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Forget About
Techno-Speak....
This is Art From
The Heart
Modern art embraces a wide variety of movements,
theories, and
attitudes whose modernism is crystallised
particularly, in
their manifested tendency to reject
traditional, historical, or academic art forms and conventions in an effort to create artwork more in tune with a changed social & economic conditions, and trying, somehow, to embody any shift in philosophical direction. The repudiation of such traditional norms, or established techniques & subjects has lead ultimately to new types of art echoing the expression of an intensely subjective personal vision. we have seen the birth and proliferation of radically new directions such as Neo-Impressionism, Symbolism, the Nabis, Art Nouveau, Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, de Stijl, Expressionism, Ashcan School, Suprematism, Dada, Constructivism, Rayonism, Orphism, Surrealism, Metaphysical painting, Vorticism, Purism, the Neue Sachlichkeit, Social Realism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, Op art, Minimal art, and Neo-Expressionism, and so the list goes on! What is astonishing, however, is that all such new movements have an intellectual underpinning and carry on from a starting point that has it’s origins somewhere in the vast heritage of the institutionalised arts, and sooner or later become part of the avant garde then become absorbed in the main
stream, thus
succumbing to what they tried to escape
from in the first
place.
Oblivious to all these trends and cultural upheavals, there is a group of people who create art from the heart without even being aware of the notion that what they are making is art or having any artistic purpose in their activities. Characteristically, these people are, mostly, suffering from mental illness or have been culturally isolated for long periods and subsequently becoming marginalised, disoriented and dismayed retreating to their own private worlds. The work of such artists was designated as “Art Brut” , a term that was coined by the French artist Jean Philippe Dubuffet in the early 1940’s. This name translates literally to “Raw Art” as opposed to the “cooked” art of the self-conscious establishment, a more to the point equivalent English term was later introduced is "Outsider Art” . Dubuffet, originally inspired by the childlike art of the Swiss painter Paul Klee, has developed the techniques and philosophy of art brut from his many studies of the art of
the mentally ill
which he intended to achieve immediacy
and vitality of expression not found in academic art. He went on to champion the cause of these artists and for almost 40 years worked tirelessly to bring such works to public attention through the exhibiting and publication of such art works. Dubuffet, while acutely conscious of the distinction between psychotic art and “normal” art brut, has regarded such works of art as the purest form of artistic expression by the virtue of being totally removed from all visual and intellectual contamination. For none of these artists has any concept of what we consider as art, simply they obey their own inner voices and follow their detached and often bizarre logic, developing their own unique visual language without regard to any rules or fear of being labelled as bad or absurd “artists”. Springing out of nowhere, such art works are sudden and unexplained, this outpour of creativity of some of the most unusual people, with no artistic training or any connection with the arts, is mysteriously triggered and just happens. No one really knows what strange compulsions spurs the creative process in such driven people or what is the real source of the often weird and wonderful imagery that is patent in their work. Media and tools used to produce such art are of no significance to the artist as there is no planning or predetermined style that the work will be in, no incubation period or an underlying conscious thinking process, it is just done, more often than not in a furious long stretches as if finishing the work was of paramount importance. Some clinical psychologists presume that such artists, having lost touch with reality due to mental illness or other destructive social pressures, shut out the real world and reach out to their childhood memories where “grown-ups" idioms have not yet been learnt by mimicry and where one’s perception of one’s environment is free from any pre-programmed influences, they construct another worlds that exist only in their minds and that makes such art kind of a privileged vision through a special window on the secrets of the subconscious.
Art Brut might be a
relatively new addition to other art modes but has gained rapid acceptance, albeit somewhat reluctantly, as a “legitimate” art thanks to the untiring efforts of Dubuffet and many others who have now established permanent Art Brut collections in several countries like Switzerland and the UK in addition to other art collections on show by some psychiatric institutions who use art-therapy and prefer to preserve much of
the artwork created
by various patients. There is a big
danger today, however, that many of these artists are becoming visually contaminated by forced styles and by the quest of commercial galleries cashing on what they promote as fashionable art, romanticising mental illness in the process. There are also opportunistic and incompetent artists who seek self-promotion by pretending to belong, simply to cover the sad fact of being artistically inept. I, for one, know of a certain lady with several art diplomas, having tried everything from Zen painting to pottery and from photography to ceramics without achieving any success, reinvented herself recently as an Art Brut practitioner in a new quest for fame and fortune! Seriously though, this kind of art, if genuine, is of highly expressive originality
and is quite worthy
of nurturing and promoting.....
Just like all arts!
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