Inspiration and unreachable paradigm – "L’Art des Fous" and Surrealism

INSPIRATION A N D UNREACHABLE

PARADIGM - %'ART DES EOUS' A N D SURREALISM

Thomas Roske discusses the history of Outsider Art and its relationship with Surrealism

'SURREALISTS PARADOXICALLY SOUGHT *T0 CREATE A PICTORIAL ART THAT ALREADY EXISTED' - IN L'ART DES FOUS'

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above Guillaume Pujolle Revolver, 1949-50 Wood, iron and plastic 5.9 x 9 4 x 2 ins 15 x 24 x 5 cm Collection de I'Art Brut, Lausanne.

opposite

August Klett (a.k.a. Ktotz) Fantastic drawings based on clouds, 1912

Pencil on document paper 8.2 x 6.5 ins

20.8 x 16.5 cm

Prinzhom Collection, Heidelberg.

The group around Andre Breton looked at the art made in institutions in a different way than the German Expressionists before the First World War. Beyond

national differences in the interpretation of psychiatric problems, and the knowledge that specific artists such as Andre Breton and Max Ernst had of psychiatry, what is especially important is the experience of the madness of the

First World War, which not only politicised the Surrealists but also led them to fundamentally interrogate concepts of rationality and reason. Much more radically than the Expressionists, they took the fous as an example and posited what they

understood of their thinking, actions and creativity against the traditional status quo - of which, to them, psychiatrists were excellent representatives.

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Originalveröffentlichung in: Raw vision 69 (2010), S. 30-39

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Max Ernst, Oedipus, 1931 Front cover of the special edition of Cahiers d'art, Paris 1937.

Prinzhom Collection, Heidelberg.

Artistry of the mentally ill

What, however, did the Surrealists know o f ' t h e art of the insane'? Today, it is commonplace to call Hans

Prinzhorn's book Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (Artistry of the mentally ill) (1922) the 'Surrealist's Bible'. But what status did the book have in Paris at the start of the 1920s?

For France, it was not the first independent writing on the subject. In 1907 the psychiatrist Paul Meunier, under the pseudonym of Marcel Reja, brought out his book L'Art Chez les Fous, which already

emphasised the aesthetic qualities of different types of works of asylum art. It was read by art enthusiasts and

surely also by artists, but it was not notably influential.

This may have been due to historical circumstances, to the presumably small print run and probably also to the insignificant appearance of this paperback edition with 17 black and white illustrations.

In contrast, the appearance of Artistry of the Mentally III revealed the fact that for the author the aesthetic rather than the medical elements were primary.

With roughly 350 pages in 10 x 8.5 inch format, bound in black linen with white embossed lettering, the publication was reminiscent of an art book. The quality of the paper and the 187 illustrations, of which 20 were in colour, made this even more apparent. Up to that

RV/69«32

Point, no publication had shown so many works of this kind or in such quality. Artistry of the mentally ill made this subject matter visible for the first time.

Its reception as an illustrative work was, of course, even more justifiable in foreign countries. At that time in Paris, only a few people could read German.

Thus, for the artists around Andre Breton, the 'Bible' was arguably above all a 'Picture Bible'.

Would reading the text have softened the emphasis? The careful term 'bildnerei' (artistry) in the t'tle, and the subtitle, A contribution to the psychology and psychopathology of configuration, (1) seem at first to contradict its appearance as an art book. However,

Prinzhom was not so interested in diagnostic views. For him, what was at stake was nothing less than a new basis for looking at the art made by people who had become extreme outsiders because of their unique mental experiences, and also through their isolation in institutions. Particularly because these men and women created work that was supposedly outside all tradition and with no thought of an audience, it was more authentic for him and 'more real' than work by professional artists. The latter, in spite of their 'longing for inspired creativity', ultimately produced 'intellectual substitutes' in his eyes. 2)

Prinzhorn persisted in the ideology that art was

a b o v e

A u g u s t N a t t e r e r ( a . k . a . Netet), Miracle-shepherd / / / / , c. 1 9 1 1 - 1 9 1 3

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essentially the creation of expression, and therefore only accessible through empathy. Both this view and his preference for expressive work justify calling his book a Late Expressionist Manifesto (Brand-Claussen). But at the same time, the author stands here at the crossroads of new interpretations. Because of his experiences in the War, after which he defined himself as a 'nihilist', he shared with the Surrealists a rejection of a traditional view of culture dominated by Rationalism. Like them, he turned t o psychoanalysis (something that was still generally inconceivable for psychiatrists) and tried to connect - like

some Surrealists - the ideas of Freud and Jung. And in his fascination for the 'uncanny' in some institutionalised works, which limit rational and traditional aesthetic understanding, he seems to have intuitively sensed the new qualities of 'Surrealist aesthetics'.

