"In my estimation these heavily impastoed 'haute pâte' [thick paste paintings, Dubuffet made c. 1945-46] ..which introduce base materials (e.g., sand, asphalt, and pebbles) into high art, are not simply attempts to shock, or to achieve succès de scandale, by returning figuration to a more 'primitive' or infantile state (as many of Dubuffet's early critics and detractors claimed). They also reflect, albeit negatively, an historically specific phenomena—namely, the classicizing 'rappel à l'ordre' [turning back to the order and nationalistic retour à la terre [return to the earth] mentalities rampant in France at the time. Dubuffet's writings from this period are replete with explicit and implicit denunciations of this 'return' to classicism via the Renaissance.. .For instance.. .. Dubuffet lambastes this return of 'Greekeries, post-Greekeries, and neo-Greekeries' in contemporary art, and elsewhere [he] describes himself as staunchly 'anti-Humanist'."