Adolf Wölfli's Irren-Anstalt Band-Hain, 1910

The term Outsider Art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for Art Brut (which literally translates as "Raw Art" or "Rough Art"), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane asylum inmates. Download high resolution version (678x947, 132 KB)Wolfis Irren-Anstalt Band-Hain, 1910 (large) The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with copyright terms of life of the author plus 50 years. ... Download high resolution version (678x947, 132 KB)Wolfis Irren-Anstalt Band-Hain, 1910 (large) The two-dimensional work of art depicted in this image is in the public domain in the United States and in those countries with copyright terms of life of the author plus 50 years. ... Portrait of Adolf Wölfli with paper trumpet, 1925 Adolf Wölfli (1864 - 1930) (occasionally spelt Adolf Woelfli or Adolf Wolfli) was a prolific Swiss artist who is regarded as one of the foremost artists in the Art Brut or outsider art traditions. ... An art critic is normally a person who have a speciality in giving reviews mainly of the types of fine art you will find on display. Typically the art critic will go to an art exhibition where works of art are displayed in the traditional way in localities especially made... Year 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practising the arts and/or demonstrating an art. ... Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (July 31, 1901 - May 12, 1985) was a French artist. ... The Bath, a painting by Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). ...

While Dubuffet's term is quite specific, the English term "Outsider Art" is often applied more broadly, to include certain self-taught or Naïve art makers who were never institutionalized. Typically, those labeled as Outsider Artists have little or no contact with the institutions of the mainstream art world; in many cases, their work is "discovered" only after their deaths. Much Outsider Art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds. Example of Henri Rousseaus work: The Repast of the Lion, circa 1907 Naïve art is created by untrained artists. ...

Outsider Art has emerged as a successful art marketing category (an annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1992); thus the term is sometimes misapplied as a catch-all marketing label for art created by people outside the "art world" mainstream, regardless of their circumstances or the content of their work.

Art of the insane

Interest in the art of insane asylum inmates had begun to grow in the 1920s. In 1921 Dr. Walter Morgenthaler published his book Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler (A Psychiatric Patient as Artist) on Adolf Wölfli, a psychotic mental patient in his care. Wölfli 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 25,000 pages, 1,600 illustrations, and 1,500 collages it is a monumental work. He also produced a large number of smaller works, some of which were sold or given as gifts. His work is on display at the Adolf Wölfli Foundation in the Museum of Fine Art, Berne. A defining moment was the publication of Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (Artistry of the mentally ill) in 1922, by Dr Hans Prinzhorn. A psychiatric hospital (also called, at various places and times, mental hospital or mental ward), is a hospital specialising in the treatment of persons with mental illness. ... The 1920s is a decade that is sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... Year 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... Portrait of Adolf Wölfli with paper trumpet, 1925 Adolf Wölfli (1864 - 1930) (occasionally spelt Adolf Woelfli or Adolf Wolfli) was a prolific Swiss artist who is regarded as one of the foremost artists in the Art Brut or outsider art traditions. ... Psychosis is a psychiatric classification for a mental state in which the perception of reality is distorted. ... For other uses, see Berne (disambiguation). ... Hans Prinzhorn (June 6, 1886 - June 14, 1933) was a German Psychiatrist and art historian. ...

Jean Dubuffet and Art Brut

French artist Jean Dubuffet was particularly struck by Bildnerei der Geisteskranken 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, Switzerland. Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (July 31, 1901 - May 12, 1985) was a French artist. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... André Breton André Breton (French IPA: ) (February 19, 1896 – September 28, 1966) was a French writer, poet, and surrealist theorist, and is best known as the main founder of surrealism. ... Lausanne (pronounced ) is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva (French: Lac Léman), and facing Évian-les-Bains (France) and with the Jura mountains to its north. ...

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 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

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. For other uses, see Solitude (disambiguation). ...

The cultural context of the outsider art category

The interest in "outsider" practices among twentieth century artists and critics can be seen as part of a larger emphasis on the rejection of established values within the modernist art milieu. The early part of the 20th Century gave rise to cubism and the Dada, Constructivist and Futurist movements in art, all of which involved a dramatic movement away from cultural forms of the past. Dadaist Marcel Duchamp, for example, abandoned "painterly" technique to allow chance operations a role in determining the form of his works, or simply to re-contextualize existing "readymade" objects as art. Mid-century artists, including Pablo Picasso, looked "outside" the traditions of high culture for inspiration, drawing from the artifacts of "primitive" societies, the unschooled artwork of children, and vulgar advertising graphics. Dubuffet's championing of the art of the insane and others at the margins of society is yet another example of avant-garde art challenging established cultural values. This article focuses on the cultural movement labeled modernism or the modern movement. See also: Modernism (Roman Catholicism) or Modernist Christianity; Modernismo for specific art movement(s) in Spain and Catalonia. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Cover of the first edition of the publication, Dada. ... Tatlin Tower. ... Futurism was a 20th century art movement. ... Marcel Duchamp. ... Pablo Ruiz Picasso (October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973) was a Spanish painter and sculptor. ...

