Anna Silivonchik was born in 1980 in the city of Gomel. From 1992 to 1999 studied at the Republican Lyceum of Arts (Minsk, Belarus). 1999-2007 - training at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts, department easel painting In Minsk. Since 1999 - participation in regional and republican exhibitions. Diploma of the 4th Tashkent International Biennale of Contemporary Art (2007).
Currently lives and works in Minsk.
Among the young Belarusian painters she is rightfully considered a bright individual for her unusually original author’s style and the creation of a special world of images. The source of Anna's aesthetic guidelines should be sought in the fantastic realism of M. Chagall, the naive art of the primitivists of the early twentieth century, and, of course, in folk arts and crafts and folklore.
Anna works in traditional technique oil painting, but constantly experiments with different visual means, using the texture and pattern of the canvas, which is selected specifically for each work. A very subtle sense of color and thoughtfulness of line, meticulous work on details help to very accurately express a certain mood
We must pay tribute: the artist’s works are permeated with a good dose of subtle humor and give viewers a strong emotional charge, striking with their metaphorical nature, giving rise to many unexpected associations.
Works are in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Minsk, Belarus, and in private collections in Russia and abroad.
artnow.ru
Naive art is often identified with primitivism. But, although these two movements in art are very close, they are not the same thing.
Naive art unites amateur creativity, the art of self-taught artists. As for primitivism, it is a style of painting that emerged in the 19th century, which is a deliberate simplification of a painting, making its forms primitive. This is already painting by professionals.
Art Brut art is closer to naive art. Naive art is presented in all forms: painting, graphics, decorative arts, sculpture, architecture. The Russian avant-garde also gravitated towards naive art.
Niko Pirosmani (1852-1918)
Perhaps the most famous representative of naive art is Niko Pirosmani (Nikolai Aslanovich Pirosmanishvili). This is the song “Million” about him Red roses" He was born in Georgia into a peasant family. He received not only an artistic education, but no education at all. He could only read Georgian and Russian. He studied painting from traveling artists who painted signs for shops and houses. He created his own creativity on the only thing that was always at hand - on a simple oilcloth taken from the table.
N. Pirosmani “Port of Batumi”
In the summer of 1912, the Cubo-Futurists became interested in Pirosmani’s work and began to promote it: Ilya and Kirill Zdanevich, Mikhail Le-Dantue and others. Kirill Zdanevich purchased it from Pirosmani a large number of paintings, and Ilya Zdanevich published in 1913 in the newspaper “Transcaucasian Speech” an article about the work of Pirosmanishvili under the title “Nugget Artist”. March 24, 1913 in Moscow at the exhibition “Target” along with works famous artists(Larionov and Goncharova) several paintings by Pirosmani, brought from Tbilisi by Ilya Zdanevich, were also exhibited. Young Georgian artists became interested in Pirosmani’s work, and David Shevardnadze began collecting a collection of his works. But this did not give Pirosmani any prosperity in life - in 1918 he died of hunger and disease.
N. Pirosmani “Roe deer against the backdrop of a landscape” (1915). State Museum arts of Georgia, Tbilisi
Animal images occupy a special place in the artist’s work. One of the Georgian artists noticed that the animals in the paintings have the eyes of the artist himself.
Naive art as a phenomenon artistic culture is outside the scope of professional art. Its understanding and appreciation began to take shape only at the beginning of the 20th century, but naive art has had and continues to influence the work of professional artists in Russia and Western Europe. During the period of Soviet power, amateur performances were used for ideological work. But naive art remained true to ethical values: faith in the future, respect for the past. Its main difference from official and opportunistic art is that it is disinterested.
Sergei Zagraevsky “Still Life”. This author is also classified as a primitivist.
In many countries there are museums of naive art: in Germany this is the Charlotte Zander Museum. In the Tsaritsyno Museum, Landowners collected a collection of naive art. The Suzdal State Museum-Reserve has large collection naive art. In Moscow there is a Museum of Naive Art in Novogireevo. There are also many paintings by amateur artists in private collections. In Nice (France) there is the A. Zhakovsky Museum of Naive Art.
