the origins of art brut

It can be argued that the origins of Art Brut lie in the encounter between the Romantic myth of genius and that of the “noble savage”, of “man in his natural state”. However, it was only at the dawn of the twentieth century that pioneering psychiatrists like Marcel Réja (also known as Paul Meunier) in France, Hans Prinzhorn in Germany, and Walter Morgenthaler in Switzerland began drawing attention to works that, like African and so-called Primitive art, were to prove a fresh source of inspiration and contemplation for modern artists. Artists like Paul Klee and Max Ernst, then living in Paris, shared their enthusiasm for Prinzhorn’s Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (Artistry of the Mentally Ill), first published in 1922. The book contained numerous plates, many in colour, featuring works collected by Prinzhorn himself at a psychiatric hospital in Heidelberg. Picasso and the Surrealists were so fascinated by these new works that some began their own collections.
The striking parallels between modern art and the art of the insane were picked up by Nazi propagandists, who set up the famous exhibition Degenerate Art in 1937 and subsequently toured it around Germany. Pieces from Prinzhorn’s collection were hung alongside works by Klee, Kandinsky, Nolde, Picasso, and Van Gogh, among others, creating visually arresting correspondences between the works that unwittingly drew attention to the debt that the art world owed to such overlooked figures. The first decades of the twentieth century saw other marginal creators bending the rules of art, including those sometimes described as Naïve artists, although this label is, strictly speaking, incorrect, as Naïve art is far more strictly codified. One such figure is Séraphine Louis, better known as Séraphine de Senlis, discovered by the German art historian and collector Wilhelm Uhde, who was also the first to purchase Picasso’s works. Then there were artists whose works reflected themes similar to those of the Surrealists – spiritualist artists such as Augustin Lesage, a miner from northern France, or self-taught creators such as the Facteur Cheval and his Ideal Palace. Artistic horizons had clearly expanded considerably: Dubuffet’s writings and collection were to cement this trend, bringing the various strands of unconventional art together.

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Jean Dubuffet’s raw gold: “I prefer raw gold in nuggets than in watch cases”
Dubuffet was nearing forty when he decided to give up his career as a wine merchant to devote himself to art. He was fascinated by art that broke the rules, that scorned fashionable schools, the stultifying effects of museums, and cultural diktats alike. His approach was that of a pioneer. He set out in the mid-1940s to explore a terra incognita consisting of asylums and isolated rural regions, in search of “raw gold”. He proved a tireless collector, acquiring works by Aloïse, Wölfli, Gironella, Crépin, Barbus-Müller, and many others. In 1947, he persuaded the owner of the gallery he worked with, René Drouin, to open his basement exhibition space up to what he called the Foyer de l’art brut (Home of Art Brut). This was the start of a major undertaking. 1948 saw the creation of the Compagnie de l’art brut (a company in the sense of a like-minded group rather than a business), its other members being André Breton, Jean Paulhan, Charles Raton, Henri-Pierre Roché, Michel Tapié, and Slavko Kopac. A number of exhibitions and publications were organised, including what came to be seen as the group’s manifesto, L'Art brut préféré aux arts culturels, printed as an introduction to the catalogue for the eponymous exhibition at the Drouin gallery in 1949. The Compagnie and the collection were both to undergo many changes in the years to come: Dubuffet kept on acquiring works for the following two decades, building up a collection of nearly five thousand works. He decided to hand over to the next generation in the late 1960s, and began looking for a suitable home for his collection. Given the lack of enthusiasm among French institutions, where the only proposals he received were judged to be unsatisfactory, he chose to donate the collection to the Swiss city of Lausanne, where the Collection de l’Art brut first opened its doors in 1976.

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            from art brut to outsider art

New collections began to form in the 1970s with the opening of small specialist museums, such as the Fabuloserie in Dicy, France. Dubuffet’s theory on Art Brut began to be challenged and an independent network of enthusiasts started using the term “art singulier” – singular art – to refer to works by self-taught artists, beyond the boundaries of “official” art. The Lausanne centre called this new collection “neuve invention”. This period also saw the creation of now well-known art workshops in psychiatric hospitals in Gugging (Austria), La Tinaia (Italy), and La Pommeraie (Belgium). Aficionados all over the world began seeking out unique settings, built by “roadside visionaries” and “builders of the imaginary”. It was an auspicious time for exploring margins and testing limits. The geographical boundaries of Art Brut – until that point a principally European concept – expanded to include the United States in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Collections of Outsider Art began to acquire works by Henry Darger, Bill Traylor, and Martin Ramirez. Outsider Art – a term coined by the British art historian Roger Cardinal as a synonym for Art Brut – took on a broader base in the United States, including popular, naive, and visionary art: in other words, all forms of artistic creativity by self-taught and otherwise marginal figures. This broad interpretation of Dubuffet’s doctrine can be seen in the choice of artists featured in the international journal Raw Vision, founded by John Maizels in 1989, and at the New York Outsider Art Fair, first held in 1993, which has now cemented America’s leadership on the market.
A small group of enthusiasts, sad to see Dubuffet’s collection leave France, founded the L’Aracine collection in 1982 to meet the challenge of the multiplication of schools included under the Art Brut label, which risked diluting Dubuffet’s concept. The collection of over 3,500 pieces was donated to the French state ten years ago, forming the basis of France’s first public collection, now housed in a new museum in Villeneuve d'Ascq, just outside Lille, which opened in 2010. The number of research projects, publications, museums, collections devoted to Art Brut has grown exponentially in recent years, reflecting a certain disenchantment with the conventional shock tactics of official art on the part of the wider public and an increasing awareness of and enthusiasm for Art Brut, as ever more people come to admire its untamed, untrammelled creativity in their search for meaning.

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