Raw Vision, Autumn 2019

This is the first time I've bought a copy of Raw Vision, and quite fascinating it is. Under the title is 'OUTSIDER ART BRUT': 'art brut' I''m happy with, although 'Outsider art' as an expression poses many problems, such as: What does it mean? Who is to be included and who excluded? Since Roger Cardinal coined the term in 1972 it seems increasingly meaningless as a translation of 'art brut'. But then I'm not at all happy with the word 'raw' as a translation of brut, which makes it sound like a piece of meat or a vegetable. All the same, the Anglophone world is used to the term 'outsider' in this context, so I guess it will still hang around for some time.

This autumn 2019 issue is devoted to, ahem, 'Women in Outsider Art' and includes a large section (including the front cover) on the work of Danielle Jacqui whose Maison de celle qui peint we were fortunate enough to visit in Roquevaire several months ago. Also included in separate articles are Marie Von Bruenchenhein, her husband Eugene's muse; Anne Marie Grgich and her painted books; Sister Gertrude Moragan's religious paintings; recently discovered embroideries of Madge Gill; Ody Saban and kus; Lee Godie and self-portraits (often with writing; Olga Frantskevich's rugs of war atrocities; and a paragraph (picture) of fifty women artists.

Art brut (Outsider Art) and associated:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Rémy Callot, Carvin (Nord)
Carine Fol (ed.): L'Art brut en question | Outsider Art in Question
Kevin Duffy, Ashton-in-Makerfield
The Art Brut of Léopold Truc, Cabrières d'Avignon (34)
Le Musée Extraordinaire de Georges Mazoyer, Ansouis (34)
Le Facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal, Hauterives (26)
The Little Chapel, Guernsey
Museum of Appalachia, Norris, Clinton, Tennessee
Ed Leedskalnin in Homestead, Florida
La Fabuloserie, Dicy, Yonne (89)
Street Art City, Lurcy-Lévis, Allier (03)
The Outsider Art of Jean Linard, Neuvy-deux-Clochers (18)
La Fabuloserie, Dicy, Yonne (89)
Jean Bertholle, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jean-Pierre Schetz, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jules Damloup, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Camille Vidal, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Pascal Verbena, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
The Art of Theodore Major
Edward Gorey's Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, MA
Marcel Vinsard in Pontcharra, Isère (38)
Carine Fol (ed.): Outsider Art in Question
Vincent Capt: Écrivainer : La langue morcelée de Samuel Daiber
The Amazing World of Danielle Jacqui, Roquevaire (13)
Alphonse Gurlie, Maisonneuve (07)
Univers du poète ferrailleur, Lizio, Morbihan
Les Rochers sculptés de L'Abbé Fouré, Rothéneuf, Saint-Malo
Robert Tatin in Cossé-le-Vivien, Mayenne
René Raoul's Jardin de pierre in Pléhédel, Côtes d'Armor
La Demeure du Chaos, Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d'Or, Rhône (69)
Emmanuel Arredondo in Varennes Vauzelles, Nièvre (58)
Musée de la Luna Rossa (revisited), Caen, Calvados (14)
La Fontaine de Château-Chinon, Nièvre (58)

Art Brut and related posts - latest update

My May 2019 update of my Art Brut and similar posts collection:

Art brut (Outsider Art) and associated:

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Rémy Callot, Carvin (Nord)
Carine Fol (ed.): L'Art brut en question | Outsider Art in Question
Kevin Duffy, Ashton-in-Makerfield
The Art Brut of Léopold Truc, Cabrières d'Avignon (34)
Le Musée Extraordinaire de Georges Mazoyer, Ansouis (34)
Le Facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal, Hauterives (26)
The Little Chapel, Guernsey
Museum of Appalachia, Norris, Clinton, Tennessee
Ed Leedskalnin in Homestead, Florida
La Fabuloserie, Dicy, Yonne (89)
Street Art City, Lurcy-Lévis, Allier (03)
The Outsider Art of Jean Linard, Neuvy-deux-Clochers (18)
La Fabuloserie, Dicy, Yonne (89)
Jean Bertholle, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jean-Pierre Schetz, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jules Damloup, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Camille Vidal, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Pascal Verbena, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
The Art of Theodore Major
Edward Gorey's Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, MA
Marcel Vinsard in Pontcharra, Isère (38)
Carine Fol (ed.): Outsider Art in Question
Vincent Capt: Écrivainer : La langue morcelée de Samuel Daiber
The Amazing World of Danielle Jacqui, Roquevaire (13)
Alphonse Gurlie, Maisonneuve (07)
Univers du poète ferrailleur, Lizio, Morbihan
Les Rochers sculptés de L'Abbé Fouré, Rothéneuf, Saint-Malo
Robert Tatin in Cossé-le-Vivien, Mayenne
La Demeure du Chaos, Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d'Or, Rhône (69)
René Raoul's Jardin de pierre in Pléhédel, Côtes d'Armor

Carine Fol (ed.): L'Art brut en question | Outsider Art in Question (2015)

This bilingual book on Outsider Art (art brut) is what might be described as a coffee table book, and yet it doesn't come under that description (which usually means dumb, nothing but gloss, mindless, etc) in terms of content. This is a highly scholarly, fascinating book on an art form which is now being recognised seriously, and the proliferation of such books makes me incapable of judging it along with others on the same subject: there are far too many.

However, this book is a history of outsider art, of its increasing acceptance, of its relationship with art produced in psychiatric hospitals, of the acceptance through the not too distant past of art brut not only as therapy, not only as a means of expression, but as part of the art world in itself. Outsider art (art brut) is authentic art and should be recognised as such. We have come a very long way since the objections to Facteur Cheval's masterpiece in Hauterives as naive, amateur or primitive.

Included in this huge book are the works of familiar names such as Adolf Wölfli, Unica Zürn, Aloïse Corbaz, Josef Hofer, Madge Gill, Henry Darger, Gaston Chaisssac, Johann Hauser, Augustin Lesage, Carlo Zinelli, etc, etc. The cover image is by Dirk Martens, and the endpapers by Michel Dave and (together) Cléa Coudsi and Éric Herbin.

Art brut (Outsider Art) and associated:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Rémy Callot, Carvin (Nord)
Carine Fol (ed.): L'Art brut en question | Outsider Art in Question
Kevin Duffy, Ashton-in-Makerfield
The Art Brut of Léopold Truc, Cabrières d'Avignon (34)
Le Musée Extraordinaire de Georges Mazoyer, Ansouis (34)
Le Facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal, Hauterives (26)
The Little Chapel, Guernsey
Museum of Appalachia, Norris, Clinton, Tennessee
Ed Leedskalnin in Homestead, Florida
La Fabuloserie, Dicy, Yonne (89)
Street Art City, Lurcy-Lévis, Allier (03)
The Outsider Art of Jean Linard, Neuvy-deux-Clochers (18)
Jean Bertholle, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jean-Pierre Schetz, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jules Damloup, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Camille Vidal, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Pascal Verbena, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
The Art of Theodore Major
Edward Gorey's Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, MA
Marcel Vinsard in Pontcharra, Isère (38)
Vincent Capt: Écrivainer : La langue morcelée de Samuel Daiber
The Amazing World of Danielle Jacqui, Roquevaire (13)
Alphonse Gurlie, Maisonneuve (07)
Univers du poète ferrailleur, Lizio, Morbihan
Les Rochers sculptés de L'Abbé Fouré, Rothéneuf, Saint-Malo
Robert Tatin in Cossé-le-Vivien, Mayenne
La Demeure du Chaos, Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d'Or, Rhône (69)
René Raoul's Jardin de pierre in Pléhédel, Côtes d'Armor
Emmanuel Arredondo in Varennes Vauzelles, Nièvre (58)
Musée de la Luna Rossa (revisited), Caen, Calvados (14)
La Fontaine de Château-Chinon, Nièvre (58)

Pascal Verbena, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)

Pascal Verbena was born in Marseille the son of wholesale fish merchants. Married, he worked at night in the postal sector and in the day fished in the calanques, bringing up pieces of wood which he used in his atelier to renew their life. He loved hiding places, a major key to his work: sliding doors, drawers, tiny human figures, imaginary prehistoric animals. His final works became more abstract.

