The presented experiment consists in the high intensity picosecond exc
itation of a bulk Kerr medium by sinusoidal interference patterns of h
igh spatial frequency. These patterns generate light-induced Bragg ref
ractive index gratings exhibiting nearly periodic self-organization of
the well-known catastrophic break-up of the laser beam. Thus, self-fo
cusing leads to self-trapped structures, whose features satisfactorily
agree with shapes and intensities of a set of fundamental soliton bea
ms.