Bohemia, Moravia, Austrian Silesia in 1892 (then part of Austria-Hungary)

Czech lands (Czech: České země) is an auxiliary term that is used mainly to describe the combination of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia. Today, those three historic provinces compose the Czech Republic. The Czech lands had been settled by the Celts (Boii), then later by various Germanic tribes (Marcomanni, Quadi, Lombards and others) until the beginning of 7th century and then by Slavic people. German colonists settled the area on the basis of Bohemian kings' invitation during the second part of 13th century (in Prague they lived already from the early 12th century) and lived alongside the Slavs.

The term Czech lands has been used to describe different things by different people. Some sources use the term to mean any territory under the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. This would include territories like Lusatia (now in Germany) and the balance of Silesia, all of which were ruled from Prague at one time (1292/1327–1635/1742).

Coat of Arms of the historical Czech lands (in a narrow sense)

Bohemia proper

Moravia

Czech Silesia (formerly the CoA of Lower Silesia)

Most Czech historical texts use the term in this manner^[which?] when discussing the Middle Ages. Other sources use the term to refer only to the core Czech areas of Bohemia, Moravia and the former Austrian Silesia. For many topics, a distinction between the two definitions is not necessary, as the Czech lands have been more-or-less co-extensive with the modern-day Czech Republic since the 18th century.^{[citation needed]}

Alternate names[link]

The non-auxiliary term (i.e. the term used in official Czech geographical terminology lists) for the Czech part of the Czech lands (i.e. Bohemia, Moravia, Czech Silesia) is Česko. Today, it is also the official short form for the Czech Republic. The term Česko is documented as early as in 1777. Česko and its foreign equivalents (German: Tschechien) are also the terms officially preferred by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1993.^[1] However, the term Czechia has not caught on among English speakers. The term Česko had likewise run into temporary resistance from Czech speakers but has more recently caught on with many natives.

See also[link]

• History of the Czech lands
• Kingdom of Bohemia
• List of rulers of Bohemia
• Lands of the Bohemian Crown
• Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

Sources[link]

• Pánek, Jaroslav; Tůma Oldřich et al. (2009). A History of the Czech lands. Prague: Karolinum. ISBN 978-80-246-1645-2. 

References[link]

v t e  Historical regions in the Czech Republic Bohemia Moravia Czech Silesia

Jiří Bělohlávek CBE (born 24 February 1946) is a Czech conductor. His father was a barrister and judge.^[1] In his youth Bělohlávek studied cello with Miloš Sádlo^[2] and was later a graduate of the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. After graduation he studied conducting, for two years, with Sergiu Celibidache.^[3]

Career in Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic[link]

Bělohlávek won the Czech National Conducting Competition in 1970. He later served for two years as an assistant conductor at the Czech Philharmonic.^[4] From 1972 to 1978 he was associated with the Brno Philharmonic, taking it on tours of Austria, Germany and the United States. From 1977 to 1989, he was chief conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra.

Bělohlávek became chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic in 1990. However, in 1991, the orchestra reorganized and controversially voted to appoint Gerd Albrecht its new principal conductor to replace Bělohlávek. Instead of remaining until Albrecht's accession, Bělohlávek resigned from the Czech Philharmonic in 1992.^[5] He subsequently founded the Prague Philharmonia (Pražskou komorní filharmonii) in 1993, after the Czech Ministry of Defence had offered funding for training 40 young musicians. Bělohlávek had auditioned musicians for the orchestra, but the ministry withdrew its funding the next year. He subsequently secured private funding for the orchestra, and served as its first music director.^[3] Since the orchestra's public debut in 1994, he has recorded and performed in concerts worldwide with the orchestra.^[6] He conducted the Prague Philharmonia at its first BBC Proms appearance in 2004, in a televised performance.^[7] In 2005, he relinquished his post with the Prague Philharmonia, and now is the orchestra's conductor laureate.

