In 1951 Jean Dubuffet stated: "I intend now to speak of the notion of beauty adopted by occidental culture. I want to begin by telling you in which my own conception differs from the usual one. The latter believes that there are beautiful objects and ugly objects, beautiful persons and ugly persons, beautiful places and ugly places, and so forth. Not I. I believe beauty is nowhere, I consider this notion of beauty as completely false—I refuse absolutely to assent to this idea that there are ugly persons and ugly objects. This idea is for me stifling and revolting. . . ."

Dubuffet makes it clear that much more will be gained than lost by rejecting a philosophy of exclusion, and he concludes by stating "that any object is able to become for any man a way of fascination and illumination."