Influenced by the atrocities of World War II, Dubuffet rejected the standards of beauty and perfection inherited from ancient Greek civilization. Inspired by the art of the mentally ill, of the untutored, and of children, he painted figures in a crude and naïf style of thick impasto and coarse texture. Such emphatic matière associated him with the aesthetics of Art Informel. In this portrait, the often romanticized and glorified subject of a soldier is rendered anti-heroic. Lucien Geominne’s face is distorted, grotesque and pale; his skin appears disintegrating and decaying, raising the question: is he dead or alive?