In 1997, Bělohlávek became Professor of Conducting at the Prague Academy of Music and became principal guest conductor of the opera company of the Národní divadlo (Prague National Theatre) the following year.^[8] He is also currently chairman of the Prague Spring International Music Festival. In December 2010, his re-appointment to the chief conductorship of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra was announced, effective with the 2012-2013 season, with an initial contract of 4 years.^[9]

International career[link]

From 1995 to 2000, Bělohlávek was principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO). In February 2005, he was named its twelfth chief conductor, effective July 2006, with an initial contract of 3 years.^[10][11] Bělohlávek is the first past BBC SO principal guest conductor to be named chief conductor of the BBC SO.^[12] His tenure with the BBC SO began with the First Night of the 2006 Proms.^[13] He first conducted the Last Night of the Proms in 2007,^[14] the first conductor of the Last Night who is not a native English speaker.^[12] In September 2007, Bělohlávek extended his contract with the BBC Symphony to 2012.^[15][16] He made a guest appearance at the 2009 Last Night as one of the vacuum cleaner performers in Malcolm Arnold's A Grand, Grand Overture.^[17] Bělohlávek conducted the Last Night of the Proms again in 2010.^[18] He is scheduled to conclude his BBC SO chief conductorship after the conclusion of the 2012 Proms and to take the title of conductor laureate with the orchestra.^[19] In April 2012, Bělohlávek was awarded an honorary CBE "for services to music".^[20]

In opera, Bělohlávek has conducted Jenůfa, Tristan und Isolde and Rusalka at Glyndebourne Opera.^[21] He made his Metropolitan Opera (Met) debut on December 17, 2004 conducting Káťa Kabanová, with Karita Mattila in the title role.^[22] He returned to the Met in January and February 2007 for Jenůfa and again in February and March 2009 for Eugene Onegin and Rusalka.

Belohlávek first guest-conducted the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (RPhO) in 1994. In April 2012, the RPhO announced the appointment of Belohlávek as its next principal guest conductor, effective with the 2012-2013 season.^[23]

Bělohlávek has made recordings for the Supraphon,^[24] Chandos, Harmonia Mundi,^[25] Warner Classics^[26], and Deutsche Grammophon record labels.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jiří Bělohlávek official home page
• Jiří Bělohlávek at Allmusic
• IMG Artists agency biography of Jiří Bělohlávek
• BBC Symphony Orchestra biography of Jirí Belohlávek
• Prague Philharmonic biography of Jirí Belohlávek
• Foreign & Commonwealth Office, "Honorary awards - Order of the British Empire (Civil Division)". 10 April 2012

The caricature of Josef Suk, Václav Talich and Vítězslav Novák by Hugo Boettinger

Václav Talich (Czech pronunciation: [ˈvaːtslaf ˈtalɪx]) (28 May 1883 – 16 March 1961) was a Czech conductor, violinist and pedagogue.

Life[link]

Born in Kroměříž, Moravia, he started his musical career in a student orchestra in Klatovy. From 1897 to 1903 he studied at the conservatory in Prague with Otakar Ševčík. For a short period he was the concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, and he was so fascinated by the chief conductor Arthur Nikisch, that he decided to become a conductor himself. His conducting career started in Tbilisi. From 1915 to 1918 he performed as violist of the Bohemian Quartet (later the Czech Quartet). His career with the Czech Philharmonic started on 30 October 1918 with the poem Zrání (The Ripening) by Josef Suk. From 1919 to 1941 he became chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, raising them to internationally respected levels and touring widely with them. During World War II, in a very difficult situation, he tried to support Czech culture, but after the war was accused of collaboration with the Germans. However, the accusations were refuted and he started to conduct again in 1946. In 1946, he established the Czech Chamber Orchestra,^[1] with students of the Prague Conservatory.

In 1935, he was also appointed chief opera administrator at the Czech National Theatre, where he promoted works of Leoš Janáček, some of whose works he premiered.^[2] He was forced to leave when it was closed by the Germans during World War II, took up the post again after the end of the war, but was fired following disagreements with the government in 1947. He took the post up again shortly thereafter, and was then fired once again in 1948 after the Communist party took over the country.^[3] Subsequently, he became conductor of the newly formed Slovak Philharmonic in Bratislava. In November 1954, he conducted his last public performance with the Czech Philharmonic. He spent the last years of his life in Beroun, Czechoslovakia. In 1957 he became a National Artist, the highest distinction in Czechoslovakia.