Works of naive art are very attractive. You want to look at them and look at them, be surprised and smile, be sad and admire. Sometimes it seems that it is not so naive, it is art if it evokes so many feelings. It's like it's from another world. But this is a personal attitude and personal emotions. How do experts evaluate naive creativity?
She published several books about contemporary naive art K. Bohemskaya. We will turn to her book “Naive Art” when talking about the work of Pavel Leonov.
Pavel Petrovich Leonov (1920-2011)
Pavel Leonov (2001)
“Leonov called his compositions constructions. These structures are overgrown with flesh of color. The figures of people are most often black - as if all of them, like prisoners in a camp, are dressed in black pea coats. But sometimes they dress in white. Small black birds, ticks visible in the pale sky early paintings, become fleshy black rooks in the blue of later ones, and then white birds fly here too.
The triumph of dreams over life, of plans over implementation, so inherent in Leonov, is characteristic feature national Russian character" (K. Bogemskaya).
P. Leonov “Hello, Pushkin!”
Leonov’s designs are multi-tiered, spreading over the entire area of the canvas. And the canvases are enormous in size, which allows the author to live inside his painting, as it were, to live in the world that he depicts. His paintings depict the past, but at the same time, embellishing the past, they seem to talk about a better future. “Leonov’s paintings contain such life force“that they conquer every heart that is open to artistic impressions and not spoiled by the standards of consumption of museum samples.”
P. Leonov “And I should fly...”
“Created outside the boundaries of a professional school and style, marginal creativity is born from needs that are far removed from the desire for artistic fame. Its creators strange people- eccentrics, outcasts. They project into their works images and visions that come from memories, dreams and dreams. They speak to themselves in the language of images. They draw as if they are casting a spell, creating their own world around themselves, a cocoon that shelters them from reality” (K. Bogemskaya).
P. Leonov “In the land where there are palm trees and lemon”
“...Years will pass, and it will be obvious to everyone: Leonov is a great Russian artist. They will no longer remember the definition of “naive.” So most famous artist Switzerland became Adolf Wölfli. Thus, Niko Pirosmanishvili is considered a great artist of Georgia.
Leonov created his own image of Russia, which has never existed before. He created a style that belonged to him and his own inspired color.
Leonov’s legacy, consisting of one and a half thousand large canvases, like the legacy of other great artists, is a huge world of its own, in the facets of which various facets of the surrounding world are reflected and refracted.
The value of Leonov will be assessed by the future, which will need the foundations for the construction of the building national culture"(K. Bogemskaya).
From the biography
P. Leonov “Self-portrait” (1999)
Pavel Petrovich Leonov was born in the Oryol province. His life was hard, he worked in factories, cut down wood, repaired ships, built roads, was a carpenter, plasterer, stove maker, tinsmith, painter, and graphic designer. Lived in Orel, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Uzbekistan. He was arrested several times in 1940-1950.
He began painting in the 1950s in Kamchatka. In the 1960s studied with Roginsky. Roginsky called him “Don Quixote of Soviet times.” The most fruitful period of his work began in the 1990s, when his works were actively bought by Moscow collectors, although he lived constantly in poverty, in difficult living conditions.
After the death of his wife, he did not work and lived with his son in the village of Savino, Ivanovo region. He is buried there.
Elena Andreevna Volkova (1915-2013)
There is something childlike, warm and touching in her works. They don't look like famous works classics But getting to know them brings happiness to the soul.
E. Volkova “The Little Piglet Hid” (1975-1980)
Among the grapes, cucumbers, apples, pears and mushrooms, in the very center of the elegant still life lies a pig. “Don’t think that this is a jellied pig,” Elena Andreevna said every time, showing this work. “He just ran away from his mother and hid among the fruits.”
Elena Andreevna Volkova recreates in her paintings the joyful worldview of her childhood.
