Bernard Buffet, *Ile de Port-Cros*, oil on canvas, 60 × 81 cm (23.6 × 31.9 in.)

This is "Port-Cros" (1953), an oil painting by Bernard Buffet (1928-1999). It is a prime example of the early representative style of Buffet, who emerged like a comet in the art world as a leading figurative painter in post-war France, winning the Critics' Prize at the young age of 20. Set on Port-Cros, a small island off the coast of Provence in southern France, the painting features silhouettes of bare trees rendered with sharply pointed black lines, which divide the canvas dramatically. Beyond them, a bay, mountain ranges on the opposite shore, and scattered reddish-brown roofs are quietly depicted in subdued tones of gray and blue. Buffet's unique style, characterized by sharply delineating the contours of subjects with black lines, resonates with the existentialist atmosphere of the post-war era, imbuing the work with a desolate yet poetic tension. Painted in the early 1950s, during his most highly acclaimed golden age, this piece holds significant importance in art history.