Particularly noted for his interpretations of Czech composers such as Antonín Dvořák, Bedřich Smetana and Josef Suk, Talich also did much to bring the operas of Leoš Janáček into the standard repertoire. Talich also taught a good deal, with Charles Mackerras, Karel Ančerl, Ivan Romanoff, and Milan Munclinger among his pupils.

References[link]

Sources[link]

• (Czech) Sláma, František (2001). Z Herálce do Šangrilá a zase nazpátek. Říčany: Orego. ISBN 80-86117-61-8. 

• (Czech) Kuna, Milan (1980). Václav Talich. Prague. 

• (Czech) Československý hudební slovník osob a institucí, II (Czechoslovak Music Dictionary). Prague: SHV. 1965. 

• (Czech) Holzknecht, Václav (1963). Česká filharmonie, příběh orchestru (Czech Philharmonic. History of the Orchestra). Prague: SHV. 

External links[link]

• František Sláma (musician) Archive: Václav Talich in Documents and Reminiscences.

Sections Czech Philharmonic Conductors, Part 1-3, Czech Philharmonic Instrumentalists: Václav Talich generation in the orchestra, Czech Philharmonic in Documents, Václav Talich's Czech Chamber Orchestra, its history in documents, images and eyewitness accounts

• (French) Éric Baude: Václav Talich
• Supraphon Václav Talich Recordings. CD Special Edition. Supraphon 2005. SU 3825-2
• Václav Talich at Allmusic
• Václav Talich conducts Antonín Dvořák's Slavonic Dances. - More about this recording with the Czech Philharmonic

Lucia Popp (12 November 1939 – 16 November 1993) was a Slovak operatic soprano. She began her career as a soubrette soprano, and later moved into the light-lyric and lyric coloratura soprano repertoire and then the lighter Richard Strauss and Wagner operas. Her career included performances at Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, and La Scala. Popp was also a highly regarded recitalist and lieder singer.

Life and career[link]

Lucia Popp was born as Lucia Poppová, in Záhorská Ves in Slovak State (later Czechoslovakia and today Slovakia).

Popp initially entered the Bratislava Academy to study drama. While she began her vocal lessons during this period as a mezzo-soprano, her voice developed a high upper register to the degree that her professional debut was as the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute in Bratislava, a role she revived in a 1963 recording conducted by Otto Klemperer. In 1963, Herbert von Karajan invited her to join the Vienna State Opera, where she debuted as Barbarina in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Popp had strong ties to the Vienna State Opera throughout her career, and in 1979 was named an Austrian "Kammersängerin". She made her Covent Garden debut in 1966 as Oscar in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, and her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1967 as the Queen of the Night (production designed by Marc Chagall).

During the 1970s, Popp turned from coloratura roles to lyric ones. Then, in the 1980s, she added heavier roles to her repertoire, such as Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin and Eva in the same composer's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. As a result of this vocal progression, Popp sang various roles in the same opera at different stages in her career, including Zdenka and Arabella in Richard Strauss's Arabella; Susanna and the Countess in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro; Queen of the Night and Pamina in Mozart's The Magic Flute; Zerlina, Donna Elvira, and later Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni; Adele and Rosalinde in Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus; Annchen and Agathe in Weber's Der Freischütz; and Sophie and the Marschallin in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier.

Twice married, Popp died of brain cancer in 1993 in Munich, Germany, at the age of 54.^[1] She was buried in Cintorín Slávičie údolie, Bratislava. Her second husband, noted German tenor, Peter Seiffert, survives her. In March 2007, on BBC Music magazine's list of the "20 All-time Best Sopranos" based on a poll of 21 British music critics and BBC presenters, Lucia Popp placed seventh.

