Art Brut
Eliot Gelwan
RW: - I am interested in refernces to creativity and mental or
RW: - neurological >disorders. I am primarily interested in painters
RW: - and visual artists with
RW: - psychological or neurological disorders and how these may
RW: - affect their
RW: - art and creative ability.
RW: - I would appreciate any help with source material.
In what has been a phenomenon of almost entirely European attention,
Jean Dubuffet started a collection of what he called Art Brut, "raw
art," i.e. art by those without artistic training, which seemed to him
to be striking and original unmediated portrayals of unique and
idiosyncratic visions. Many of the artists he collected were either
suffering from major mental illnesses or were retarded or
neuropsychiatrically impaired. The mentally ill had often been
encouraged artistically by forward-thinking psychiatrists while
institutionalized (usually in Europe), while those with organicity had
usually begun a spontaneous outpouring, almost manically. The
collection exists in a museum in Lausanne Switzerland, La Collection
de l'Art Brut, and a number of books have been published from it,
mostly in French; there was even a magazine several years ago I used
to subscribe to, I believe called Raw Art.
...eliot [eliot....@channel1.com]
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