Page 56 - Studio International - March 1973

the recent past, as indeed is any text that collectively this range of material is known as art type, having been produced over fifty years ago.
questions and challenges, in a constructive way, brut, literally raw art, a term coined by It is unfortunate that Cardinal restricts his
traditional values regarding artistic creation Dubuffet twenty-five or so years ago. presentation of madness and art to the work of
and appreciation. Essentially the author is Cardinal excludes from consideration several schizophrenics, since depressives and
concerned with two issues : whether art can be kinds of art for various related reasons — like folk epileptics have also shown tremendous
conceived that is not 'cultural', and if so, whether or peasant arts, because, he says, they are 'no less creative power, as a visit to any mental hospital
such a 'rigorously different' art actually exists. subservient to social and aesthetic traditions' art department will testify. It is true that for a
Cardinal maintains that artistic activity, in the than Establishment or cultural art; naive art, long time the popular view was that only
West at least, is all too often under the influence because 'they try to imitate professional artists'; schizophrenics could release this creative power,
of certain pressures and constraints imposed by art of prisoners, because 'this sub-culture, like whereas other mental disorders could not; more
society; professionalism and commercialism cultural art, has its stereotypes'; child art, recently, however, schizophrenic creativity has
have taken over, he says, and as a consequence because 'children do not create spontaneously also appeared in other psychoses, and even
art has, to a large extent, lost its inventive once they realize the interest shown in their among healthy people — a point absent from
property. work by their parents or teachers', and also Cardinal's account. He chooses to ignore the
The main protagonist of the anti-cultural because they lack the concentration of an adult products of trained artists who developed
position ('culture selects, filters, reduces, and 'scarcely know what they are doing'; and mental illnesses and concentrates his attention
sterilizes') is the French painter Jean Dubuffet, lastly, trained artists who went mad (like Richard on the creative power of madness per se, rather
and one feels after reading the volume that, had Dadd, Louis Wain, Vincent van Gogh . . .), than become involved in the intricacies of the
it been dedicated to anyone, it would have been visionary work (of Blake, for example) and effects of madness on artistic potentialities, and
to him. (One whole chapter is devoted to his surrealist painters, are all excluded on the the disappearance or metamorphosis of the work
views, and there are over twenty listings under grounds that the artistic skills in these people under the influence of the pathological state.
his name in the Index.) developed first of all out of a 'cultural mould'. Cardinal illustrates his theme with examples
Cardinal puts Dubuffet's thesis in the So, Cardinal claims, they must have been aware taken principally from two very fine, but rather
following way : in our society we include a of public reactions, thereby being constrained inaccessible, collections : the Prinzhorn
certain range of works under the heading of art; by them. As for primitive art, this is excluded Collection of Psychotic Art in Heidelberg, and
it is the criteria which determine whether or not also, because the author maintains that it, too, is the Dubuffet Archives de l'Art Brut in Paris
a particular creation is admitted to this 'bound to strict traditions and professional skills', (soon to be transferred to Lausanne). The
privileged category that Dubuffet questions. which lead inevitably to a loss of originality. former comprises over 5,000 drawings,
He believes that cultural pre-conceptions often Happily, most people do not fit into tight paintings and sculptures by some 45o artists,
lessen the appreciation one might have for categories as Cardinal and Dubuffet would have collected between 1890 and 192o by Hans
anything that resists commonly accepted ideas us believe. Several of the criteria and definitions Prinzhorn, a German psychiatrist, who
about art, and he contends that cultural Cardinal puts forward are imprecise and incidentally studied philosophy, art history,
indoctrination (or conditioning) has led to the inadequately formulated, but two examples music and voice training before taking up
situation where nobody dares dispute the value must suffice. The author fails to make a medicine. His was one of the first attempts to
of work by 'accepted' artists, whether it be a distinction between the naive and the amateur analyse the artistic work of the mentally ill
play by Racine, a painting by Raphael, or a artist by subsuming both under the heading scientifically; his interest was in spontaneous
piece of music by Rossini. As Cardinal says, naive. Although an exact specification of each is creations rather than in pictures painted to
'Cultural Man has conceded whole tracts of his not a straightforward matter, surely the order (as in occupational therapy and as
mind to the imprint of stereotyped opinions and difference lies in the fact that the amateur makes adjuncts to psychotherapy, which did not make
evaluations about which no doubt will be an effort to appear professional, whereas the their appearance until several years later).
voiced.' Art is seen then as the 'monopoly of the naive is moved by an innocent vision of the To Prinzhorn these works were 'the eruptions
privileged intellectual and the professional world, and by a desire to depict it as simply as of a universal creative urge' counteracting the
artist', who maintain the status quo and who possible. On the other hand, it would be autistic tendencies toward isolation, and his
have a vested interest in doing so. difficult to know (especially ex post facto) how primary intention was to examine the
Cardinal contends that it is only as a reaction much artistic training would constitute the Kenvorgang, or central process, that determined
against uniformity in standards that genuine 'minimal instructions in how to draw' that artistic expression, which he found to be most
artistic discoveries are made and, in the past, Cardinal claims Augustin Lesage (one of the evident in his psychotic population, i.e. where
that new movements (like Romanticism and twenty-nine artists presented in detail) cultural pressures are minimized. Probably the
Expressionism) have arisen. received at school. most exciting and best known examples in the
Aesthetic judgements are seen as the logical Cardinal cites Lombroso's 1882 publication collection are the pulsating and rhythmical
product of a particular education and of a as the first significant study of the relationship works of Adolf Wön, and the marvellous wood
particular cultural setting. Beauty — a concept between psychic disorders and artistic carvings of Karl Brendel; both are dealt with at
considered to be central to the present cultural creativity, but, in fact, Max Simon covered some length.
ideal — is rejected, and Cardinal maintains that much the same territory in his paper Like the Heidelberg collection, that of Jean
the only valid art is the 'feverish spell cast by 'L'imagination dans la folie' six years earlier, as Dubuffet contains a great deal of work by
disturbing, alien works'. These are strong words; had Tardieu in 1872. psychotic artists in addition to other non-
what do they really mean ? A clue to the answer The first iconographic collections of madness clinical material; he started collecting in 1945
lies in what the author sees the function of (a term now replaced by psychosis) date from the with methodological searches in Switzerland,
(effective) art to be, and that is 'to give us a end of the nineteenth century, and comprised and opened a small foyer for display purposes
chance to break with old habits, and loose the works of patients who had been institutionalized two years later. The specific studies range from
shackles of reasonable social behaviour'. As a for many years; they were often poor, Ferdinand Cheval's Gaudiesque stone and
guide to how one may do this Cardinal suggests uneducated and untutored in the arts. concrete Palais Ideal to Laure Pigeon's spindly
that probably the only art which can truly be Today, largely due to the advent of writing and drawings of diaphanous females.
described as inventive is that generated outside chemotherapy involving psychotropic drugs, There are also in depth studies of other
the influence of society, and would include patients of this type are declining rapidly, and artists like the mediumistic painter Madge Gill,
works by those certified insane, by those who so too are the kinds of picture they created. the irrepressible Scottie Wilson, and the
claim divine inspiration, and by innocents; Most of the illustrations in the book are of this American house-builder Clarence Schmidt. It is
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