Recordings[link]

She rarely recorded roles she did not perform on stage (with a few exceptions, including Elisabeth in Wagner's Tannhäuser and the title role in Richard Strauss's Daphne) The following is a selection of her recordings:

1. Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro (as Susanna), with Te Kanawa, von Stade, Allen, Ramey, Moll, and Solti (Decca)
2. Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro (as Countess Almaviva), with Jose Van Dam, Hendricks, Raimondi, Baltsa, and Marriner (Philips)
3. Mozart: Don Giovanni (as Zerlina), with Weikl, Sass, M. Price, T. Krause, Solti (Decca)
4. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (as Queen of the Night), with Janowitz, Berry, Gedda, Frick, and Klemperer (EMI)
5. Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (as Pamina), with Jerusalem, Brendel, Zednik, Gruberova and Haitink (EMI)
6. Mozart: Idomeneo (as Ilia), with Pavarotti, Baltsa, Nucci, Gruberova, and Pritchard (Decca)
7. Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem Serail (as Blonde), with Gedda, Rothenberger, Frick, Unger, and Krips (EMI)
8. Mozart: La clemenza di Tito (as Vitellia for Harnoncourt, Teldec; and Servilia for Kertész (Decca) and Davis (Philips)
9. Mozart: Il sogno di Scipione (as Costanza), with Gruberova, Schreier, Mathis and Hager (Decca)
10. Orff: Carmina Burana with Unger, Wolansky, Noble, and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (EMI)
11. R. Strauss: Intermezzo (as Christine), with Dallapozza, Fischer-Dieskau, Finke and Sawallisch (EMI)
12. R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier (as Sophie), with Domingo, Ludwig, G. Jones, Berry and Bernstein (Sony)
13. R. Strauss: Daphne (as Daphne), with Goldberg, Schreier, Wenkel, Moll and Haitink (EMI)
14. J. Strauss II: Die Fledermaus (as Adele), with Varady, Weikl, Kollo, Prey and C. Kleiber (DG)
15. J. Strauss II: Die Fledermaus (as Rosalinde), with Lind, Baltsa, Seiffert, Brendel, Rydl and Domingo (EMI)
16. Beethoven: Fidelio (as Marzelline), with Janowitz, Kollo, Sotin, Fischer-Dieskau, Jungwirth and Bernstein (DG)
17. Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel (as Gretel), with Schlemm, Fassbaender, Gruberová, Hamari, Burrowes, Berry and Solti (Decca)
18. Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel (as the Dew Fairy), with Moffo, Donath, Ludwig, Fischer-Dieskau, Berthold, Augér and Eichhorn (RCA)
19. Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice (as Euridice), with Lipovsek, Kaufmann, and Hager (RCA)
20. Verdi: Rigoletto (as Gilda), with Weikl, Aragall, and Gardelli (RCA)
21. Leoncavallo: La bohème (as Mimi), with Bonisolli, Weikl, Titus, Miltcheva, and Wallberg (Orfeo)
22. Puccini: Suor Angelica (as Angelica), with Lipovsek, Schiml, and Patané (RCA)
23. Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore (as Adina), with Dvorsky, Weikl, Nesterenko, and Wallberg (RCA)
24. Donizetti: Don Pasquale (as Norina), with Araiza, Weikl, Nesterenko, and Wallberg (RCA)
25. Flotow: Martha (title role), with Jerusalem, Soffel, Ridderbusch, Nimsgern, and Wallberg (RCA)
26. Janáček: The Cunning Little Vixen (as the Vixen), with Randova, Jedlicka, Blachut and Mackerras (Decca)
27. Janáček: Jenůfa (as Karolka), with Söderström, Dvorsky, Randova, Ochman, and Mackerras (Decca)
28. Lehár: Der Graf von Luxemburg (as Angèle), with Gedda, Böhme, Holm, and Mattes (EMI).
29. Wagner: Tannhäuser (as Elisabeth), with König, Moll, W. Meier, and Haitink (EMI).

She also sang Lieder. Hyperion's Schubert Edition contains an album from her (Volume 17), one of her last recordings. She recorded Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs three times (with Tennstedt for EMI, Solti for Decca and Tilson Thomas for Sony; the latter was also her last recording), Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn twice (with Weikl, Tennstedt for EMI, and Schmidt, Bernstein for DG). EMI also reissued two of her albums as part of the company's 'Red Line' series (Slavonic Arias and Viennese Operetta Arias). Orfeo also has issued several of Popp's live recordings.