My Art Brut and related posts:
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Kevin Duffy, Ashton-in-Makerfield
The Outsider Art of Léopold Truc, Cabrières d'Avignon (34)
Le Musée Extraordinaire de Georges Mazoyer, Ansouis (34)
Le Facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal, Hauterives (26) 
The Little Chapel, Guernsey
Museum of Appalachia, Norris, Clinton, Tennessee
Ed Leedskalnin in Homestead, Florida
La Fabuloserie, Dicy, Yonne (89)
Street Art City, Lurcy-Lévis, Allier (03)
The Outsider Art of Jean Linard, Neuvy-deux-Clochers (18)

La Fabuloserie, Dicy, Yonne (89)
Jean Bertholle, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jean-Pierre Schetz, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jules Damloup, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Camille Vidal, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Pascal Verbena, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
The Art of Theodore Major
Edward Gorey's Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, MA
Marcel Vinsard in Pontcharra, Isère (38)
Carine Fol (ed.): Outsider Art in Question
Vincent Capt: Écrivainer : La langue morcelée de Samuel Daiber
The Amazing World of Danielle Jacqui, Roquevaire (13)
Alphonse Gurlie, Maisonneuve (07)

La Demeure du Chaos, Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d'Or, Rhône (69)
Emmanuel Arredondo in Varennes Vauzelles, Nièvre (58)
Musée de la Luna Rossa (revisited), Caen, Calvados (14)
La Fontaine de Château-Chinon, Nièvre (58)

Jean Linard (1931–2010), who was born in La Marche near La Charité-sur-Loire and died in Bourges, was a ceramic artist, sculptor, painter, engraver and architect. In 1961 he and his future wife Anne Kjaersgaard (whom he later divorced) bought a former flint quarry in the hamlet of Les Poteries, Neuvy-deux-Clochers in Cher, where they set about constructing a house and workshops. In 1981 he added the 'Tour Rocard' to his constructions, using bricks from a former pottery oven belonging to the scientist Yves Rocard. He used different and (over some time) differing materials and styles, such as sandstone, raku, iron, mosaic, etc. A great cat lover, his Moustique was an inspiration, and he also praised other animals such as owls, cows and elephants. He essentially created his art from recycled objects. He began work on his Cathédrale (without a roof) in 1983, and about twenty-six of his final years were devoted to this construction. His influences range from the 'conventional' Picaso and Gaudí's Sagrada Família to the slightly more obscure Facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal and Raymond Isidore's Maison Picassiette. Among his mosaics are the names of the people he loved, including his children and grandchildren, and such figures as Gandhi, Mandela, plus religious icons such as Buddha and Mahomet. His 'Quelle connerie la guerre' ('What bullshit war is') is a line from one of Jacques Prévert's poems in Paroles. In 2012, Frédéric Mitterand, Ministre de la Culture, made the house and cathédrale a Monument Historique. Jean Linard had built his own grave above a path leading from the cathédrale, around which his ashes were scattered.