Vocabulary

Two detail images of Joe Minter's African Village in America, a half-acre visionary art environment in Birmingham, Alabama. Scenes include African warriors watching their descendants’ struggles in Alabama, tributes to black scientists and military leaders, recreations of the epic civil rights confrontations in Alabama, and biblical scenes.

A number of terms are used to describe art that is loosely understood as "outside" of official culture. Definitions of these terms vary, and there are areas of overlap between them. The editors of Raw Vision, a leading journal in the field, suggest that "Whatever views we have about the value of controversy itself, it is important to sustain creative discussion by way of an agreed vocabulary". Consequently they lament the use of Outsider Artist to refer to almost any untrained artist. "It is not enough to be untrained, clumsy or naïve. Outsider Art is virtually synonymous with Art Brut in both spirit and meaning, to that rarity of art produced by those who do not know its name." Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 593 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (702 × 710 pixel, file size: 359 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Birmingham, Alabama Outsider Art User:Bridgman... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 593 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (702 × 710 pixel, file size: 359 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Birmingham, Alabama Outsider Art User:Bridgman... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 409 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1199 × 1756 pixel, file size: 1. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Size of this preview: 409 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (1199 × 1756 pixel, file size: 1. ... Nickname: Location in Jefferson County in the state of Alabama Coordinates: Country United States State Alabama County Jefferson, Shelby Government  - Mayor Bernard Kincaid (D) Area  - City  151. ... Raw Vision is an international journal of intuitive and visionary art. ...

• Art Brut: Raw art, 'raw' in that it has not been through the 'cooking' process: the art world of art schools, galleries, museums. Originally art by psychotic individuals who existed almost completely outside culture and society. Strictly speaking it refers only to the Collection de l'Art Brut.
• Neuve Invention: Used to describe artists who, although marginal, have some interaction with mainstream culture. They may be doing art part-time for instance. The expression was coined by Dubuffet too; strictly speaking it refers only to a special part of the Collection de l'Art Brut.
• Folk art: Folk art originally suggested crafts and decorative skills associated with peasant communities in Europe - though presumably it could equally apply to any indigenous culture. It has broadened to include any product of practical craftsmanship and decorative skill - everything from chain-saw animals to hub-cap buildings. A key distinction between folk and outsider art is that folk art typically embodies traditional forms and social values, where outsider art stands in some marginal relationship to society's mainstream.
• Marginal Art/Art Singulier: Essentially the same as Neue Invention; refers to artists on the margins of the art world.
• Visionary art/Intuitive art: Raw Vision Magazine's preferred general terms for Outsider Art. It describes them as deliberate umbrella terms. However Visionary Art unlike other definitions here can often refer to the subject matter of the works, which includes images of a spiritual or religious nature. Intuitive art is probably the most general term available. The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland is dedicated to the collection and display of such artwork.
• Naïve Art: Another grey area. Untrained artists who aspire to "normal" artistic status, i.e. they have a much more conscious interaction with the mainstream art world than do Outsider Artists.
• Visionary environments: Buildings and sculpture parks built by visionary artists - range from decorated houses, to large areas incorporating a large number of individual sculptures with a tightly associated theme. Examples include Watts Towers by Simon Rodia, and The Palais Ideal by Ferdinand Cheval.
• Irrealism: Nelson Goodman

