Abstract

Primitivism refers to the fascination of modern and early European artists. It used to be known as Primitive Art. This included tribal art from South Pacific, Indonesia and lastly but not the least from Africa. It also includes primitive European folk art and European art. Such works of art has had a deep impact on contemporary Western art. Picasso discovered the African tribal art in 1906 which left an indelible influence on his painting style in general. It also led him to Cubism.

Picasso's Primitivism

Introduction

Initially, Art historians used to call the period of Picasso's work following Blue and Rose Period with the title 'Negro Period'; that is not the case anymore. Now this period is categorized with the label Picasso's primitivism stage. The concept of Primitivism in art became vain of thought starting from late 19th and early 20th century in Europe. Picasso's use of "prehistoric" art must be implicit in this milieu of European primitivism. During that time, two attitudes were prevailing towards primitivism. First attitude regarding primitivism believed that Europeans had become too sophisticated as well as civilized so much so that primitive and uncivilized people of the other parts of the world should also give importance to them. On the other side, 2nd attitude towards primitivism felt that Europeans should go and join the primitive world and spend time to get close to the nature so that they could have some peace which had lost in the process of getting so called civilized. Picasso was influenced with the work of Gauguin who was supporter of the latter attitude towards the notion. Picasso became attracted in woodcarving which lead to Les Demoiselles in the summer of 1906, influenced by both Gauguin's work and ancient Spanish sculpture which he witnessed in the Louvre. Since the time he visited Museum of Paris to watch the African and Oceanic collections, it became juncture point which proved critical to the development of "Les Demoiselles."

Discussion

Primitivism

Primitivism is one of the constituent aspects of modern art, although their importance has not been sufficiently considered. This project aims to investigate the redevelopment of the "primitive" which takes place in modern art, beginning in the nineteenth century and dramatically accentuating with the avant-garde of the twentieth century. Few twentieth-century artistic movements that have escaped this influence, and its reference to "primitive" is stylistic definition elements themselves and critique their own European tradition, grounded in classical theory-naturalist art.

Throughout the contemporary primitivism has gone through several phases:A formal influence on artists of the early twentieth century, referring to the objects of primitive art, by carrying out a formal language is not mimetic, synthetic and abstract; An interest in the presence of myth and ritual in relation to art, dreams and the unconscious, mainly from surrealism and subsequent movements of their influence and nourished. An interest in primitive society, where social organization and forms of thought, from 1970 and until today, expressed in the formulation of new artistic forms such as happenings, performances, body art and land art. Avant-garde is ...