E. Volkova “Horse in a Silver Forest”
“Everything that I write now on my canvases has been born to me since childhood. This was all my dream, I observed everything, captured everything from childhood to this day. I will never pass by any beauty, I like everything around me. Everything is very beautiful in its own way” (from the book “Naive Art” by K. Bohemskaya).
Having been musical since childhood, she perceives the wrong color as a wrong voice that spoils the entire choir. Her paintings bring warmth and joy, spiritual purity and life itself in all its versatility.
E. Volkova “Peace to all!” (1984)
Her reality is filled with love. Her world is absolute light and peace.
E. Volkova “Spring”
From the biography
She was born in Chuguev, not far from the house where Ilya Repin was born, in a simple family. She worked as an assistant projectionist on a mobile film installation. Her husband died during the war. E. Volkova began painting in the 1960s at the age of 45, without having art education. One of the founders of the Ukrainian avant-garde, Vasily Ermilov, acquired a number of her paintings. Sergei Tarabarov from the Moscow gallery of naive art "Dar" in 2000 considers Volkova one of the most interesting artists, working in the style of naive art in Russia.
Elena Volkova became the first artist of the naive art genre to have a personal exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery.
In recent years she lived in Moscow. She died at the age of 99.
Taisiya Shvetsova (b. 1937)
Artist from the Vologda region. He has no special art education. She has been painting since 1996. Her paintings are a celebration of generosity and kindness.
T. Shvetsova “Horse” (2008)
T. Shvetsova “Four Christmases” (2007)
Dutch artist Ina Freke (b. 1941)
Ina Freke was born in Chroningen (Holland). Calm landscapes home country she prefers bright colors summer. The artist took up her brush to compensate for the loss of her life (the death of her husband). The shock she experienced was easier to bear when she sculpted sculptures and painted paintings. Many people come to naive art after deep experiences or stress.
Favorite themes of Ina’s drawings – exotic world Africa, the fantasy of space travel and the romance of youth. The separation of bright color spots by musical lines is Freke's style.
Ina Freke "Frivolity"
I. Freke “Planet Utopia”
It's a pity that for wide circles For art lovers and professionals, naive art still remains only a marginal, incomprehensible and funny cultural phenomenon. This is a whole world that you just need to enter to understand it. And enter without prejudice, with a pure heart - after all, it was with a pure heart that these works were created.
Naive painting “Hat and Roses”
I'm sitting in a cafe. An older woman sits down at my table - it’s clear that she doesn’t have much income at all. He takes out A3 sheets and coal. “Would you like me to draw you?” I don’t agree, but I don’t refuse either – it’s interesting. Muttering something under her breath, the woman literally draws my portrait in 5 minutes and offers me to pick it up - of course, not for free. A couple of minutes later I’m already walking towards the metro, holding in my hands a sheet of paper with a very primitive image of me. I paid fifty rubles for it.
This woman made me remember naive art. The Encyclopedia of Art gives the following definition of this genre: « traditional art folk craftsmen, as well as self-taught artists, preserving the childlike freshness and spontaneity of seeing the world". Maybe you have come across these pictures - simple, sincere, it seems that they were painted by a child, but in fact the authorship belongs to an adult. Most often these are even elderly people. They have their own profession - working, as a rule. They live in villages and go to work every day. Naive art is a rather old trend. Back in the 17th century, non-professional artists created their own “mercilessly truthful” portraits, and in the 20th century, naive art emerged as a separate direction, free from academic rules and norms.
The ancestor of naive painting is considered to be iconography. Having seen such icons, you will probably easily distinguish them from traditional ones. They are disproportionate, primitive, as if even sloppy. All these characteristics can be applied to any painting of naive art, not just icons.
One of the most prominent representatives of naive -. He is also considered the founder of naive art. Rousseau wrote his first work at the age of 42 - he worked as a customs officer, and began writing only when he retired. These artists don’t have time to be creative professionally, and they don’t want to. It's just sometimes free time they draw what they see. “Apple picking”, “Threshing”, “Stormy river”, “White canvases” - these are the names of the paintings by naive artists.