The first originals of the Heidelberg collection were to be seen at an exhibition of 'Artistes Malades' in the Paris gallery of Max Bine, which presented 36 loans from Heidelberg beside other works. This was surely noticed by the Surrealists; Andre Breton and Paul Eluard even bought works from this show.

RV/69«34

Four creative processes

The Surrealists referred to

for their own art only in general terms, if at all. Therefore, the 'morphological relationships' between works by asylum inmates and Surrealist artists are explored as a basis for further discussion. Four of these

correspondences in creative processes are now considered.

Venture automatique - automatic writing - was

a t the birth of Surrealism, and Breton repeatedly

emphasised it as the most important Surrealistic

technique. Transferring the idea of creation without the control of consciousness onto drawing was obvious;

Andre Masson was a pioneer in this. It offers the possibility of juxtaposing his 'automatic drawings' from 1924-26 with 'scribbles' from the Prinzhorn collection.

As has already been stated, this kind of mediumistic drawing was described as 'automatism' as early as 1900. (3) However, the Surrealists probably knew that French psychiatrists also used the term for other written and drawn productions by asylum inmates.

The second important creative process of

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Heinrich M., Untitled, undated Pencil, coloured pencil and pen with red ink on paper 8.4 x 6.7 ins 21.4 x 17 cm

Prinzhorn Collection, Heidelberg.

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C O M M U N I C A T I O N : V i s a g e p a r a n o i a q u e .

A l a s u i t e d u n e e t u d e , a u c o i n s d e l a q u e l l e m ' a v a i t o b s e d e u n a t o n g u e r e f l e x i o n s i n l e s v i s a g e s d a P i c a s s o e t p a r t i c u l i e r e m e n t c e u x d e l ' e p o q u e n o i r e , )e c h e r c h e u n e a d r e s s e d a n s u n t a s d e p a p i e r s e t s u i s s o u d a i n f r a p p e p a r l a r e p r o d u c t i o n d ' u n v i s a g e q u e )e croiH d e P i c a s s o , v i s a g e a b s o l u m e n t i n c o n n u .

T o u t a c o u p , ce v i s a g e s ' e f f a c e e t j e m e r e n d s c o m p t e d e 1 ' i l l u s i o n (? > L ' a n a l y s e d e 1 ' i m a g e p a r a n o i a q u e e n q u e s t i o n m e v a u t d e r e t r o u v e r , p a r u n e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s y m b o l i q u e , t o u t e s w a i d e a s q u i a v a i e n t p r e c e d e l a v i s i o n d u •. i >•

A n d r e B r e t o n a v a i l i n t e r p r A t e ce v i s a g e c o m m e e t a n t c e l u i d e S a d e , ca q u i c o r r e s p o n d d a i t a u n e t o u t e p a r t i c u h e r e p r e o c c u p a t i o n d e B r e t o n q u a n t a S a d e .

D a n s l e s c h e v e u x d u v i s a g e e n q u e s t i o n B r e t o n v o y u i t u n e p e r r u q u e p o u d r e e , a l o r s q u e m o t je v o y a i s u n f r a g m e n t d e t o i l a n o n p e i n t e , c o m m a il e s t f r e q u e n t d a n s le s t y l e piCRssien

S a l v a d o r D A I . I

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left

Salvador Dalf, Visage paranoiaque (Paranoiac face) In: l e Surrealisme au Service de la Revolution Nr. 3 December m i, S.4 0 > m i

right

Andre Masson, Automatic drawing

1925, pen and Indian ink on paper

K>-i x 12.2 ins 25-9 x 3i cm Private collection, Paris.

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Ij»n 5 ivE r i C v o n B™ckdorff WewYbrk, NY:Springer- V e r l a6 . 1972), p. 272.

3- R.Cardinal. 'Surrealism a nd the Paradigm of the Creative Subject', Parallel Visions, exhibition dialogue, Los Angeles c° u n t y Museum of Art

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, m 2 l p p.

