Art Brut

Art Brut ("Raw Art" or "Rough Art" in French) is a label created by French painter Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture. Dubuffet focused particularly on the art of the insane. The English term "Outsider Art", which is synonym for the Art Brut, is often applied more broadly, to include certain works of non-professional artists, who intentionally or not had created original art uninfluenced by the canon.

Interest in the art of insane asylum inmates had begun to grow in the 1920s. In 1921 Dr. Walter Morgenthaler published his monograph about Adolf Wölfli, a psychotic mental patient in his care. Wölfi had spontaneously taken up drawing, and this activity seemed to calm him. His most outstanding work is an illustrated epic of 45 volumes in which he narrates his own imaginary life story. With 25000 pages, 1600 illustrations, and 1500 collages it is a monumental work.

Dubuffet was particularly struck by Dr. Morgenthaler's publication and began his own collection of such art, which he called Art Brut or Raw Art. In 1948 he formed the Compagnie de l'Art Brut along with other artists including André Breton. The collection he established became known as the Collection de l'Art Brut. It contains thousands of works and is now permanently housed in Lausanne.

Dubuffet characterized Art Brut as: "Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses - where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere - are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professions. After a certain familiarity with these flourishing of an exalted feverishness, live so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade."

Dubuffet argued that 'culture' that is mainstream culture, managed to assimilate every new development in art, and by doing so took away whatever power it might have had. The result was to asphyxiate genuine expression. Art Brut was his solution to this problem - only Art Brut was immune to the influences of culture, immune to being absorbed and assimilated, because the artists themselves were not willing or able to be assimilated.