Rousseau's work was often ridiculed and harshly criticized, especially at first. And the artist gained wide popularity after Camille Pissarro was brought to one of his paintings - they wanted to amuse him, and the master began to admire the artist’s style and praise the painting. It was "Carnival Evening", 1886.
The details of the landscape were too carefully drawn out, and the construction of the plans amused the audience, but this is precisely what delighted Pissaro.
Another, no less famous naive artist is Georgian Niko Pirosmani. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when Pirosmani began to actively engage in art, he painted with homemade paints on oilcloths - white or black. Where it was necessary to depict these colors, the artist simply left the oilcloths unpainted - and this is how he developed one of his main techniques.
Pirosmani loved to depict animals, and his friends said that in these animals he rather drew himself. And in fact, the “faces” of all the animals in Pirosmani bear little resemblance to real animal faces, and they all have the same look: sad and defenseless, be it “Giraffe” (1905) or “Bear in moonlit night"(1905).
Niko Pirosmani died in homeless poverty from hunger and deprivation. And this despite the fact that from time to time he had work designing signs for public catering establishments.
Most of the representatives are naive to their artistic creativity and don’t make any money at all, leaving him with best case scenario a couple of hours a day, as a hobby. This will not make you a profession - this is what makes naive artists a separate caste. This is very honest art, from the bottom of my heart - there is no pressure of orders over the artist, no financial dependence on creativity. He simply draws because he loves it - the harvest, and matchmaking rituals, and his native river in the forest. He loves and praises as best he can.
The Romanian naive artist can do this in a very special way. His works are similar to illustrations from children's books - they are colorful, kind and fabulous. Daskalu differs from many artists of naive art in that he depicts fantasy subjects rather than everyday ones life situations. There is a house made of a shoe, and Lilliputians with giants, and flying unicorns. At the same time, his paintings never cease to be simple - both in form and content. Looking at them, you want to re-read your favorite fairy tales and dream a little.
Naive includes self-taught creativity and amateur art. “Naive” does not mean “stupid” or “narrow-minded.” It's more of a contrast professional art. Artists of naive art do not have professional artistic skills. This is their difference from the artists of primitivism: those, being professionals, stylized their works as “inept” and simple. And most importantly, naive artists do not strive to paint according to the canons, professionally. They do not want to develop their art and make it their profession. Naïve artists paint the world not as they teach, but as they feel it.
At first it seemed to me that naive art was like ditties. I was so happy about this comparison - it turned out very colorful and bright. But after figuring it out, I realized that I was wrong. Naive art is very light, but “cast-iron serious.” In it, unlike caustic ditties, there is no humor, grotesqueness, or caricature - although at first glance it seems completely different. In naivety, the author always has an enthusiastic perception of what he depicts. And where there is no delight, there is no naive art - they simply do not show these areas of life. Naiveness is sincere admiration.
There is a Museum of Naive Art in Moscow - its workers carry out serious work collecting exhibits and communicate with the authors. Now the museum has about 1,500 works, but there is not much space for display, so the exhibitions change almost every month.
This text will not tell everything about the artists of naive art, but let it at least interest and inspire you to go to the museum or look through these naive pictures in a search engine. These adult artist-dreamers deserve simple attention - albeit without admiration and world recognition, but let's at least try to know them.
Publications in the Museums section
Guide to Naive Art
Naïve art or the art of non-professional artists rarely comes to the attention of gallery owners and art critics. However, the works of naive artists, simple and open, can be no less dramatic and even artistically significant than the paintings of recognized masters. Read about what naive art is and why it is interesting to follow it in the material of the portal “Culture.RF”.
Naive means simple
Alexander Emelyanov. Self-portrait. 2000s. Private collection
Vladimir Melikhov. Bifurcation. 1989. Private collection
Naive art is the work of artists without vocational education who are systematically and constantly engaged in painting. In the naive itself, one can distinguish separate directions, for example, art brut or outsider art - the art of artists with a psychiatric diagnosis.
