture (“Young Picture”) of the School of Paris. Back then, the world of painting was blooming and prospering in Paris. Masterpieces by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse were showcased at major galleries alongside emerging art genres such as the “New School of Paris” and “Young Picture.” There were heated discussions about realism as well as figurative and abstract styles. Buffet was recognized as one of the most famous representative figures of this genre of painting as he persisted in applying the “Neorealism” to his paintings throughout his life. He chose to use figurative black lines and dramatic scenes to demonstrate a “realist’s” internal pain. As Buffet grew older, the unique lines he drew also became thinner and sharper as he created a series of unprecedented looks and themes. As a widely renowned French artist in Asia, Buffet’s work also contain a strong blend of Eastern sentiment. Buffet often used objects in his surroundings as themes. His early works expressed his thoughts and feelings by depicting the people, things, or objects around him. Buffet painted different character portraits, animals, still life, and urban landscapes in an expressive style. He deposited his feelings in visible objects; some examples of the common objects in his still life paintings include an ashtray, a lamp, as well as insect specimens. Vase de Fleurs contains the most common creative theme among Buffet’s still life paintings. The frequency of these daily objects’ appearance in Buffet’s paintings changed over time. Flowers are one of the artist’s lifetime favorites—the strokes of painting through different periods of time demonstrate the artist’s growth from painting in classic styles to developing new experiences and feelings. During that period of time, most of Buffet’s work featured the corner of a table. The artist applied figurative, expressionist techniques in painting flower petals inside a glass bottle with the plant’s strong vitality. Buffet combined steady, powerful pen strokes with vivid, vibrant colors to express the depressed atmosphere in Europe at that time. The steady lines added an invasive feeling to the image, yet this sense of aggressiveness was somehow mitigated by repression. The painting Nature Morte au Philodendron is one of a few in Buffet’s still life series to contain more obvious symbols from the East. As opposed to the artist’s usual way of outlining clear glass vases by bold black lines, more gentle black lines were used to outline the Eastern porcelain ware in this painting. The three pieces of porcelain ware are positioned on the left, right, and center of the image. The green pears in the fruit tray look outstanding near a piece of apricot yellow satin. The vivid contrast between these two colors reflect complexity and consistency. The lines neatly outline the fruits, and the fruit tray was accompanied by porcelain ware from Imari, Japan. Buffet used finer black lines to outline a Japanese gourd-shaped vase, and filled in the space on the sides by drawing brilliant, complex eastern patterns with ocher, lake blue, and turquoise lines on the bright yellow background in addition to the black outlines. In symmetry to the gourdshaped vase, the Swiss cheese plant has large leaves that stretch upward with leaves and petioles breaking through boundary limitation in a powerful expression. The novel composition guides viewers’ visual focus from the center of the painting to its rear view, which not only balances the image but also spreads a passionate energy through it. Finally, the personalized signature with date is undoubtedly Buffet’s trademark—instead of hiding in one corner, the signature is included in the main body to balance image composition. Buffet dedicated his whole life to painting for as long as over 50 years. His themes primarily included circus clowns, bullfighters, portraits, landscapes, flowers, and still life. After Buffet rose to popularity in the art industry during the 1940s, he focused on painting in the 1950s when he mostly produced depressing portraits to express the French people’s restless mind after the war. During the 1960s, the characters and objects in Buffet’s paintings appeared even more complicated in sharp and bold lines. This painting Nature Morte au Philodendron is the most oriental one in Buffet’s Vase de Fleurs still life series created later on in his career. Most of the vases in Buffet’s previous works displayed an European style, narrow inverted triangle shape. In this piece of work, the elegance of Eastern porcelain ware from Imari is emphasized through delicate, complex patterns and pen strokes as a demonstration of the artist’s passion about Eastern culture. Meanwhile, Japanese collectors in the East also fell in love with Buffet’s works since the 1970s. Other than the reason that art is without borders, Buffet’s metaphoric artistic nature is also favored by the implicit culture in the Eastern world. Perhaps Buffet’s sharp, simple lines and unique spatial arrangement shared some kinds of similarities with Japanese traditional prints. At one of Buffet’s solo exhibition in Tokyo in 1963, the Japanese banker Kiichiro Okano (1917-1995) fell in love with Buffet’s work at first sight. Half a world away, this collector established the world’s first Bernard Buffet Museum (Musée Bernard Buffet) in Suruga-machi in Mishima Shizuoka, Japan in 1973. The museum displays over a thousand pieces of Buffet’s paintings for an extended period of time. Buffet’s persistence in Realism was based on straightforward courage and wisdom. Buffet’s talent was recognized by the legendary gallerist Maurice Garnier, who was also Buffet’s friend for over 50 years. Since the late 1970s, Maurice Garnier had worked to promote Buffet’s influences outside France during the thirty years that followed. He also facilitated several important art museum exhibitions at places such as the Seedamm Cultural Center, Zurich in 1983, the Odakyu Museum, Tokyo in 1987, Moscow’s Pouchkine Museum in 1991, and the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts in 1996.