Adolf W lflis Irren-Anstalt Band-Hain, 1910 Outsider Art was a term coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for Art Brut, a term created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created by people well outside the boundaries of official art... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Visionary art is art that purports to transcend the physical world and portray a wider vision of awareness including spiritual or mystical themes, or is based in such experiences. ... The American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) is an art museum located in Baltimore, Maryland. ... Nickname: Motto: The Greatest City in America,[4] Get in on it. ... Example of Henri Rousseaus work: The Repast of the Lion, circa 1907 Naïve art is created by untrained artists. ... Watts Towers, 1765 East 107th St. ... Sabato Simon (or Sam to his friends) Rodia was an Italian immigrant to the United States who spent much of his adulthood living in Los Angeles, California. ... Chevals Palais Idéal Ferdinand Cheval (1836-1924) was a French postman who spent 33 years of his life building an Ideal Castle. ... Chevals Palais Idéal Ferdinand Cheval (1836 - August 19, 1924) was a French postman who spent 33 years of his life building an Ideal Castle (French Palais idéal) which is regarded as an extraordinary example of naive art architecture. ... Irrealism is a philosophical term which seems to have been coined in the 1980s by Nelson Goodman to refer to the belief that the debate between realism and anti-realism was based on poor assumptions. ... Nelson Goodman (7 August 1906, Somerville, Maryland – 25 November 1998) was an American philosopher, known for his work on counterfactuals, mereology, the problem of induction, and aesthetics. ...

Notable Outsider artists

August Natterer's Weltachse mit Haase (Axle of the World, with Rabbit), 1919

• Nek Chand (1924- ) is an Indian artist, famous for building the Rock Garden of Chandigarh, a forty acre (160,000m²) sculpture garden in the city of Chandigarh, India.
• Ferdinand Cheval (1836-1924) was a country postman in Hauterives, south of Lyon, France. Motivated by a dream, he spent 33 years constructing the Palais Ideal. Half organic building, half massive sculpture, it was constructed from stones collected on his postal round, held together with chicken wire, cement, and lime.
• Henry Darger (1892-1973) was a solitary man who was orphaned and institutionalised as a child. In the privacy of his Chicago apartment, he produced 15,000 pages of text and hundreds of large scale illustrations, including maps, collaged photos and watercolors that depict his child heroes "the Vivian Girls" in the midst of battle scenes that combine imagery of the US Civil War with fanciful monsters.
• Madge Gill (1882-1961), was an English mediumistic artist who made thousands of drawings "guided" by a spirit she called "Myrninerest" (my inner rest).
• Alexander Lobanov (1924-2003) was a deaf and autistically withdrawn Russian known for detailed and self-aggrandizing self-portraits: paintings, photographs and quilts, which usually include images of large guns.
• Martin Ramirez (1895-1963), a Mexican outsider artist who spent most of his adult life institutionalized in a California mental hospital (he had been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic). He developed an elaborate iconography featuring repeating shapes mixed with images of trains and Mexican folk figures.
• Achilles Rizzoli (1896-1981) was employed as an architectural draftsman. He lived with his mother near San Francisco, California. After his death, a huge collection of elaborate drawings were discovered, many in the form of maps and architectural renderings that described a highly personal fantasy exposition, including portraits of his mother as a neo-baroque building.
• Judith Scott (1943-2005) was born deaf and with Down Syndrome. After taking a fiber art class at an art institute for the disabled, she began to produce objects wrapped in many layers of string and fibers.
• Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930), a Swiss artist, was confined to a psychiatric hospital for most of his adult life during which time he produced a vast amount of drawings, text and musical composition. Wölfli was the first well-known "outsider artist," and he remains closely associated with the label.

Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... August Natterer (1868 - 1933), also known as Neter, was a schizophrenic German outsider artist. ... Nek Chand Saini is an Indian artist, famous for building the Rock Garden of Chandigarh, a forty acre (160,000 m²) sized sculpture garden in the city of Chandigarh, India. ... Chandigarh is a city in India that serves as the capital of two states: Punjab and Haryana. ... Chevals Palais Idéal Ferdinand Cheval (1836 - August 19, 1924) was a French postman who spent 33 years of his life building an Ideal Castle (French Palais idéal) which is regarded as an extraordinary example of naive art architecture. ... Henry Darger (April 12?, 1892–April 13, 1973) was a reclusive American writer and illustrator who worked as a janitor in the Chicago, Illinois area. ... Illustration by Madge Gill Madge Gill (1882 – 1961), born Maude Ethel Eades, was an English outsider and visionary artist. ... Self portrait with gun by Alexandre Lobanov Alexander Pavlovich Lobanov (Russian: ) (1924–April, 2003) was a Russian outsider artist known particularly for his detailed self-portraits, noted for their frequent inclusion of guns and for their self-aggrandizing nature. ... Martin Ramirez (1885-1963) was a Mexican outsider artist who spent most of his adult life institutionalized in a California mental hospital, diagnosed as a catatonic schizophrenic. ... Achilles G. Rizzoli (1896 - 1981), anonymous during his lifetime, has since his death become celebrated as an outsider artist. ... The foyer of the Paris Opera, built by Charles Garnier Neo-baroque is a term used to describe artistic creations which display important aspects of Baroque style, but are not from the Baroque period proper. ... Judith Scott (May 1, 1943 – March 15, 2005) was an outsider artist. ... This article discusses the way the word deaf is used and how deafness is perceived by hearing and Deaf communities. ... Fiber art is a subclassification of fine art defined by the usually exclusive use of fabrics, yarn, other natural fibers, and now synthetic fibers to focus on the properties of the material as well as the hands-on work intensive process as part of the significance of the piece. ... Portrait of Adolf Wölfli with paper trumpet, 1925 Adolf Wölfli (1864 - 1930) (occasionally spelt Adolf Woelfli or Adolf Wolfli) was a prolific Swiss artist who is regarded as one of the foremost artists in the Art Brut or outsider art traditions. ...