Very important question for art critics - how to distinguish a naiveist from an amateur. The criteria for assessing the work of such artists are usually the originality and quality of their work. The personality of the author himself also plays a big role: did he devote his life to art, did he strive to say something in his works (painting, graphic, sculptural).
The first one is naive
Naive art has always existed. Rock painting, Paleolithic sculpture and even ancient kouroses and caryatids - all this was done in a primitivist manner. Identification of naive as an independent movement visual arts did not happen overnight: this process took more than a century and ended in late XIX centuries. The pioneer of this innovative movement was Henri Rousseau, a self-taught French artist.
Rousseau served in the customs for a long time, already in adulthood he left his profession and took up painting seriously. He first tried to exhibit some of his work in 1886 at the Paris Exhibition of Independents, but was ridiculed. And later, at the beginning of the 20th century, he met famous avant-garde artists, including Robert Delaunay, who appreciated Rousseau’s bold style. Avant-garde artists often “pulled out” such original painters as Rousseau, helped them develop and even drew inspiration from their work and their vision for their own artistic search. Soon, Rousseau's works began to be in demand, the public appreciated the originality of his subjects and especially his work with color.
In Russia, naive art appeared before a mass audience at the 1913 “Target” exhibition organized by artist Mikhail Larionov. It was there that the works of Niko Pirosmani, brought from Georgia by brothers Kirill and Ilya Zdanevich, artists and art historians, were exhibited for the first time. Before this exhibition, the public had no idea that amateur art could be more than popular prints and folk paintings.
Naive traits
Niko Pirosmani. Portrait of Sozashvili. 1910s. Moscow Museum of Modern Art
Niko Pirosmani. Woman with Easter eggs. 1910s Moscow Museum of Modern Art
The works of naive masters are often united by an atmosphere of joy and an enthusiastic look at daily life, bright colors and attention to detail, a combination of fiction and reality.
Many classics of domestic naive art, except, perhaps, Niko Pirosmani and Soslanbek Edziev, went through the school of ZNUI - the Correspondence People's University of Arts. It was founded in 1960 on the basis of art courses named after Nadezhda Krupskaya; Robert Falk, Ilya Mashkov, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and other venerable authors taught there. It was training at ZNUI that gave naivists the opportunity to gain technical skills, as well as a professional opinion about their work.
Each naivist is formed as an artist in a certain isolation, forever remaining closed within the framework own ideas And own style and can work all his life with a range of eternal topics. Thus, Pavel Leonov’s works of the 1980s and late 1990s are not much different: similar compositions, similar heroes, all the same perception of reality, close to that of a child. Except that the paints are becoming better quality and the canvases are becoming larger-scale. The same can be said about the vast majority of naivists. They react especially to significant social events: they do not change the style depending on the time, but only add new material signs of the era to their works. Like, for example, the classic naive Vladimir Melikhov. His work "Division" is lovely illustration the female share in the Soviet Union. It depicts a woman who is literally in two places at once: working in a factory with one hand, and nursing a child with the other.
Naive themes
Pavel Leonov. Self-portrait. 1960. Moscow Museum of Modern Art
Pavel Leonov. Harvest. 1991. Moscow Museum of Modern Art
Naivists turn to universal human themes that are close to everyone: birth and death, love and home. Their works are always understandable, since the artists try to express the ideas that excite them as simply as possible, without delving into symbolism and hidden meanings.
One of the first strong impressions of a naive artist is his exit into the city, into the social environment. Naivists, who, as a rule, live in the countryside, tend to idealize the city; they paint streets and squares as light, airy and quaint. Artists, such as Elfriede Milts, are especially inspired by technological innovations - in particular, the Moscow metro.
