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 rock paintings 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 arts, having tacked, 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.»
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. “Do you want 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 to the subway, 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 movement. 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 is rather a contrast to 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.
Naive art - the definition refers to painting (and to a lesser extent to sculpture) created in more or less civilized societies, but which does not have a generally accepted assessment of fine art.It is characterized by bright, unnatural colors, the absence of laws of perspective, and a childishly naive or literal vision. Sometimes the term " primitive art" but it can be misleading since the term "primitive" also broadly applies to proto-Renaissance art (stage in the history of Italian culture preceding the Renaissance, attributable to Ducento(1200s) itrecento (1300s). Considered transitional from the Middle Agesto the Renaissance. The term was first introduced by the Swiss historian Burkhard)and the creativity of "uncivilized" societies. Other names that are sometimes used with a similar meaning: "folklore", "folk" art or "Sunday artists" - may also be contested. For example, a “Sunday artist” - after all, many amateurs do not paint in a naive style, and for naive artists (at least the luckiest ones) painting often turns out to be a full-time job. Professional artists may consciously cultivate a naive style, but such “false naivety” cannot be confused with the spontaneity of the works of real naive artists, any more than, say, the works of Klee or Picasso made deliberately childish, with sincere drawings of children.
Naive art has its own quality that is easy to recognize but difficult to define. That summed it up Scotty Wilson (1889-1972), saying, "You can't describe this feeling. You're born with it and it just manifests."
Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) was the first naive artist to gain serious recognition art criticism. He remains the only one considered a great master, although many others have earned their rightful place in modern art.
The main critic responsible for the promotion of naive artists in the years after the First World War was Wilhelm Uhde. At first, the freshness and directness of the vision of the naive artists attracted mainly their comrades, but a number of important exhibitions in the 1920s and 1930s contributed to the development of public interest in them.
Special significance had an exhibition "Masters of Folk Painting: Modern Primitivists of Europe and America" in the Museum contemporary art in New York in 1938.
Most of the early naïve artists who achieved fame were French (mainly due to Oudet's activities in France). Among them:
André Beauchamp (1873-1958)
Camille Bombois (1883-1970)
Louise Serafin (1864-1934)
Beryl Cook (1926--2008)
Also often classified as naive artists Lawrence Stephen Lowry (1887-1976)
But some critics exclude him from their number, because... Lauri studied at art school for a long time.
In the USA, leading figures included John Kane (1860-1934)
and Anna Mary Robertson Moseson (1860-1961)
Croatia gave a large number of naive artists, where the most famous was Ivan Generalich (1914-1992)
“Paintings Naive art. Style Naive art"
Naive art(English naive art) - one of the directions of primitivism of the 18th-21st centuries, including both amateur art (painting, graphics, decorative arts, sculpture, architecture), and fine arts self-taught artists.
Paintings in the style of Naive art. Naive art has its fans and connoisseurs. Many collectors collect collections of paintings that belong to naive art.
Artists of naive art. Artists of naive art include self-taught artists and professional artists imitating the style of naive art.
Naive art is our common cultural phenomenon and heritage. To preserve works of naive art, special museums of naive art are being created.
Naive art. Naive art in Russia. Museum of Naive Art in Moscow. The Moscow Museum of Naive Art was created on June 23, 1998 and is a state cultural institution. The Moscow Museum of Naive Art is under the jurisdiction of the Committee for Culture of the City of Moscow of the Moscow Government. There are other museums of naive art in Russia.
IN Russian museums, including in museums of naive art, there are a lot of paintings by artists of naive art.
Russian naive art. The work of naive artists, as one of the layers of modern Russian art, requires serious and thoughtful study, in which there can be no place for superficial and extreme judgments, often found in everyday life.
Naive art in Russia. In Russian artistic practice naive art has always been present, but only in last decades naive Russian art Russian artists received aesthetic recognition.
Naive art in Russia. For a long time, the dominant opinion in Russia was that it was somehow “secondary.” At the same time, they forgot that early avant-garde artists, postmodernists and conceptual artists, in search of new visual forms, turned to the spontaneity and simplicity of the naive. Chagall showed interest in the work of self-taught people, Malevich turned to Russian popular prints, and the naive occupied a special place in the work of Larionov and Goncharova. Largely thanks to the techniques and images of naive art, success accompanied the displays of works by Kabakov, Bruskin, Komar and Melamid.
Naive art in Russia. The Russian naive artist, unlike his foreign counterpart, has not yet received mass recognition. He lives in his own separate world, little connected with the real one. artistic life. He does not always find understanding and is extremely rarely burdened with orders. He is not sure of his inclusion in the general artistic flow, since he does not have a “school” and technological equipment. He independently searches for and finds new means of expression, new forms and techniques, without claiming to be a leader or pioneer.
The potential of Russian naive art. Russian naive art is constantly being replenished with new amateur artists. It is quite possible that in the turbulent 21st century, new bright, talented, original artists will appear and bring world fame to Russian naive art.
Naive art has its fans and lovers. Naive art will definitely find its talented authors. Naive art has a future.
Paintings naive art
museum of naive art
naive art paintings
gallery of naive art
naive art in Russia
Foreign naive art
27.09.2011 22:00
More and more often there are announcements about upcoming exhibitions of the artist of naive art. Today we will try to figure out what it is naive art.
Firstly, I dare to suggest that all fine art originates from naive art. After all, when there was no classical school, the laws of painting were not derived. There were stories and there were people who wanted to capture these moments on canvas or any other material. If you think about it, the first rock paintings primitive man– this is also naive art.