Trivia

In The Simpsons episode 222 Mom and Pop Art, Homer Simpson is named an Outsider Artist, after his failed attempts at building a Barbecue Pit, turns into a sculpture Simpsons redirects here. ... Mom and Pop Art is the nineteenth episode of The Simpsons tenth season. ... Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons, voiced by Dan Castellaneta. ... A barbecue in a public park in Australia A barbecue on a trailer at a block party in Kansas City Pans on the top shelf hold hamburgers and hot dogs that were grilled earlier when the coals were hot. ...

See also

• Pseudo naïve art
• Outsider music
• Lowbrow (art movement)
• Stuckism
• Visionary art
• Comprehensive listing of Outsider artists

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Naive art. ... Music sample: True Love will Find You in the End ( file info) — Sample of Daniel Johnstons True Love will Find You in the End Problems listening to the file? See media help. ... Cover Art by Mark Ryden Cover Art by Joe Coleman Lowbrow, or lowbrow art, describes an underground visual art movement that arose in the Los Angeles, California, area in the late 1970s. ... The logo on the Stuckism International web site Stuckism is an art movement that was founded in 1999 in Britain by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art. ... Visionary art is art that purports to transcend the physical world and portray a wider vision of awareness including spiritual or mystical themes, or is based in such experiences. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Outsider art

• Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne, Switzerland
• Intuit The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Chicago
• American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore
• The Prinzhorn Collection, Heidelberg
• Collection of Art Brut, Vienna, Austria
• Raw Vision Outsider Art Journal
• Demirel Collection, Outsider Art World
• Adolf Wölfli Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts Bern, Switzerland
• Museum im Lagerhaus, St. Gallen, Switzerland
• Art Cafe: Outsider and Emerging arts
• Outsider Art Exhibition Art From Outside the Art World
• Outsider... deconstructing art from the outside Epistemology of marginal art as an expressive visual practice
• On Outsider Art and the Margins of the Mainstream Examination of the definition and application of the term

Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... The Wikimedia Commons (also called Wikicommons) is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. ...

Selected bibliography

• Roger Cardinal, Outsider Art, London, 1972.
• Roger Cardinal, Art Brut. In: Dictionary of Art, Vol. 2, London, 1996, p. 515-516.
• Turhan Demirel, "Outsider Bilderwelten", Bettina Peters Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-939691-44-5
• Jean Dubuffet: L’Art brut préféré aux arts culturels [1949](=engl in: Art brut. Madness and Marginalia, special issue of Art & Text, No. 27, 1987, p. 31-33).
• Hal Foster, Blinded Insight: On the Modernist Reception of the Art of The Mentally Ill. In: October, No. 97, Summer 2001, pp. 3-30.
• Deborah Klochko and John Turner, eds., Create and Be Recognized: Photography on the Edge, San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2004.
• John M. MacGregor, The Discovery of the Art of the Insane. Princeton, Oxford, 1989.
• John Maizels, Raw Creation art and beyond, Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1996.
• Lucienne Peiry, Art brut: The Origins of Outsider Art, Paris: Flammarion, 2001.
• Lyle Rexer, How to Look at Outsider Art, New York:Abrams, 2005.
• Colin Rhodes, Outsider Art: Spontaneous Alternatives, London: Thames and Hudson, 2000.
• Rubin, Susan Goldman. (March 9, 2004). Art Against the Odds: From Slave Quilts to Prison Paintings. Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers. ISBN 0-375-82406-5
• Michel Thévoz, Art brut, New York, 1975.
• Maurice Tuchman and Carol Eliel, eds. Parallel Visions. Modern Artists and Outsider Art. Exhb. cat. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1992.
• Allen S. Weiss, Shattered Forms, Art Brut, Phantasms, Modernism, State University of New York, Albany, 1992.
• Self Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998