Another common theme for naive art can be considered the image of a person - portraits and especially self-portraits. Naivists have a way of exploring the world through the prism of their personality, their own appearance and the appearance of the people around them. They are also interested in the way a person’s inner world is reflected in his appearance. Therefore, works in the portrait genre give the viewer the opportunity to get to know the naivists almost personally, to get to know them as the artists perceive themselves. The isolation of naivists in their own inner world is illustrated, for example, by a self-portrait of the contemporary artist Alexander Emelyanov. He portrays himself as a collection of images and themes to which he addresses himself.
Almost all classics of naive art interpret the theme of childhood in one way or another. Naivists always remain children, so works associated with this idea - touching and spontaneous - become a kind of point of contact between the child of the past and the child of the present, who still lives in the soul of the artist. It is noteworthy that naiveists almost never paint themselves in the image of a child. They concentrate on the world around them, on portraits of other children, on images of animals - on what can be seen in the alphabet.
Svetlana Nikolskaya. Stalin died. 1997. Moscow Museum of Modern Art
Alexander Lobanov. Self-portrait in an oval frame under the coat of arms of the USSR. 1980. Moscow Museum of Modern Art
The next important theme in naive art is the theme of the feast. Artists love to paint still lifes, feasts, weddings and festivities - they can especially often be seen in the paintings of Niko Pirosmani, Pavel Leonov and Vasily Grigoriev, for whom the feast takes on a sacred, Eucharistic meaning. Feast of love, feast of joy, feast family circle- every artist finds something very personal and valuable in this topic. As in the theme of home, family hearth, which symbolizes peace, comfort and safety. In the works of Pavel Leonov, Soviet reality is always associated with joy, holidays and parades. Leonov even portrays his work as joyful and bright.
However, naive art is not always idyllic. For example, outsider art or art brut often leaves the viewer with a vague, uneasy feeling. There is no harmonious and complete world in these works - artists most often concentrate on one motif or subject and reproduce it in each work. For the classic outsider art Alexander Lobanov, such an object was the Mosin rifle. Lobanov himself never fired a rifle, and his works contain no war, no cruelty, no pain. This item is like an artifact, an embodiment of power, just like the active Soviet symbolism that is present in the vast majority of his works.
Key philosophical topics for artists - birth and death. Naivists deify the birth of man, both physical and personal, and compare it with the divine origin of life in general. And they perceive the departure of a person from the point of view of the memory and pain remaining about him. So, for example, in the painting by Svetlana Nikolskaya, people dressed in gray contrast with a rich red background; it is impossible to read their thoughts or feelings - they seem to have been petrified.
The era of classical naive is gradually passing away. Today, such a closed and isolated existence of naivists as it was before is impossible. Artists must be actively involved in the art process and understand what is happening on the art market. This is neither good nor bad - just a sign of the times. And the more valuable will be each viewer’s appeal to naive art, until it completely disappears.
The portal "Culture.RF" thanks senior research fellow MMOMA, member of the curatorial group of the exhibition “NAIV...BUT” Nina Lavrishcheva and employee Museum of Russian popular print and naive art Maria Artamonova.
Naive art (naive art) is one of the directions of primitivism, which is characterized by naive simplicity of technique, an anti-academic approach to painting, freshness of view and originality of the manner of execution of drawings. Unrecognized and initially persecuted for his “barbaric” attitude towards the canons of painting, the naive art eventually survived and took its rightful place in the history of world culture. The works of artists working in this genre often include everyday scenes, related to food, which, naturally, could not but interest our thematic site.
It should be said that the roots of the genre " naive art "go back far into the depths of centuries. The first examples of naive fine art can be considered cave drawings found in caves South Africa. (We are sure that the drawings of the ancient hunter were more likely perceived by others as a menu, rather than painting :)).
Much later, the Greeks, having discovered Scythian statues of “stone women” north of the Black Sea, also considered them primitive “barbarism” due to the violation of body proportions, which in ancient Greek culture characterized harmony and beauty. Just remember " golden ratio» Polykleitos.
