Image via photobucket and tiit14

I once did not like Jean Dubuffet’s work.  I did not understand it.  His work reminded me of doodles I have seen on bathroom walls.  No matter how many art history lessons tell me of his importance in defining the Art Brut concept, I still felt disgusted by his images.  To me, they represented a waste of time and an art history book’s reproduction space.  I am not against this art type as a whole, but Dubuffet’s work has always put me off.

Image via Photobucket and Potash 2008

Then I read Harold Rosenberg’s Art on the Edge, a book that contained reproductions of Dubuffet’s sculpture.  The works look as though they came from a completely different artist.  Why do art history survey books not talk about these?  They have this wonderful quality to them, and I felt I could lose myself in their grand scale.

I still don’t enjoy his drawings, but his sculpture forced me to reconsider his talents.

ETA: Removed a broken and rewrote a few sentences.