Dubuffet needed a frame for his proposed book for Gallimard. He was aware of the stigma attached to “insane” and to “psychotic art” and felt the need for a more dignified term. He decided upon ‘Art Brut’. Although originally intended to refer to the work of the schizophrenic masters he had encountered, the term evolved in meaning as Dubuffet formulated his philosophy. He realized that pure intuitive and original expression was not to be found only among the insane; he had also come across mediums, visionaries, eccentrics and other social misfits who were similarly gifted. His term “Art Brut”was therefore not synonymous with “art of the insane.” Indeed he claimed that there could no more be an art of the insane than there could be an art of people with bad knees.

— John Maizels, from Raw Creation