Jean Dubuffet - Untitled

1978

35 x 50 cm

Watercolour on paper

(click to enlarge)

Choosing an untitled illustration to present Jean Dubuffet seemed just perfect. Deliberations aside, its a free black and white watercolour on paper puzzling untamed forms covered with chiaroscuro.

His innovative work is incredibly controversial, since they renounce all possible academic rules of artistry, which launched his very own term "Art Brut" to future generations. (english relecture as "outsider art" by art critic Roger Cardinal)

The artist was inspired by books like "Artistry of the Mentally Ill" by Hans Prinzhorn and "Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler" (A Psychiatric Patient as Artist) by Dr. Walter Morgenthaler. He kept a collection of works from mentally ill, prisioners and children and explored laboredly these rough expressions without the scholarly control, developing a style that should transcend it.

"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 flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived 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." - Jean Dubuffet. Place à l'incivisme (Make way for Incivism). Art and Text no.27 (Dec. 1987 - Feb 1988). p.36

If we for a day, could forget all formalities, break all social rules and hence, speak, love and produce without safe restrictions or meaningless blockades, how would that be? Certainly a mess. However, surprisingly authentic.