Rough

About

Roughness invites touch and records process. In painting it comes from impasto: Rembrandt built up thick, dragged paint in his late works so light catches on the surface, and Vincent van Gogh laid on ridges of colour with brush and knife. Jean Dubuffet went further in the 1940s and 50s, mixing sand, gravel and tar into paint to make surfaces like walls and soil.

In sculpture, roughness often signals a hand-worked, provisional look. Medardo Rosso's wax heads blur into lumpy matter, Alberto Giacometti's post-war figures carry the nicks and gouges of modelling, and Rebecca Warren's clay and bronze figures keep pinched, slumping surfaces. Japanese potters value the gritty texture of unglazed Shigaraki and Bizen stoneware, marked by wood-firing and ash. Look for tool marks, grit, uneven relief and surfaces that break light into small shadows.