Primitivism

Summary of Primitivism

A complex and, at times, contradictory tendency, "Primitivism" ushered in a new way of looking at and appropriating the forms of so-called "primitive" art and played a large role in radically changing the direction of European and American painting at the turn of the 20^th century. Primitivism was not so much an artistic movement but a trend among diverse modern artists in many countries who were looking to the past and to distant cultures for new artistic sources in the face of increasing industrialization and urbanization. Beginning at the end of the 19^th century, the influx of tribal arts of Africa, Oceania, and Native Americans into Europe offered artists a new visual vocabulary to explore. In many ways, Primitivism provided artists a way to critique the stagnant traditions of European painting. Primitive art's use of simpler shapes and more abstract figures differed significantly from traditional European styles of representation, and modern artists such as Gauguin, Picasso, and Matisse used these forms to revolutionize painting and sculpture.

While on its face, Primitivism was an attempt to embrace and raise the status of tribal arts, it was itself an inherently Eurocentric enterprise and, in many cases, was biased against the very arts it appropriated. Throughout the later 20^th century and into the 21^st, artists and scholars have attempted to historically contextualize Primitivism and expose its shortcomings as a framework for understanding art from non-European cultures.

Key Ideas & Accomplishments

• As understood by the modern artists, primitive art not only provided new aesthetic forms, it also offered a deeper and more complex emotional and spiritual model that the artists employed to critique the modernization of Western society. Tinged with nostalgia, Primitivism sought connections to a pre-industrialized past in which people were more connected with nature and each other.
• The lasting legacy of Primitivism and the long-enduring assumptions about the inferior quality of art from colonized areas has made it difficult to incorporate African, Aboriginal, and Native American artists into art historical narratives, but attempts at creating a global art history are underway.
• Contemporary responses to Primitivism, often by African American artists and others with a connection to various countries in Africa, are an attempt not to simply appropriate the forms of tribal arts but to explore, recuperate, and reimagine the fullness of African heritage in contemporary society.

Overview of Primitivism

The term "primitive" derives from the Latin, meaning "the first or earliest of its kind." Travelers to the South Seas and Africa brought back tales of new cultures that little resembled what Europeans knew or valued. Europeans admired these new cultures for their exoticism but also looked down upon them, understanding them to be essentially "uncivilized" in their manners and customs. As art historians Mark Antliff and Patricia Leighten point out, the label "primitive" does not exist without the idea of the "civilized." The two terms are necessarily relational and create an ideological construct that renders what is primitive lacking in sophistication, but the interest in the primitive also pointed to a nostalgic tendency to prioritize a pre-industrial past in which one's relation to nature was primary.

Beginnings and Development

Concepts, Trends, & Related Topics

Later Developments and Legacy