Art brut (Outsider Art) and associated:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Rémy Callot, Carvin (Nord)
Carine Fol (ed.): L'Art brut en question | Outsider Art in Question
Kevin Duffy, Ashton-in-Makerfield
The Art Brut of Léopold Truc, Cabrières d'Avignon (34)
Le Musée Extraordinaire de Georges Mazoyer, Ansouis (34)
Le Facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal, Hauterives (26)
The Little Chapel, Guernsey
Museum of Appalachia, Norris, Clinton, Tennessee
Ed Leedskalnin in Homestead, Florida
La Fabuloserie, Dicy, Yonne (89)
Street Art City, Lurcy-Lévis, Allier (03)
The Outsider Art of Jean Linard, Neuvy-deux-Clochers (18)
Jean Bertholle, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jean-Pierre Schetz, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jules Damloup, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Camille Vidal, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Pascal Verbena, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
The Art of Theodore Major
Edward Gorey's Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, MA
Marcel Vinsard in Pontcharra, Isère (38)
Vincent Capt: Écrivainer : La langue morcelée de Samuel Daiber
The Amazing World of Danielle Jacqui, Roquevaire (13)
Alphonse Gurlie, Maisonneuve (07)
Univers du poète ferrailleur, Lizio, Morbihan
Les Rochers sculptés de L'Abbé Fouré, Rothéneuf, Saint-Malo
Robert Tatin in Cossé-le-Vivien, Mayenne
René Raoul's Jardin de pierre in Pléhédel, Côtes d'Armor
La Demeure du Chaos, Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d'Or, Rhône (69)
Emmanuel Arredondo in Varennes Vauzelles, Nièvre (58)
Musée de la Luna Rossa (revisited), Caen, Calvados (14)
La Fontaine de Château-Chinon, Nièvre (58)

La Fabuloserie, Dicy, Yonne (89)

La Fabuloserie is an amazing museum in Dicy in the Yonne that has been open since 1983. It was the brainchild of architect and sculptor Alain Bourbonnais (1925–88) to display a collection of 'art hors-les-normes', or art brut, best translated in English as 'outsider art'. There is a wealth of art here by many artists, and I only have room here to show a few of my favourites. Visits here are in two stages, in no particular order: an open visit to the 'maison-musée', and a guided tour of the 'jardin habité'.

The most amazing exhibit of the whole collection must certainly be Pierre Avezard's Manège, which is not just a mechanical merry-go-round but a whole series of objects moving around when set in motion. Pierre (1909–92) is more commonly called 'Petit Pierre', who was deaf with a serious eye complaint and was seen by some people as stupid. Le Manège shows how wrong people can be, and the objects here are made from recycled materials. Petit Pierre worked on a farm, which not only taught him many things about the mechanical workings of objects, but allowed him to make tools for his environment, even including a washing machine. Le Manège is many things, but also in part an autobiograhy, depicting life on the farm as Petit Pierre saw it. These are just a few of the working parts, and there are clips on Youtube showing Le Manège in motion: an unbelievable sight.

Alain Bourbonneau himself has his collection Les Turbulents here: creatures from nighmares:

Francis Marshall (born 1947), was from a comfortable background, taught younger children from a deprived area in Normandy, and was horrified by the poverty, social rejection and inbreeding he saw around him. He invented Mauricette and constructed different stages in her background. Of particular interest to me are the ropes which entrap the characters, caught up in their own environment from which there is no escape, but also of course – as many other more 'privileged' people – entrapped mentally and physically by their own limitations:

Art brut (Outsider Art) and associated:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Rémy Callot, Carvin (Nord)
Carine Fol (ed.): L'Art brut en question | Outsider Art in Question
Kevin Duffy, Ashton-in-Makerfield
The Art Brut of Léopold Truc, Cabrières d'Avignon (34)
Le Musée Extraordinaire de Georges Mazoyer, Ansouis (34)
Le Facteur Cheval's Palais Idéal, Hauterives (26)
The Little Chapel, Guernsey
Museum of Appalachia, Norris, Clinton, Tennessee
Ed Leedskalnin in Homestead, Florida
La Fabuloserie, Dicy, Yonne (89)
Street Art City, Lurcy-Lévis, Allier (03)
The Outsider Art of Jean Linard, Neuvy-deux-Clochers (18)
Jean Bertholle, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jean-Pierre Schetz, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Jules Damloup, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Camille Vidal, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
Pascal Verbena, La Fabuloserie, Yonne (89)
The Art of Theodore Major
Edward Gorey's Yarmouth Port, Cape Cod, MA
Marcel Vinsard in Pontcharra, Isère (38)
Vincent Capt: Écrivainer : La langue morcelée de Samuel Daiber
The Amazing World of Danielle Jacqui, Roquevaire (13)
Alphonse Gurlie, Maisonneuve (07)
Univers du poète ferrailleur, Lizio, Morbihan
Les Rochers sculptés de L'Abbé Fouré, Rothéneuf, Saint-Malo
Robert Tatin in Cossé-le-Vivien, Mayenne
René Raoul's Jardin de pierre in Pléhédel, Côtes d'Armor
La Demeure du Chaos, Saint-Romain-au-Mont-d'Or, Rhône (69)
Emmanuel Arredondo in Varennes Vauzelles, Nièvre (58)
Musée de la Luna Rossa (revisited), Caen, Calvados (14)
La Fontaine de Château-Chinon, Nièvre (58)

