Art addresses itself to the mind, and not to the eyes. It has always been considered in this way by primitive peoples, and they are right.

Jean Dubuffet

Categorized in : Art Mind Eye

I have always been haunted by the feeling that the painter has much to gain from making use of the forces that tend to work against his action.

gains use feelings

I have always directed my attempts at the figurative representation of objects by way of summary and not very descriptive brushstrokes, diverging greatly from the real objective measurements of things, and this has led many people to talk about childish drawing.. ..this position of seeing them (the objects) without looking at them too much, without focussing more attention on them than any ordinary man would in normal everyday life..

drawing real men

What I expect from any work of art is that it surprises me, that it violates my customary valuations of things and offers me other, unexpected ones.

unexpected surprise art

Caprice, independence and rebellion, which are opposed to the social order, are essential to the good health of an ethnic group. We shall measure the good health of this group by the number of its delinquents. Nothing is more immobilizing than the spirit of deference.

independence numbers order

What interests me about thoughts is not the moment when it crystallises into formal ideas but its earlier stages.

stage moments ideas

Art should be born from the materials. by Jean Dubuffet

Art should be born from the materials.

born should art

Our culture is like a garment that does not fit us, or in any case no longer fits us. This culture is like a dead language that no longer has anything in common with the language of the street. It is increasingly alien to our lives.

doe common culture

Painting is... a richer language than words... Painting operates through signs which are not abstract and incorporeal like words. The signs of painting are much closer to the objects themselves.

painting abstract language

I have tried to draw the human effigy (and all the other subjects dealt with in my paintings) in an immediate and effective way without any reference to the aesthetic.

aesthetic painting way

(Jean) Fautrier's exhibition (in Paris 1945,fh) made an extremely strong impression on me. Art had never before appeared so fully realised in its pure state. The word 'art' had never before been so loaded with meaning for me.

paris strong art

With respect to the use of this sparkling coloured material (butterfly wings around 1955, fh) - the constituent parts of which remain indistinguishable - with the aim of producing a very vivid effect of scintillation, I realised that, for me, this responds to needs of the same order as those that formerly led me, in many drawings and paintings, to organize my lines and patches of colour so that the objects represented would meld into everything around them, so that the result would be a sort of continuous, universal soup with an intensive flavour of life.

butterfly wings order

What seems interesting to me is to reproduce in the figurative representation of an object the whole complex system of impressions we receive in the normal course of everyday life, the way this affects our feelings and the shape it takes in our memory; and it is to this that I have always applied myself.

feelings memories interesting

The State has but one face for me: that of the police. To my eyes, all of the State's ministries have this single face, and I cannot imagine the ministry of culture other than as the police of culture, with its prefect and commissioners.

ministry police eye

There is no such thing as abstract art, or else all art is abstract, which amounts to the same thing. Abstract art no more exists than does curved art yellow art or green art.

I took a great deal of pleasure in it, and I still feel nostalgic about it. However, I felt that it had led me to live in a parallel world of pure invention, shut inside my solitude. Naturally, it was precisely for that purpose that it was made and that was why I took pleasure in it, but I wanted to regain body and roots.

solitude purpose roots

I would like people to see my work as a rehabilitation of scorned values and, in any case, make no mistake about it, a work of ardent celebration.

rehabilitation mistake people

I associated it (the word 'Hourloupe', as title of his longest series of work he made exclusively from 1962 to 1974, fh) by assonance with 'hurler' (to shout), hululer (to howl), loup, (wolf), 'Riquet à la Houppe' and the title of Maupassant's book 'Le Horla', inspired by mental distraction.

titles inspired book

The things we truly love, the things forming the basis and roots of our being, are generally things we never look at. A huge piece of carpeting, empty and naked plains, silent and uninterrupted stretches with nothing to alter the homogeneity of their continuity. I love wide, homogenous worlds, unstaked, unlimited like the sea, like high snows, deserts, and steppes.

There is no art without intoxication. But I mean a mad intoxicati... by Jean Dubuffet

There is no art without intoxication. But I mean a mad intoxication! Let reason teeter! Delirium!