Quote

Man's need for art is absolutely primordial, as strong as, and perhaps stronger than, our need for bread. Without bread, we die of hunger, but without art we die of boredom.

Jean Dubuffet

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Jean Dubuffet
Age: 83 †
Born: 1901
Born: July 31
Died: 1985
Died: May 12
Art Theorist
Designer
Graphic Artist
Painter
Printmaker
Sculptor
Visual Artist
Writer
Le Havre-Marat
Louis-Léon Forget
Jandu Bufe
Jean-Philippe-Arthur Dubuffet
Louis-Leon Forget
Need
Hunger
Needs
Absolutely
Men
Stronger
Perhaps
Dies
Strong
Primordial
Art
Boredom
Without
Bread

More quotes by Jean Dubuffet

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(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.
Jean Dubuffet
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There is no art without intoxication. But I mean a mad intoxication! Let reason teeter! Delirium!
Jean Dubuffet
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Personally, I believe very much in values of savagery I mean: instinct, passion, mood, violence, madness.
Jean Dubuffet
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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.
Jean Dubuffet
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Unless one says goodbye to what one loves, and unless one travels to completely new territories, one can expect merely a long wearing away of oneself and an eventual extinction.
Jean Dubuffet
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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.
Jean Dubuffet
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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.
Jean Dubuffet
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Dancing is the last word in life. In dancing one draws nearer to oneself.
Jean Dubuffet
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Art should be born from the materials.
Jean Dubuffet
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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
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I do not see in what way the face of a man should be a less interesting landscape than any other. A man, the physical person of a man, is a little world, like any other a country, with its towns, and suburbs.. ..As a rule what is needed in a portrait is a great deal of the general, and very little of the particular.
Jean Dubuffet
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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.
Jean Dubuffet
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Art must make you laugh a little and make you a little afraid. Anything as long as it doesn't bore.
Jean Dubuffet
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What interests me about thoughts is not the moment when it crystallises into formal ideas but its earlier stages.
Jean Dubuffet
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When I want to draw a camel I no longer limit myself, as I once did, to looking only at camels.
Jean Dubuffet
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There is no art without intoxication. But I mean a mad intoxication! Let reason teeter! Delirium! The highest degree of delirium! Plunged in burning dementia! Art is the most enrapturing orgy within man's reach.. Art must make you laugh a little and make you a little afraid. Anything as long as it doesn't bore.
Jean Dubuffet
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Art is a language, an instrument of knowledge, an instrument of communication.
Jean Dubuffet
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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.
Jean Dubuffet
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Mud, rubbish and dirt are man's companions all his life shouldn't they be precious to him, and isn't one doing man's service to remind him of their beauty?
Jean Dubuffet