Video[link]

She can be seen in the role of Pamina in a performance of The Magic Flute, recorded live at the Bayerische Staatsoper in 1983, and published by Philips, catalogue number 070 505-3. Also, in Smetana's The Bartered Bride as Marie (the female lead). Recorded in 1982 in Vienna, published by Deutsche Grammophon Catalogue number 00440 073 4360, and in Die Fledermaus as Rosalinda (TDK). Also in Orff's Carmina Burana as the female lead in the Court of Love. Recorded in 1975, published by BMG Ariola catalogue number 74321 85285 9. Also as Marzelline in 1968 Fidelio with the Hamburg State Opera.

References[link]

External links[link]

• http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Popp-Lucia.htm
• YouTube has a selection of her singing famous excerpts.
• Aria in the opera Undine (Lorzing) sung by soprano Lucia Popp

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2009)

Adolf Wölfli's Irren-Anstalt Band-Hain, 1910

The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut (French: [aʁ bʁyt], "raw art" or "rough art"), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates.^[1]

While Dubuffet's term is quite specific, the English term "outsider art" is often applied more broadly, to include certain self-taught or Naïve art makers who were never institutionalized. Typically, those labeled as outsider artists have little or no contact with the mainstream art world or art institutions. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.

Outsider art has emerged as a successful art marketing category (an annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1993). The term is sometimes misapplied as a catch-all marketing label for art created by people outside the mainstream "art world," regardless of their circumstances or the content of their work.

Art of the insane[link]

Interest in the art of insane asylum inmates had begun to grow in the 1920s. In 1921 Dr. Walter Morgenthaler published his book Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler (A Psychiatric Patient as Artist) on Adolf Wölfli, a psychotic mental patient in his care. Wölfli had spontaneously taken up drawing, and this activity seemed to calm him. His most outstanding work is an illustrated epic of 45 volumes in which he narrates his own imaginary life story. With 25,000 pages, 1,600 illustrations, and 1,500 collages, it is a monumental work. He also produced a large number of smaller works, some of which were sold or given as gifts. His work is on display at the Adolf Wölfli Foundation in the Museum of Fine Art, Bern. A defining moment was the publication of Bildnerei der Geisteskranken (Artistry of the mentally ill) in 1922, by Dr Hans Prinzhorn.

People with some artistic training and well-established artists are not immune from mental illness and may also be institutionalised. For example, William Kurelek, later awarded the Order of Canada for his artistic life work, as a young man was admitted to the Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital where he was treated for schizophrenia.^[2] In hospital he painted, producing "The Maze", a dark depiction of his tortured youth.^[3] This 1953 work was used as the cover of the 1981 Van Halen rock album Fair Warning. His experience in the hospital was documented in the LIFE Science Library book The Mind, published in 1965.

[edit] Jean Dubuffet and art brut

French artist Jean Dubuffet was particularly struck by Bildnerei der Geisteskranken and began his own collection of such art, which he called art brut or raw art. In 1948 he formed the Compagnie de l'Art Brut along with other artists, including André Breton. The collection he established became known as the Collection de l'art brut. It contains thousands of works and is now permanently housed in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Dubuffet characterized art brut as:

"Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses – where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere – are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professionals. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade." - Jean Dubuffet. Place à l'incivisme (Make way for Incivism). Art and Text no.27 (December 1987 - February 1988). p.36 Dubuffet's writing on art brut was the subject of a noted program at the Art Club of Chicago in the early 1950s.

Dubuffet argued that 'culture', that is mainstream culture, managed to assimilate every new development in art, and by doing so took away whatever power it might have had. The result was to asphyxiate genuine expression. Art brut was his solution to this problem – only art brut was immune to the influences of culture, immune to being absorbed and assimilated, because the artists themselves were not willing or able to be assimilated.