Secondly, any artist, when he picks up pencils and brushes for the first time, simply begins to depict on a sheet of paper what he sees around him. Not obeying the laws of logic and painting, the hand itself leads the line where it needs to go. And this is how painting is born. Experience and knowledge come later, but one way or another everyone goes through this stage. But why then do some remain at this stage?
Let's try to turn to the definition and history of naive art. Naive art (from English naive art) is the style of creativity of amateurs who have not received vocational education artists. This concept is often used as a synonym for primitivism, but in the latter we are more likely talking about professional imitation of a non-professional one. Historical roots naive art - originate in folk art.
But at present there are many artists working in this direction who have received very good art education. But they continue to write in a childish way complex plots. At the same time, a “naive” artist differs from a “non-naive” one, just as a healer differs from a doctor of medical sciences: both are specialists, each in his own way.
For the first time, naive art declared itself in 1885, when the paintings of Henri Rousseau, nicknamed the Customs Officer, as he was a customs officer by profession, were shown at the Salon of Independent Artists in Paris. Subsequently, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Morshans - first Alfred Jarry, then Guillaume Apollinaire, and soon Bernheim, Wilhelm Houdet, Ambroise Vollard and Paul Guillaume - began to attract public attention not only to the works of Rousseau the Customs Officer, but also to the works of other primitivists and self-taught people. The first exhibition of naive art was held in 1937 in Paris - it was called “People's Masters of Reality”. Along with the works of Rousseau the Customs Officer, works of workers and artisans Louis Viven, Camille Bombois, Andre Beauchamp, Dominique-Paul Peyronet, Seraphine Louis, nicknamed Seraphin of Senlis, Jean Eve, René Rambert, Adolphe Dietrich, as well as Maurice Utrillo, son of Suzanne, were exhibited here Valadon.
With all this, it should be noted that many avant-garde artists, such as Pablo Picasso, Robert Delaunay, Kandinsky and Brancusi, paid special attention art of children and the insane. Chagall showed interest in the work of self-taught people, Malevich turned to Russian popular prints, and the naive occupied a special place in the work of Larionov and Goncharova. Largely thanks to the techniques and images of naive art, success accompanied the displays of works by Kabakov, Bruskin, Komar and Melamid.
The work of naive artists, as one of the layers of modern art, requires serious and thoughtful study, in which there can be no place for superficial and extreme judgments, often found in everyday life. It is either idealized and exalted, or viewed with a hint of disdain. And this is due primarily to the fact that in Russian (as well as in some other) languages the term “naive, primitive” has one of the main evaluative (and precisely negative) meanings.
The fundamental difference between this direction of fine art and children's art lies in its deep sacredness, traditionalism and canonicity. Childhood naivety and spontaneity of worldview seem to have frozen forever in this art, its expressive forms and elements artistic language filled with sacred-magical significance and cult symbols, which has a fairly stable field of irrational meanings. In children's art they are very mobile and do not carry a cultic load. Naive art, as a rule, is optimistic in spirit, life-affirming, multifaceted and diverse, and most often has a fairly high aesthetic significance. In contrast, the art of the mentally ill, often close to it in form, is characterized by a painful obsession with the same motives, a pessimistic-depressive mood, and a low level of artistry. Works of naive art are extremely diverse in form and individual style, however, many of them are characterized by the absence of linear perspective (many primitivists strive to convey depth using different scales of figures, a special organization of shapes and color masses), flatness, simplified rhythm and symmetry, and the active use of local colors , generalization of forms, emphasizing the functionality of an object due to certain deformations, increased significance of the contour, simplicity techniques. Primitivist artists of the 20th century, who are familiar with classical and contemporary professional art, often come up with interesting and original artistic solutions when trying to imitate certain techniques professional art in the absence of appropriate technical knowledge and skills.
Nadezhda Podshivalova. Dancing under the first light bulb in the village. 2006 Canvas. Fiberboard. Oil.
Representatives of naive art most often take their subjects from the life around them, folklore, religious mythology or their own imagination. It is easier for them than many professional artists to achieve spontaneous, intuitive creativity, not hampered by cultural and social rules and prohibitions. As a result, original, amazingly pure, poetic and sublime art worlds, in which a certain ideal naive harmony between nature and man prevails.
They understand life as a “golden age”, because for them the world is harmony and perfection. For them, there is no history as a constantly ongoing process, and time in it is turned into an endless circle, where the coming tomorrow will be as radiant as the past yesterday. And it doesn’t matter that the life lived was hopelessly difficult, dramatic, and sometimes tragic. This is not difficult to understand if you look at the biographies of the naives. They seem to store in their genetic memory the integrity of perception and consciousness characteristic of their ancestors. Constancy, stability and peace of mind- these are the conditions of normal life.
And here everything becomes clear, having looked more closely, that a naive mind is a mind of a special kind. He's not good or bad, he's just like that. It includes a holistic worldview, in which a person is unthinkable outside of nature and space, he is mentally free and can enjoy creative process, remaining indifferent to its result. He, this mind, allows us to imagine that a person can and does exist in two dreams.
At the same time, the potential that the naive has can be in demand in our turbulent 21st century, when we “record not the history of evolution, but the history of catastrophes.” He will not push or push anyone aside, and he can hardly become the ruler of thoughts; he will only be able to present his most valuable quality - a holistic, unclouded consciousness, “that type of worldview that can only be called truly moral, since it does not divide the world, but feels it through the body” (V. Patsyukov). This is the moral, ethical and cultural strength of naive art.
Currently, a huge number of naive art museums have been created in the world. In France they are in Laval and Nice. Such a museum was created in Russia. The Moscow Museum of Naive Art was founded in 1998 and is a state cultural institution.