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Lot Essay
This very rare set, commissioned to illustrate a collection of poems by Guillevic, was executed in 1945, the year in which Dubuffet coined the term 'Art Brut'.
The book was printed in an edition of 172 with a set of fifteen prints en-texte. The de-luxe edition of ten included two separate unsigned suites of the fifteen prints as well as two suites of an additional nine lithographs not included in the book.
Webel records only three signed proof impressions of each of the fifteen lithographs, and none of the suplementary nine lithographs, thus this signed suite is apparently unique.
Paul Baudier, to whom the first print is dedicated, was a celebrated typographer who collaborated on many of the great livres d'artistes of the period, working with Marc Chagall, Sonia Delaunay, André Masson, Joan Miró and others.
Dubuffet had been practising as a full-time artist only for three years at this point, yet he quickly emerged as one of the most important figurative artists of the post-war period. Originally, he coined the term 'Art Brut' to describe his collection of artefacts, gathered since the 1920s', which consisted mainly of objects produced by children, tribal peoples, and schizophrenics. These objects would play a crucial role in the formulation of a his new expressive style, a style born from the terrible experience of World War II and the need to challenge the tenets of a society that had led Europe to the brink of ruin. Dubuffet sought to subvert the established canon of Western painting, its distinctive pictorial and aesthetic conventions, as a way of confronting what he perceived as the empty ideals of Western tradition. To him "...creative invention has surely no greater enemy than social order..., (it) can only survive in taking the opposite stance, refusal and impermeability." In fact, he believed that alienation was the key to authentic creative activity and considered "...the symptoms of madness as expressive of the universal creative impulse, uncontaminated by cultural inhibitions" (cited in, Margit Rowell. "Jean Dubuffet: an Art on the Margins of Culture", in, Jean Dubuffet: A Retrospective. New York, 1973, p.22.).
In Les Murs, one sees a distillation of Dubuffet's fundamental ideas. The artist was fascinated by natural materials, and constructed his lithographs by building upon the various imprints he made during his experiments with stones, leaves, dirt, etc. In this series, he repeatedly explores the motif of the stone wall, examining its rich patterns and textural possibilities. By presenting these apparently crude images the artist set out to shock the world with a "new refreshed eye". In 1945, he stated: "I feed on the banal. The more banal a thing may be, the better it suits me (...). It is where the picturesque is absent that I am in a state of constant amazement" (ibid., p.15). By presenting these apparently crude images the artist set out to shock the world with a "new refreshed eye" (ibid., p.23).
The figures in Les Murs do not have any definable relationship to each other or to their surroundings, they merge with their environments, absorbed into the various wall surfaces. By focusing on the mundane materiality of walls, the elemental aspect of nature, Dubuffet creates a new expressive vocabulary that challenges the process of idealization inherent in mainstream artistic endeavours.
The lithographs in Les Murs clearly illustrate how, by reaching beyond the traditional boundaries of ideal form and content, Dubuffet encounters a new, raw, source of aesthetic experience and reveals a vast new realm of possibilities.
The book was printed in an edition of 172 with a set of fifteen prints en-texte. The de-luxe edition of ten included two separate unsigned suites of the fifteen prints as well as two suites of an additional nine lithographs not included in the book.
Webel records only three signed proof impressions of each of the fifteen lithographs, and none of the suplementary nine lithographs, thus this signed suite is apparently unique.
Paul Baudier, to whom the first print is dedicated, was a celebrated typographer who collaborated on many of the great livres d'artistes of the period, working with Marc Chagall, Sonia Delaunay, André Masson, Joan Miró and others.
Dubuffet had been practising as a full-time artist only for three years at this point, yet he quickly emerged as one of the most important figurative artists of the post-war period. Originally, he coined the term 'Art Brut' to describe his collection of artefacts, gathered since the 1920s', which consisted mainly of objects produced by children, tribal peoples, and schizophrenics. These objects would play a crucial role in the formulation of a his new expressive style, a style born from the terrible experience of World War II and the need to challenge the tenets of a society that had led Europe to the brink of ruin. Dubuffet sought to subvert the established canon of Western painting, its distinctive pictorial and aesthetic conventions, as a way of confronting what he perceived as the empty ideals of Western tradition. To him "...creative invention has surely no greater enemy than social order..., (it) can only survive in taking the opposite stance, refusal and impermeability." In fact, he believed that alienation was the key to authentic creative activity and considered "...the symptoms of madness as expressive of the universal creative impulse, uncontaminated by cultural inhibitions" (cited in, Margit Rowell. "Jean Dubuffet: an Art on the Margins of Culture", in, Jean Dubuffet: A Retrospective. New York, 1973, p.22.).
In Les Murs, one sees a distillation of Dubuffet's fundamental ideas. The artist was fascinated by natural materials, and constructed his lithographs by building upon the various imprints he made during his experiments with stones, leaves, dirt, etc. In this series, he repeatedly explores the motif of the stone wall, examining its rich patterns and textural possibilities. By presenting these apparently crude images the artist set out to shock the world with a "new refreshed eye". In 1945, he stated: "I feed on the banal. The more banal a thing may be, the better it suits me (...). It is where the picturesque is absent that I am in a state of constant amazement" (ibid., p.15). By presenting these apparently crude images the artist set out to shock the world with a "new refreshed eye" (ibid., p.23).
The figures in Les Murs do not have any definable relationship to each other or to their surroundings, they merge with their environments, absorbed into the various wall surfaces. By focusing on the mundane materiality of walls, the elemental aspect of nature, Dubuffet creates a new expressive vocabulary that challenges the process of idealization inherent in mainstream artistic endeavours.
The lithographs in Les Murs clearly illustrate how, by reaching beyond the traditional boundaries of ideal form and content, Dubuffet encounters a new, raw, source of aesthetic experience and reveals a vast new realm of possibilities.