The cultural context of the outsider art category[link]

The interest in "outsider" practices among twentieth century artists and critics can be seen as part of a larger emphasis on the rejection of established values within the modernist art milieu. The early part of the 20th Century gave rise to cubism and the Dada, Constructivist and Futurist movements in art, all of which involved a dramatic movement away from cultural forms of the past. Dadaist Marcel Duchamp, for example, abandoned "painterly" technique to allow chance operations a role in determining the form of his works, or simply to re-contextualize existing "readymade" objects as art. Mid-century artists, including Pablo Picasso, looked "outside" the traditions of high culture for inspiration, drawing from the artifacts of "primitive" societies, the unschooled artwork of children, and vulgar advertising graphics. Dubuffet's championing of the art brut – of the insane and others at the margins of society – is yet another example of avant-garde art challenging established cultural values.

Vocabulary[link]

Two images of Joe Minter's African Village in America, a half-acre visionary art environment in Birmingham, Alabama. Scenes include African warriors watching their descendants’ struggles in Alabama, tributes to black scientists and military leaders, recreations of the epic civil rights confrontations in Alabama, and biblical scenes.

A number of terms are used to describe art that is loosely understood as "outside" of official culture. Definitions of these terms vary, and there are areas of overlap between them. The editors of Raw Vision, a leading journal in the field, suggest that "Whatever views we have about the value of controversy itself, it is important to sustain creative discussion by way of an agreed vocabulary". Consequently they lament the use of "outsider artist" to refer to almost any untrained artist. "It is not enough to be untrained, clumsy or naïve. Outsider Art is virtually synonymous with Art Brut in both spirit and meaning, to that rarity of art produced by those who do not know its name."

• Art Brut: literally translated from French means "raw art"; 'Raw' in that it has not been through the 'cooking' process: the art world of art schools, galleries, museums. Originally art by psychotic individuals who existed almost completely outside culture and society. Strictly speaking it refers only to the Collection de l'art brut.
• Folk art: Folk art originally suggested crafts and decorative skills associated with peasant communities in Europe – though presumably it could equally apply to any indigenous culture. It has broadened to include any product of practical craftsmanship and decorative skill – everything from chain-saw animals to hub-cap buildings. A key distinction between folk and outsider art is that folk art typically embodies traditional forms and social values, where outsider art stands in some marginal relationship to society's mainstream.
• Intuitive art / Visionary art: Raw Vision Magazine's preferred general terms for outsider art. It describes them as deliberate umbrella terms. However, Visionary Art unlike other definitions here can often refer to the subject matter of the works, which includes images of a spiritual or religious nature. Intuitive art is probably the most general term available. Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art based in Chicago operates a museum dedicated to the study and exhibition of intuitive and outsider art. The American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland is dedicated to the collection and display of visionary art.
• Marginal art/Art singulier: Essentially the same as Neue Invention; refers to artists on the margins of the art world.
• Naïve art: Another term commonly applied to untrained artists who aspire to "normal" artistic status, i.e. they have a much more conscious interaction with the mainstream art world than do outsider artists.
• Neuve Invention: Used to describe artists who, although marginal, have some interaction with mainstream culture. They may be doing art part-time for instance. The expression was coined by Dubuffet too; strictly speaking it refers only to a special part of the Collection de l'art brut.
• Visionary environments: Buildings and sculpture parks built by visionary artists - range from decorated houses, to large areas incorporating a large number of individual sculptures with a tightly associated theme. Examples include Watts Towers by Simon Rodia, Buddha Park and Sala Keoku by Bunleua Sulilat, and The Palais Ideal by Ferdinand Cheval.

Notable outsider artists[link]

