'Outsider Art' - Forging Beauty From Madness

[Bella Fortuna]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art

I've always found this subject fascinating, and a lot of the art stemming from people who have had serious mental illnesses is amazing. A few examples:

Adolf Wölfli


Achilles Rizzoli (I have a book of this guy's work - incredible, fanciful stuff!)


Richard Dadd


Louis Wain - intriguing for his cat paintings. When he started (and was sane) his paintings looked like this:

but when madness took hold, they evolved into this:


Simon Rodia, builder of the Watts Towers

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

Beat me to Richard Dadd.

Some years ago, one of his paintings (I think "Artists in the Desert by Moonlight"...done while he was still realively sane and on expedition) turned up at a venue for the tv series "Antiques Roadshow". The people who had brought it in had just had it hanging on the living room wall for years without knowing anything about it.

[Bella Fortuna]

Really?? How spectacular! I'll have to see if I can find the story...

Edit: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/hi ... esert.aspx Amazing!

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

My mistake...It was "The Halt In The Desert" ( )

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/hi ... esert.aspx


Edit - Shit...Beat me to the link, too.

[FBM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art

I've always found this subject fascinating, and a lot of the art stemming from people who have had serious mental illnesses is amazing. A few examples:

Adolf Wölfli


Achilles Rizzoli (I have a book of this guy's work - incredible, fanciful stuff!)


Richard Dadd


Louis Wain - intriguing for his cat paintings. When he started (and was sane) his paintings looked like this:

but when madness took hold, they evolved into this:


Simon Rodia, builder of the Watts Towers

They all need more detail. Lazy slackers.

[Bella Fortuna]

Slapdash, I calls it...

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

The Dadd painting is mentioned at 04:23 into the video.

[FBM]

Slapdash, I calls it...

Why, when I was a young psychotic, we'd all draw grains of sand on grains of sand. Kids today...

[Bella Fortuna]

Rizzoli was pretty amazing in his unique delusional views. He did 'portraits' of people as architecture (he had formal training in architectural drafting) and also created an imaginary utopian architectural exposition - he developed a whole mental world about it. And the paintings and drawings are remarkable:





http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... dtl&ao=all

[kiki5711]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art

I've always found this subject fascinating, and a lot of the art stemming from people who have had serious mental illnesses is amazing. A few examples:

Adolf Wölfli


Achilles Rizzoli (I have a book of this guy's work - incredible, fanciful stuff!)


Richard Dadd


Louis Wain - intriguing for his cat paintings. When he started (and was sane) his paintings looked like this:

but when madness took hold, they evolved into this:


Simon Rodia, builder of the Watts Towers

Wow, amazing! Awesome stuff! So detailed.

[hadespussercats]

[Bella Fortuna]

I remember seeing the cat paintings of Louis Wain in a book when I was a child, and the had a profound effect on me and I remembered them ever after with fascination. There are few bodies of work that show such a steady progression from naturalistic to abstract and somewhat menacing, caused by the person's mental state.

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/ ... _drew_cats

[Gallstones]

Great thread title and fascinating topic.

[Coito ergo sum]

Some can get pretty disturbing.

Henry Lee Lucas - serial killer murdered hundreds of people...



John Wayne Gacy:

[Atheist-Lite]

Everything mediocre is the work of men and women too sane to push the limits.

http://insideroutsiderart.wordpress.com/

I'm not sure if I can repost it but sex dog is a good picture I'm tempted to buy from the site. "This is a painting of a dog, measuring approximately 24cm x 30cm. The dog is growling in the painting. He knows what he wants. He wants you."