Art brut or Raw art is an artistic genre increasingly valued for its singularity, its inventiveness and its emotional impact.
Defined in 1945 by Jean Dubuffet as a simple and natural art, executed by non-professionals, having neither artistic culture nor pretension or cultural approach, it is a spontaneous, impulsive art, giving way to invention, techniques and non-academic materials.
Like Paul Klee or André Breton, a surrealist writer looking for inconscious creation, Jean Dubuffet began collecting what was called "the art of the fools" in the 1920s. He subsequently broadened the specter of raw art to all forms of spontaneous creation, realized by mediums, marginalized, prisoners or the excluded to the ... "men of the common", outside artistic circuits.
Rough art is a vital, inner expression, devoid of any cultural purpose, communication or commerce.
"Art uncultivated, arising from a gift of nature, devoid of any relation to the artistic field " according to Pierre Bourdieu, this art disturbs.
Often repetitive, obsessive or even complex, it joins the approach of some artists obsessively exploring the same artistic problematic.
Away from the history of art, it has existed since the dawn of time.
Not altered by the standards of adult life, cultural conditioning or conformation to the rules of cultural art, it is an act of pure creation. By referring to the creative impulse as an expression of the mystery of existence, raw art is reaching a wide audience.
Jean Dubuffet thought that raw art should escape the market because it existed autonomously.
In the 1970s, a similar movement called « Outsider art » emerged, highlighting marginal, self-taught creators who conceived their work in solitude and outside the artistic milieu. Many raw artists saw their market value flying, art brut became paradoxically a dynamic component of the art market ...
However, the legitimation of this artistic genre has opened the art market to non-professionals, self-taught artists painting with their guts and their soul.
The universal nature of these creations being appreciated by an increasingly wide audience, a greater official recognition of these original artworks could revivify the official sclerotic art.
Article proposed by:
Nicolas Sarazin