• Nek Chand (b. 1924) is an Indian artist, famous for building the Rock Garden of Chandigarh, a forty acre (160,000 m²) sculpture garden in the city of Chandigarh, India.
• Ferdinand Cheval (1836–1924) was a country postman in Hauterives, south of Lyon, France. Motivated by a dream, he spent 33 years constructing the Palais Ideal. Half organic building, half massive sculpture, it was constructed from stones collected on his postal round, held together with chicken wire, cement, and lime.
• Felipe Jesus Consalvos (1891–c.1960) was a Cuban-American cigar roller and artist, known for his posthumously-discovered body of art work based on the vernacular tradition of cigar band collage.
• Henry Darger (1892–1973) was a solitary man who was orphaned and institutionalized as a child. In the privacy of his small north side Chicago apartment, he produced over 35,000 pages of text and hundreds of large scale illustrations, including maps, collaged photos, and watercolors that depict the heroic struggles of his child characters, "the Vivian Girls," engaged in activities such as battle scenes combining imagery of the US Civil War with the presence of fanciful monsters.
• Francis E. Dec (1926–1996) was a disbarred U.S. lawyer in 1959 who spent thirty years of his life in isolation mailing increasingly paranoid handwritten rants (which sometimes include drawings) to the media.
• Charles A.A. Dellschau (1830–1923) born in Prussia, Dellschau emigrated to the US and in his 70's secluded himself in an attic and over the course of 20 years created 12 large scale books filled with mixed media watercolors depicting the inventions of the Sonora Aero Club, chronicling the birth of the age of aviation . It is unknown if his subject was factual, a fictionalization or a delusion.
• Madge Gill (1882–1961), was an English mediumistic artist who made thousands of drawings "guided" by a spirit she called "Myrninerest" (my inner rest).
• Paul Gösch (1885–1940), a schizophrenic German artist and architect murdered by the Nazis in their euthanasia campaign.
• James Hampton (1909–1964) was an African-American janitor who secretly built a large assemblage of religious art from scavenged materials.
• Vojislav Jakic (1932–2003), a Serbian artist who spent most of his life in a small town of Despotovac producing drawings up to five meters long evoking the memories of his own life, his obsessions with death, and reflections on art. His works mix abstraction and graphic signs and writings.
• Alexander Lobanov (1924–2003) was a deaf and autistically withdrawn Russian known for detailed and self-aggrandizing self-portraits: paintings, photographs and quilts, which usually include images of large guns.
• Helen Martins (1897–1976) transformed the house she inherited from her parents in Nieu-Bethesda, South Africa, into a fantastical environment decorated with crushed glass and cement sculptures. The house is known as The Owl House.
• Tarcisio Merati (1934–1995), an Italian artist, was confined to a psychiatric hospital for most of his adult life during which time he produced a vast amount of drawings (several dream toys, bird on nest etc.), text and musical composition.
• The Philadelphia Wireman, a creator of wire sculptures. Nothing is known of his (or her) identity and he (or she) is presumed deceased.
• Martín Ramírez (1895–1963), a Mexican outsider artist who spent most of his adult life institutionalized in a California mental hospital (he had been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic). He developed an elaborate iconography featuring repeating shapes mixed with images of trains and Mexican folk figures.
• Achilles Rizzoli (1896–1981) was employed as an architectural draftsman. He lived with his mother near San Francisco, California. After his death, a huge collection of elaborate drawings were discovered, many in the form of maps and architectural renderings that described a highly personal fantasy exposition, including portraits of his mother as a neo-baroque building.
• Sam (Simon) Rodia (1875-1965) was an itinerant construction worker and untrained in the arts. Plagued by personal problems, he abandoned his family to ride the rails until he settled in Los Angeles and created the landmark Watts Towers. Abandoning his monumental life's work, he returned to die with his family, among whom he was regarded as a bum, artist, crazy or a genius.
• Judith Scott (1943–2005) was born deaf and with Down Syndrome. After being institutionalized for 35 years she attended Creative Growth Art Center (a center for artists with disabilities in Oakland, CA) and went on to become an internationally-renowned fiber art sculptor.
• Richard Sharpe Shaver (1907-1975) produced photographs, paintings, drawings and writing connected to his unorthodox theories about the history of life on earth. He believed that certain stones were actually image-filled "rock books" created by an ancient superior race, and that sadistic decedents of those ancients live inside the earth, using ancient "ray" machines to torment humankind. His paintings, based on rock slices, often incorporate unusual materials such as soap flakes.
• Miroslav Tichý (1926–2011) was a photographer who took thousands of surreptitious pictures of women in his hometown of Kyjov in the Czech Republic, using homemade cameras constructed of cardboard tubes, tin cans and other at-hand materials.
• Willem van Genk (1927–2005) is the best known Dutch representative of outsider art. He was considered schizophrenic and autistic, and made drawings in view from above of stations and wirings, European cities, busses and trolleys, zeppelins and bombers. He also created 300 intricately decorated rain coats.
• Wesley Willis (1963-2003), a schizophrenic musician and artist from Chicago, known for his prolific (and bizarre) musical recordings as well as his hundreds of colored ink-pen drawings of Chicago land and street-scapes. Many of his drawings appear as covers to his albums. Although Willis was poor and often dependent on the charity of friends for housing, his drawings now sell for thousands of dollars apiece.
• Scotti Wilson (1928–1972) (born Louis Freeman), emigrated from Scotland to Canada and opened a second-hand clothes store, found fame when his casual doodlings were noted for their dream-like character.
• Adolf Wölfli (1864–1930), a Swiss artist, was confined to a psychiatric hospital for most of his adult life during which time he produced a vast amount of drawings, text and musical composition. Wölfli was the first well-known "outsider artist," and he remains closely associated with the label.
• Kiyoshi Yamashita (1922–1971) was a Japanese graphic artist who spent much of his life wandering as a vagabond through Japan. He has been considered an autistic savant.
• Joseph Yoakum (1890–1972), an African-American artist who spent his last years producing a vast quantity of sinuous, surreal landscapes based on both real and imagined travels.

