Art’s beauty is its diversity among others. Art Brut is an unconvetional and unusual form of art, starting from the people engaged to it. The artists of the specific form are inmates in psychiatric institutions, having mental and disorders or people who have just no connection to art but they strive to create.
Art Brut was initially introduced by the French artist Jean Dubuffet. He had a special interest and focus on the works of inmates. In 1921 Dr. Walter Morgenthaler published a book, A psychiatric Patient as an Artist. The book was about Adolf Wolfi, a psychotic patient who used to paint as a relaxation technique .His work is huge including collages and paintings which can now be found at the Adolf Wolfi Foundation, in the Museum of Fine Art, Bern.
Another interesting case , was that of the schizophrenic William Kurelek ,who is best known for his work The Maze.
Other people, mainly inmates or suffering from whatever mental illness, who used Art Brut and gave terrific works are:
Madge Gill. She was painting with the
guidance of a spirit that she called
Myrninerest (my inner rest)
Ferdidand Cheval.He was a postman that driven by a dream he spent 33 years in making the Palais Ideal.
Martin Ramirez.A Mexican
outsider artist, suffering from
paranoid schizophrenia.
Later on, the term was changed by the art critic Roger Cardinal. He introduced the term Outsider Art. This change made other people get involve with Art Brut. Not only psychiatric inmates, but as is the case until now, everyone can perform Art Brut, even though there is no art knowledge at all. This is the essence. Even people living outside the margins can perform Art Brut. Many of these works come from people who have extreme ideas and are unconventional or they express fantastic worlds.
From 2000 the EUWARD has been established, which is the European Art Award for painting and graphic arts by artists who have a who have a mental handicap.
Outsider art has become very popular already.
From 1992 we have the Outsider Art Fair in New York
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