However, the “correctness” of classical art continued to be constantly subject to partisan attacks. folk art. And so, after the overthrow of the rule of Rome in most European countries, fine art, having made a tack, changed course from perfection towards the search for expressiveness. The originality and originality of the former outcast and outsider, which was considered naive art, was very suitable as a means to achieve this goal. 
At the same time, one cannot ignore the fact that outstanding artists“art naive” would never have received world recognition if European artists like Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Max Ernst and others had not become interested in their ideas and style. They supported this rebellion against the romance of classicism».
In search of the “fifth element” of fine art, they, like medieval alchemists, tried to irrationally operate with miracle and mystery, mixing in their paintings avant-gardeism and wild natural pristineness, which grew from the depths of the lost “primitive” world of Africa, as well as Central and South America.
It is well known that Pablo Picasso studied in detail the African style of “primitive art”, studied authentic masks and sculptures brought from there in order to comprehend the creative subconscious beginning of the “dark continent” and embody it in his works. Which largely determined his signature asymmetrical style. Even on, he uses disproportion techniques.
The portrait of this pioneering Spanish painter was uniquely executed by a Colombian artist who was himself dubbed " Picasso of South America«.
Former illustrator Fernando Botero Angulo (born 1932) became famous after winning first prize at the "Exhibition of Colombian Artists" in 1959. This opened the door for him to Europe, where the steep career of this original artist and sculptor began, whose work subsequently influenced many apologists of naive art. To see this, you can compare his paintings with the works of some of his contemporary colleagues in naive art. In order not to be distracted from the “food” topic, let’s take one of Botero’s favorite topics - picnics.
One of the oldest primitivist artists, the leader of Croatian naive art is Ivan Generalich (1914-1992). The lack of professional training, peasant origin and rural themes of his paintings did not prevent him from gaining recognition throughout Europe since 1953. Peasant life appears in his works as if seen from the inside, which gives them amazing expression, freshness and spontaneity.
The picture where under Eiffel Tower a Croatian grandfather herding cows can be considered a secretive grin at the Parisian elite, just look at the author’s photo: a modest appetizer of sausage, bread and onions laid out on a stool; a wallet on the plank floor, dressed in a shabby sheepskin coat... The general is unpretentious and wise in life. French novelist Marcel Arlen wrote about him: “He was born of the earth. He has wisdom and charm. He doesn't need teachers."
Many artists of modern “naive art” seem to have not escaped the charm of the works of their predecessors. But, at the same time, they introduce elements of “social cult” unknown to Western Europeans into the spontaneity of artistic expression inherent in art-naive. As an example, here are several decorative genre scenes by the Belarusian artist Elena Narkevich , who emigrated to Spain many years ago. Her paintings are an ironic reconstruction of an idealized world, an ever-memorable common past, well known to all residents of the former CIS. They are filled with nostalgic vibes of the vanishing era of socialist realism with the smells of the kitchen, where Olivier is being prepared and housewives are bustling around waiting for guests, where dachas are replacing country houses, and picnics are called forays into nature.
And although Elena Narkevich’s works contain most of the formal signs of the “naive art” genre, such as distortions in geometric aspects, unrefined color on compositional plans, exaggerated proportions of figures and other markers of art naive, experts classify such works as pseudo-naive art or " artificially naive" - when the artist works in an imitative manner. (Another feature of naive art—the deliberate “childishness” of the image—was brought to commercial perfection by the artist Evgenia Gapchinskaya ).
In a manner similar to Elena Narkevich, the artist, originally from Donetsk, paints her paintings. Angela Jerich . We have already talked about her work in.
Inner world Angela Jerich's drawings are sometimes compared to the magic of depicting characters in Fellini's films. The artist succeeds in ironic and, at the same time, very loving “illustrations of a bygone era” of socialist realism. In addition to this, Angela has an elegant imagination and can capture the “beautiful moments” of life like Pushkin.