August Natterer's Weltachse mit Haase (Axle of the World, with Rabbit), 1919

See also[link]

• Avant-garde
• Asemic writing
• Category: Outsider artists
• Surrealism
• Outsider music
• Lowbrow (art movement)
• Vernacular architecture
• Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Alphabetically:

• Bandyopadhyay, S. and I. Jackson, The Collection, the Ruin and the Theatre: architecture, sculpture and landscape in Nek Chand's Rock Garden, Chandigarh Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2007.
• Greg Bottoms, I Colori dell'Apocalisse - Viaggi nell'outsider art, Odoya, Bologna 2009 ISBN 978-88-6288-026-8
• Roger Cardinal, Outsider Art, London, 1972.
• Roger Cardinal, Art Brut. In: Dictionary of Art, Vol. 2, London, 1996, p. 515-516.
• Marc Decimo, Les Jardins de l'art brut, Les presses du réel, Dijon (France), 2007.
• Turhan Demirel, "Outsider Bilderwelten", Bettina Peters Verlag, 2006, ISBN 3-939691-44-5
• Jean Dubuffet: L’Art brut préféré aux arts culturels [1949](=engl in: Art brut. Madness and Marginalia, special issue of Art & Text, No. 27, 1987, p. 31-33).
• Hal Foster, Blinded Insight: On the Modernist Reception of the Art of The Mentally Ill. In: October, No. 97, Summer 2001, pp. 3–30.
• Deborah Klochko and John Turner, eds., Create and Be Recognized: Photography on the Edge, San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2004.
• John M. MacGregor, The Discovery of the Art of the Insane. Princeton, Oxford, 1989.
• John Maizels, Raw Creation art and beyond, Phaidon Press Limited, London, 1996.
• Lucienne Peiry, Art brut: The Origins of Outsider Art, Paris: Flammarion, 2001.
• Lyle Rexer, How to Look at Outsider Art, New York:Abrams, 2005.
• Colin Rhodes, Outsider Art: Spontaneous Alternatives, London: Thames and Hudson, 2000.
• Rubin, Susan Goldman. (March 9, 2004). Art Against the Odds: From Slave Quilts to Prison Paintings. Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers. ISBN 0-375-82406-5
• Michel Thévoz, Art brut, New York, 1975.
• Maurice Tuchman and Carol Eliel, eds. Parallel Visions. Modern Artists and Outsider Art. Exhb. cat. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1992.
• Bianca Tosatti, Arte e psichiatria. Uno sguardo sottile, (in collaboration with Giorgio Bedoni), Mazzotta, Milano, 2000.
• Bianca Tosatti, Les Fascicules de l'Art brut', un saggio sull'artista Antonio dalla Valle,2007.
• Allen S. Weiss, Shattered Forms, Art Brut, Phantasms, Modernism, State University of New York, Albany, 1992.
• Self Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998

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