Avant-garde otherwise known as outsider art, is a diversion from mainstream art. This form of art was popularized in Europe, especially the post Second World War period, by individuals who were predominantly individualistic and nonconformist. Jean Dubuffet is a name synonymous with this kind of art which he called Art Brut.
Jean Dubuffet was born in 1901 in Le Havre, France. He studied art in Paris though for just a short time before he left art to be an industrial draughtsman. He later on moved to become an administration in his family’s business. While he was studying, Dubuffet was intrigued by a book that was written by Hans Prinzhorn, on art done by mentally handicapped patients. Dubuffet started his art career later on in 1942. Through the inspiration he had gotten from the works of Hans Prinzhorn, Dubuffet started to collect art from self taught artists, who in some cases, where mental patients. He was also interested in art from primitive cultures, he went ahead and started making art works that depicted his beliefs, and this was the birth of Art Brut (Di Leo, 2013).
Art Brut was a unique form of art. This was because, it differed the established traditions of French artistic culture. The artists who came up with this kind of art where mostly self taught. Their drawings where drew inspiration from graffiti, a form of art that was unconventional and had not been accepted by many art scholars and art enthusiast. The art works were spontaneous, had little regard to the rules of art that governed mainstream artists and the kind of pieces that they were expected to make. Art Brut was meant to challenge the aesthetic values of art that had been set in the time. Art Brut was considered childish by some art critics but it was later accepted as an alternative form of art especially after artists like Dubuffet started collecting this kind of art and making them himself (Thomashoff & Sartorius, 2004)..
In 1945, when Dubuffet started making his own works, he came up with pieces of art that ascribed to the Art Brut form of art. His style and subject matter were mainly influenced by the work of Paul Klee. Paul Klee was a Swiss German artist. He had an individualistic and expressionistic approach to art and experimented a lot with colors as he was a student to the orientalism school of art. His works like the Red Balloon (1922) and the Flower Myth (1918) where some of the jobs that inspired Dubuffet. Just like Klee, Dubuffet experimented with varied materials and styles of expression. He painted using oil paint made from an impasto. Materials such as sand, tar and straw were used to thicken the impasto which gave his works an unusually textured surface, which was not common in mainstream artworks. Dubuffet continued with his unique pieces and in 1962 he dedicated himself to produce a series of works that he limited himself to the colors red, white, black, and blue (Di Leo, 2013). Below is an example of a painting that he came up with during this period.
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When questioned on the authenticity of his works, Dubuffet defended his works stating that, this form of art was meant challenge the deceitful notion of beauty that was being propagated by most artists in Europe at that time and was meant to appreciate the creative skills of untrained persons. He also thought that this was a good way of appreciating human abilities as some of the paintings he collected where from mentally handicapped patients (Thomashoff & Sartorius, 2004).
In my opinion, Dubuffet works were very unique and beautiful. I love his works because he came up with pieces that challenged the mainstream form of art. This was the primary purpose behind the Art Brut. This Is because Art Brut gave the artists the ability and chance to draw objects and subjects from their own depths and not from clichés of classical art or art that was fashionable. Dubuffet drew anything he felt like and was still able to turn it into a lovely piece of art. Below is an example of a piece that shows the beauty of such freedom that comes from Art Brut.
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Dubuffet was able to used unconventional materials to come up with his works. He was able to used materials like oil paints which he thickened with materials like straws, sand and tar. In my opinion this was a good way of enhancing creativity and enhanced the aesthetics of a piece of art. This also helped enhanced improve the texture of the paintings which in my opinion was better that mainstream textures. The following is an example of art that Dubuffet came up with using these unconventional materials.
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Work Cited
Joseph H. Di Leo. (2013). Interpreting Children's Drawings. Routledge.