Marcel Bascoulard (artwork); Patrick Martinat (text): Bascoulard: Dessinateur Virtuose, clochard magnifique, femme inventée (2014)

Bascoulard is an enormous book in more ways than one: this hardback (49 euros and well worth it) won't fit onto the average bookshelf with the spine legible, it probably weighs about two kilos, and the number of pages is about three hundred. Many would describe this as a coffee table book (or beau livre in French), but that expression just suggests something pretty to look at, with little to read, and invariably of a very well-known subject.

Certainly the text in this book (by Patrick Martinat) is very soon read, and there are a great number of photos in it of the artist Marcel Bascoulard (1913–78) and his work, but from there it parts company from the regular coffee book, in fact it subverts the coffee table book: outside central France (the Bourges (and Sologne) areas to be specific), how many people are aware of Marcel Bascoulard, who has his own square with his bust in Bourges, as well as a street named after him in Saint-Florent-sur-Cher, where he spent his youth?

Shortly after his mother Marguerite, when her elder son Marcel was nineteen, shot her violent husband dead in the back and was institutionalised, he moved to Bourges and began painting. He didn't fit in with society, and I won't even bother involving psychological analysis, which he would (quite rightly, I'm sure) have detested. Marcel grew away from conventional society, being unconcerned with the trapping of success, unconcerned with money or fame to such an extent that he wasn't interested in a roof over his head with running water and electricity, and traded his paintings for food and suchlike to feed his cats and dogs as well as himself. His mother had been the main love of his life, and no one else.

And yet Bascoulard was a gifted painter, first a realist depicting in minute detail the city of Bourges (particularly the cathedral), including the few other places he visited, although they were very few and probably the furthest he ever ventured was Paris. He later introduced odd colours to his townscapes, even painted abstract pictures, but they weren't welcomed, although he didn't care, he wasn't interested in painting to order, in being commissioned, he preferred his outsider, tramp status, although he didn't see himself as a tramp: after all, how many tramps dress in female clothing, for example, or ride tricycles that they've designed themselves? OK, many may live on wasteland, but what of it?

Marcel Bascoulard saw his death coming in the form of the twenty-three-year-old social reject Jean-Claude Simion, but no one else in Bourges did, otherwise they'd have protected him. Such a waste.

Bascoulard is a magnificent book, one of the few which you must have in your possession even if you don't speak French, as it so evidently speaks for the outsiders, the outcasts who have so much to tell us. Only Bascoulard wasn't an outcast, he was loved in spite of the dirt he lived in, in spite of (even because of) his anarchism, and his death was a great blow to Bourges: after all, how many other people have played such a role in putting the town on the French map?

My criticism is that Patrick Martinat glibly dismisses Marcel Bascoulard's writing, quotes from it very briefly, and gives it virtually no space. Fascinating as photos of Bascoulard are, as his painting and sketches are, as his precise maps are, many photos here would have lost nothing by their exclusion, although so much could have been gained by the inclusion of Bascoulard's writings, no matter what Martinat think of them: he is no expert in literature, and should not pretend to be one. It would have been very interesting, for instance, to give just one example, to have read 'Maternelle réhabilitation' in full.