Art Brut and Outsider Art
Started: 1923
Ended: Present
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THE ART STORY
 | Primitivism in Art Movement Page |
 | Art Informel Movement Page |
KEY ARTISTS
 | Henri Rousseau Quick View Artist Page |
| Henri Rousseau |  |
| Henri Rousseau was a French self-taught painter. His most famous works, done in his characteristic flat figurative style, show surreal and dream-like scenes in primitive or natural settings. Art Story: Henri Rousseau Artist Page | ||
 | Niko Pirosmani Quick View Artist Page |
| Niko Pirosmani | |
| The self-taught Niko Pirosmani illustrated the traditions, environments, and culture of his native Georgia. Art Story: Niko Pirosmani Artist Page | ||
"These are primitive beginnings in art, such as one usually finds in ethnographic collections, or at home in the nursery. Do not laugh, reader! Children also have artistic ability and there is virtue in their having it! . . . Parallel phenomena are provided by the works of the mentally diseased; neither childish behavior nor madness are insulting words here, as they commonly are. All this is to be taken seriously, more seriously than all the public galleries when it comes to reforming today's art."
Summary of Art Brut and Outsider Art
Driven by an unflinching creative intensity combined with a talent for rousing humanity's deepest desires and fears, Outsider Artists present a visionary interweave of the fabric of life. As a way to categorize the artwork that he loved made by introverted, isolated, and exceptionally imaginative characters, the French artist Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut, or "raw art"; also known as Outsider Art, this latter term provides the most succinct way to reference the artist within the movement. Although Dubuffet's own art sought to imitate freedom from societal constraints - both in subject and in technique - in the same way as the art that he admired and collected - his position and status within the art world makes him far from an Outsider Artist. In many ways, founding a movement in this case is the very antithesis to the art gathered within it. However, the grouping he championed does help to direct attention onto a body of art made by people who have no interest in self-aggrandizement or self-promotion.
Outsider Artists usually experience some sort of revelatory moment, akin to a religious calling when they become "artists". They typically have no formal training within an art institution and exhibit in their work a sense of heightened connectivity within the intricate system of universal balance. Without having necessarily experienced tragedy, these artists hold within an acute awareness of the forces of darkness as well as those of light. The Outsider Artist deals incessantly with a war in mind (which is often mistakenly labeled as mental illness), always navigating emotional conflict in order to create outwards paths to find inner peace. The closest more conventional movement comparable is Surrealism, as the premise of the latter is also based on the power of the human unconscious. Indeed, as well as Dubuffet, other famous artists, including Picasso, heralded this work as inspirational. The Outsider Artist however does not feel the same impetus to share and disseminate ideas, often they only ask, humbly and without expectation, to be left quiet and uninterrupted to make art.
Key Ideas
Beginnings:
The first noted case of interest by artists in the art of the mentally ill is traced back to the Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group who were active in Germany from 1911 to 1914. Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, Gabriele Münter, Lyonel Feininger, and Albert Bloch, believed in the expression of spiritual values through color and form. In this quest, these artists were interested in the linkages between music and painting, as well as the concept of synaesthesia, whereby the stimulation of one sense can cause an involuntary reaction in one or more other senses. In 1912, the group published their Almanac, Der Blaue Reiter Almanach, which included theoretical essays by Kandinsky and Marc, as well as over 140 reproductions of artworks, the majority of which were classified as "primitive" art, folk art, children's art, and art of the mentally ill. In this way, they demonstrated their belief that the traditional Western Art Historical canon was suffering a particular lack that could be remedied by turning to sources outside of its purview.
Important Art and Artists of Art Brut and Outsider Art | |
  | Mental Asylum Band-Copse (From the Cradle to the Grave, Book 4, p. 203) (1910)Artist: Adolf Wölfli Artwork description & Analysis: After a traumatic childhood, Adolf Wölfli was arrested in 1890 for the attempted sexual assault of two young girls and sentenced to two years in the St. Johannsen prison in Berne. In 1895 he was arrested once again for the attempted molestation of a very young girl. At this point he was committed to the Waldau Mental Asylum for evaluation, and diagnosed as schizophrenic. He would remain a "patient" there until his death in 1930. During his institutionalization, he was reportedly often violent and uncontrollable, and was frequently placed in solitary confinement. Pencil and colored pencil on newsprint - Prague City Gallery |
 | Le Palais Idéal (the "Ideal Palace") (1879-1912)Artist: Ferdinand Cheval Artwork description & Analysis: This architectural project serves as an example of a "Visionary Environment", in which an Outsider Artist constructs a large-scale architectural or landscape site. Set in a lush garden, Cheval's Palais draws architectural inspiration from an eclectic variety of sources. Architectural authors Ulrich Conrad and Hans Sperlich described the Palais Idéal as "half pagoda, half robber-baron's castle, half nymphaeum, half tomb; not Baroque, not Hellenistic, not Buddhist, not Indian, and yet all of them at once." The Palais also includes grottos, waterfalls, subterranean chambers, and soaring towers. It even bears sculptural elements representing a variety of animals such as octopi, caiman, elephants, bears, and birds, as well as mythological creatures such as giants and fairies. One of the Palais walls bears the inscription "I was not a builder, I had never handled a mason's trowel, I was not a sculptor. The chisel was unknown to me; not to mention architecture, a field of which I remained totally ignorant... Everything you can see, passer-by, is the work of one peasant, who, out of a dream, created the queen of the world..." Stone, lime, mortar, cement - Hauterives, France |
 | The Tree of Life (1928)Artist: Séraphine Louis Artwork description & Analysis: Séraphine Louis, born in 1864, and also known as Séraphine de Senlis (the French town where she lived and worked) was a prolific painter of large and luscious floral arrangements. Sometimes she painted what appears to be a conventional bouquet or a typical still-life, but more often than not her images are surreal hybrids between trees and flowering bushes. Séraphine added ripe fruits to her dreamlike foliage, and created heavily patterned, sometimes even dotted leaves that begin to look more like feathers. There is no botanical accuracy to the project; it is a frenzied attempt to show something of life's beauty. Oil paint and unknown added substances |
More Art Brut and Outsider Art Artwork and Analysis:
Content compiled and written by Alexandra Duncan
Edited and revised, with Synopsis and Key Ideas added by Rebecca Baillie
" Movement Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Alexandra Duncan
Edited and revised, with Synopsis and Key Ideas added by Rebecca Baillie
Available from:
First published on 22 Nov 2018. Updated and modified regularly. 
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