Outsider Art | Art Brut - Articles on Contemporary Art Movements

Outsider Art, Art Brut article uploaded by Edgeworth Johnstone.
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The name 'Art Brut' came from Jean Dubuffet, an artist who used the phrase (meaning 'Raw Art') to refer to art created outside traditional schools of art, and as it seemed at the time, was like an alien life being introduced to the art world. The term Outsider Art is today more common, originally coined by the writer and art commentator Roger Candinal in the early 70's. But before Dubuffet's recognition of this emerging area of art, was the study and promotion of such work by the psychiatrists of patients that were producing it. Art Brut artists came from various backgrounds, usually outside the norms of society. Some were prisoners, residents at mental health institutions, recluses, or those in some way set apart from what was considered regular life, and whose art was outside what was traditionally recognised as art. Hence the term 'Outsider Art'.
What struck Dubuffet most about this art was the rawness, and strength of emotion it had, that had to a certain extent been refined out of art that bore the influence of more traditional and historical work. It appeared that much of Art Brut was oblivious to traditional influence and so clearly represented the state of mind of the artist purely, and in some ways could be seen as manifestations themselves of mental illness, that through their expression as art, had a beauty and effect that was their own. It wasn't following the logical progression of artistic movements that modernism was carving into art history. Each new movement owing a debt to their predecessor. Culture, when seen in relation to Art Brut could be said to have restricted art as much as it had nurtured it. Art Brut was from another world entirely, that until Jean Dubuffet had exposed and championed himself, following the discovery and similar promotion by certain psychiatrists, had been largely ignored amongst the artistic community. This led to a fascination not only with the art work itself, but also with the artist, and the conditions and circumstances from which the art originated. Art Brut was to hugely influence Dubuffet's own work, and subsequently Dubuffet himself is considered to be an Art Brut artist, or Outsider Artist.
The remarkable artwork originating from insane asylums had been appreciated and publicly documented to some extent since the 1920's. Perhaps the most notable example of this is Adolf Wölfli. A huge debt is owed to Dr. Morganthaler and Dr. Hans Prinzhorn who not only recognised, but kept Wölfli and other patients work. The 1922 book Dr. Prinzhorn published of Art Brut work was not only significantly influential of Dubuffet, but also of the Surrealists. So it could be said that not long after Outsider Art's discovery was starting to be more widespread, Outsider Art / Art Brut was becoming influencial of other movements even if Outsider Art bore little signs of being influenced itself.
In 1948 Dubuffet founded Compagnie de l'Art Brut, which included artists such as the prominent Surrealist André Breton. Their aim was to find and collect Art Brut work. Not only from inmates at asylums, but those from other peripherals of society, whose work naturally fell in to the same 'outsider' genre. Much of Dubuffet's collection of Art Brut is now publicly viewable in a museum in Switzerland. It is commonly known as Collection de l'Art Brut, and includes thousands of art works.
Many Art Brut creations are works the artist has made of their surroundings that can not be made part of a collection or museum display. Architectural creations that seem bizarre at first, and are sometimes the result of decades of dedication by a single artist, working in a method that seems to be their own invention. See the YouTube video below of one of the most well known examples of this, Palais Ideal by Ferdinand Cheval who worked as a postman, but succeeded in creating one of the most remarkable examples of naive architecture after over three decades of dedicated work. Other similar examples of architectural Art Brut have been discovered across the world.
The wider, and more recent term 'Outsider Art' is often used to describe Art Brut and other work from diverse non-traditional backgrounds. There are organisations similar to Dubuffet's today finding and cataloguing work by societies outsiders, and ensuring a record and place in art history is given to this genre.
Also see Outsider Art.
See YouTube video below.

Video of Palais Ideal by outsider artist Ferdinand Cheval:

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