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«• lohn M. MacGregor, The Discovery of the Art of the '"sane (Princeton, Nl- Pnncet o n University Press,

p. 291.

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Surrealism also goes back to ecriture automatique. For A n d r e B r e t o n a n d P h i l i p p e S o u p a u l t , t h e a p p e a l o f a u t o m a t i c texts lay in the poetic p o w e r o f u n e x p e c t e d w o r d a r r a n g e m e n t s . As a p r o t o t y p i c a l e x a m p l e , t h e c o m p a r i s o n o f a y o u n g m a n ' s b e a u t y w i t h t h e ' u n e x p e c t e d m e e t i n g b e t w e e n a s e w i n g machine a n d an u m b r e l l a on a d i s s e c t i n g t a b l e ' in t h e Comte de L a u t r e a m o n t ' s Chants de Maldoror (1869) w a s r e p e a t e d l y cited.

The Surrealists developed different processes t o generate amazing analogous visual images. One was the Cadavre Exquis (Exquisite Corpse), a 'game w i t h folded paper in which a sentence or a d r a w i n g is constructed by several people, without each knowing the c o n t r i b u t i o n of the previous player.' (4) Max Ernst developed the combination of unrelated picture elements as a technique from Dadaistic collages and brought it t o a point of high virtuosity, probably with a prior k n o w l e d g e o f drawings from psychiatric institutions.

There are also several examples of this way of working in the Heidelberg collection. Recently, there has been a suspicion that this accumulation corresponds to a widespread prejudice a m o n g psychiatrists o f the time a b o u t w h a t ' m a d art' looked like, resulting in a pre­

selection of work in their donations t o Heidelberg. (5) A Surrealistic process which refers explicitly to insanity is the 'paranoiac­critical m e t h o d ' developed by Salvador Dalf from 1929. For his visual double meanings, which work like picture puzzles, he refers to changes o f perception in specific forms of mental crises.

Corresponding ambiguities can be f o u n d in pictures in the Prinzhorn collection, for example in drawings by Carl Lange w h o copied images that were revealed t o him in the sweat stains of his shoe soles.

A fourth Surrealistic picture process was excessively used by Hans Bellmen the amalgamation of figures and their c o m p o n e n t s , sometimes readable as growing or sprouting out of each other. This technique also a l l o w e d him t o depict a c o n d e n s i n g o f sexual imagination. Like an anagram, eroticised body parts are freely fused and multiplied.

Similar approaches define some pictures in the Heidelberg collection. The most prominent examples are by August Klett (named Klotz by Prinzhorn).

True Surrealism

Finally, the Surrealist's perception of the art of asylum inmates incorporates their collecting and including it in their group exhibitions. Thus, Breton acquired two objets d'alienes as early as 1929 at the 'Artistes Malades' exhibition in Paris. These are examples of a specific type of Surrealist object, beside the objets naturels, objets trouves, objets onirique, and so on.

For John M. MacGregor, the Surrealists paradoxically sought 'to create a pictorial art that already existed' ­ in I'art des fous. (6) Even more than the

pictures or sculptures made by ' m a d m e n ' , this surely accounts for the fascination of objets d'alienes. For the Surrealists, they were not only a model but, as 'finds' from the realm beyond reason, examples of a true Surrealism ­ inasmuch as acts of maniacs that w o u l d not be carried out by the psychically healthy could be seen as truly Surrealist acts.

This is why, for Breton, the memory never faded of the soldier he met in the sickbay of Saint­Dizier, w h o believed the First World War was a simulation and w h o 'conducted' the hail of shell­fire on the battlefield.

And is not his book Nadja (1928) a report on a genuinely Surrealist life, which was coherent in a way never possible for the psychically stable members of the group?

These considerations shed a special light on the revolver of Guillaume Pujolle that Breton included in the exhibition 'Le Surrealisme', at the Maeght Gallery in Paris, 1947­ CO This 'famous object' (Bellmer) will inevitably have recalled the position described in the second Surrealist Manifesto (1930) that has generated so much discussion: 'The simplest Surrealist act consists of dashing d o w n into the street, pistol in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger, into the crowd.' (8) Although a lot of Surrealists may have admitted to dream of this, it would have taken a madman to actually do it.