Cover of Raw Creation: Outsider Art & Beyond

Raw Creation: Outsider Art & Beyond

The art of visionaries, folk creators, spiritualists, recluses, the 'mad' and the socially marginalized is no longer scorned and cannot be ignored. Among the first to value and collect such work was the French artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-85). For those he judged to represent the 'purest form of creation' he coined the term Art Brut, literally 'raw art' - raw because it was 'uncooked' by culture, raw because it came directly from the psyche, art touched by a raw nerve.

Read more

In Raw Creation John Maizels traces the history of the recognition and study of this art and examines the different theories and definitions that have grown up around it. He provides detailed expositions of the work of individual artists ranging from such Art Brut masters as Adolf Wolfli and Aloise Corbaz to such gifted American folk artists as Bill Traylor and Mose Tolliver.

Devoting several chapters to large-scale visionary environments, he takes a broad international view embracing Rodia's towers in Watts, Los Angeles, the Palais Ideal in the south of France, and Nek Chand's sculpture garden in north India.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 240 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Raw Creation: Outsider Art & Beyond? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Raw Creation: Outsider Art & Beyond. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Outsider Art: Spontaneous Alternatives Shares art, outsider art, art history
  2. Lucian Freud Shares art, art history, nonfiction
  3. Bosch Shares art, art history, nonfiction
  4. Impressionism Shares art, art history, nonfiction

“If you want more of the same (history about art), start with these.”

  1. History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography
  2. Conceptual Art
  3. Art Since 1960
  4. Modern Architecture Since 1900

“If it was the art that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Vermeer: The Complete Works
  2. Art Incorporated: The Story of Contemporary Art
  3. Learning to Look: A Handbook for the Visual Arts
  4. Symbols and Allegories in Art

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. American Art: History and Culture
  2. Star Wars Visionaries
  3. Art Worlds
  4. The Art of the Brick: A Life in Lego