About her colleague in the “naive art workshop”, a Moscow artist Vladimir Lyubarov, we told you too. A series of his works entitled “ Eaters”, although he pleases the eye with edible still lifes, he does not highlight this “gastronomic reality” on its own. It is only an excuse to demonstrate the lives of your characters, their characters and feelings. . There you can also see his funny and heartfelt paintings. (Or on his personal website www.lubarov.ru).
If Lyubarov fled from civilization to a village to paint his pictures and study there subsistence farming, then “naive artist” Valentin Gubarev from Nizhny Novgorod moved to Minsk. (As if to make up for the loss of Elena Narkevich from emigration 🙂).
Paintings by Valentin Gubarev, which have incredible attractive power and charm. Even people far from art react to them emotionally and positively. His works contain a certain simplicity and irony, mischief and sadness, deep philosophy and humor. In his paintings there are many characters, details and objects, as on the balcony of a five-story panel building, littered with the belongings of several generations of residents. But, as connoisseurs of his paintings accurately note: “a lot of everything, but nothing superfluous.” For his passion for finely detailed paintings, he is called “ Belarusian Bruegel" Compare for yourself - on the left is Bruegel in the original, and on the right is one of hundreds of similar paintings by Gubarev. (By the way, using miniatures brilliantly, Bruegel depicted 118 proverbs from Scandinavian folklore in his painting).
In general, the emergence of primitivism was caused, on the one hand, by the rejection of modern urbanized life and the rise popular culture, and on the other hand, a challenge to sophisticated elite art. Primitivists sought to get closer to the purity, emotionality and unclouded clarity of folk or children's consciousness. These trends affected many artists in Europe, America and Russia.
It is impossible not to mention a bright representative of the art of naive and primitivism in turn of XIX-XX centuries, French artist Henri Rousseau
. His paintings are generally difficult to describe in words due to the riot of imagination and incomparable manner of drawing. He began to engage in painting in adulthood, without having the appropriate education. I often drew exotic jungles that I had never seen in my life. Ignoring numerous reproaches that “even a child can draw like that,” Rousseau followed the path of his calling. As a result, his persistence turned out to be the Archimedean lever that turned the world of fine art upside down: the genius of Henri Rousseau was recognized, and a new generation of artists took the baton from him.
Features of primitivism were also inherent in the work of the great French painters, Paul Gauguin And Henri Matisse. Just look at Gauguin’s “Tahitian Women with Mangoes” or Matisse’s stormy “Joy of Life”: the outing into nature is in full swing. (It was not for nothing that Matisse was a Fauvist).
Russia had its own groups of adherents of the naive art style. Among them are members of the creative communities “Jack of Diamonds” (P. P. Konchalovsky, I. I. Mashkov), “Donkey’s Tail” (M. F. Larionov, N. S. Goncharova, M. Z. Chagall) and others.
One of the geniuses of primitivism is rightfully Niko Pirosmani . This self-taught artist from a small Georgian village made a meager living selling milk. He often gave his paintings as gifts to buyers or gave them to resellers in the hope of gaining some money. Merry feasts, scenes of peasant life, nature - these are the themes that inspired Pirosmani. All picnics and holidays in his paintings have characteristic national characteristics. The loneliness and confusion of a genius artist in the hustle and bustle of urban philistinism turns into philosophical reflections on his canvases about the place of man (and living beings in general) in the world, and his feasts and feasts speak of moments of joy in earthly existence.
We can continue to give examples, but even from a small excursion the multicultural phenomenon of naive art becomes obvious. This can be confirmed by hundreds of museums and galleries where paintings by “naive artists” are stored. Or sales of naive art works amount to hundreds of millions of dollars.
The genre of primitivism turned out to be tenacious and adaptable, like all the simplest things in nature. Naive art developed not thanks to academic “artificial” sciences (art-naive artists often had no education), but rather in spite of it, because the environment for the birth and habitat of naive art is deeply natural phenomena, inaccessible to scientists and critics, where the almighty genius of Man reigns.
In the case of works of the genre naive art, we fully agree with the expression of Louis Aragon: “ It is naive to consider these paintings naive.»