Now listen to part of a lecture in an Art History class.
(professor) All right, so let's consider the works of outsider artist Henry Dodger. Dodger lived by himself in a tiny apartment in Chicago in the 1900s. He had no friends and spent all his spare time their alone creating hundreds of paintings and drawings. He had never formally studied art and kept his work completely private, so no one ever saw it or responded to it during his life time.And so, when you see Dodger's work you notice how unique it is. It doesn't remind you of anything you've ever seen before. It's very much his own. For example, one piece, it's a water-color painting, in this piece he illustrates a story, about the adventure of seven children. But see, Dodger had a really hard time drawing human figures. Yet he managed to come up with his own rather unique solution for the problem. He simply cut out pictures of children from newspapers and magazines and pasted them into his own painted illustrations of trees, flowers and grass.The results look, um, a little strange. Dodger ’s picture looks more cluttered , more crowded with details than the pictures of other artists, because its entire surface is painted and there are no spaces left empty. It’s also a lot longer than pictures of most other artists, about nine feet long.
Explain why Henry Darger is considered an Outsider Artist.
Outsider art is used to describe art works made by people who choose to live and work outside the society. These works are usually very unique because the artists are barely trained. For example, Henry Dodger was an artist who lived far away from people in Chicago in the 1900s, and he had never received any formal artistic education, so his work was very unique. What's more, he didn't have any friends and kept his work private during his lifetime. In one of his water painting that describes the adventure of seven children, he had difficulty drawing figures, so he solved the problem by cutting off figures from newspapers and magazines and pasted them on the illustration of trees, flowers and grass that he painted. As a result, his painting often looks a little strange—more cluttered because its entire surface is painted. And it's also longer than any other works, about nine feet long. That's why Henry Dodger is considered as an outsider artist. (165 words)
