THE PLAGUE COLONIST (plate, facing page 10) from RÉINCARNATIONS DU PÈRE UBU

Georges Rouault was a French painter and printmaker whose work merged Expressionist distortion with a deeply Catholic sensibility. Working primarily in oils and aquatint, he developed a distinctive technique of heavy black outlines and jewel-like color fields that recalled medieval stained glass and cloisonné enameling. His subjects ranged from tragic circus performers and prostitutes to biblical scenes and landscapes, each rendered with a formal intensity that transformed mundane or marginalized subjects into spiritual meditations. Active from the 1890s through the 1950s, Rouault's practice remained consistent in its moral gravity and formal innovation.

Paris, France