Art: Primitivism And Expressionism Essay, Research Paper

The art of the 20th century was indicative of revolutionized thinking and newly found perceptions of the world: the present preconceptions of nature were being challenged by scientists and artists alike, the Freudian researches were unfolding new levels of the human consciousness or the subconscious, and the aftermath of the world wars starved artists with the need to find the mechanism in which to disclose their inner most emotions; to realize them in some tangible form discernible (or not) to its viewers. Thus going beyond the post-impressionists’ outpouring of personal perception, the birth of Expressionism revealed the artists’ inner most experiences-the anguished, aggressive, mystical, or lyrical on to the viewer itself. This movement soon after the turn of the century included the musical, literal, and theatrical arts as well (Danvir, 4). Expressionism in a broader sense, describes art in which feeling is given greater prominence than thought, using the artist’s medium not to portray situations, but to express emotion. The expressionist puts an emphasis on vivid color and hues and compromises line, which is complementary with the controlled or the rational, whereas spontaneous color is equated with more liberated, less rational effects. This brief period of artistic style refers to the works of a large number of painters, some of the forerunners being Henri Matisse, Andre Derain, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Many branched out into other movements including Fauvism (1905-1907) which began in France with the Salon des Independants with Matisse and his group of French painters, the German Expressionists, Abstract Expressionism, and Cubism, all stemming from their studies of Gauguin, Van Gogh, Munch and Cezanne (Preble, 414). The Expressionist movement though short lived, influenced the direction of the art world indefinitely. It is greatly responsible for catalyzing modern art in the 20th century.

The question in mind however is this: can such an innovative liberation of style and technique as Expressionist painting was be equated with distant aboriginal cultures? Modern art has often been compared back to back and even attributed to tribal or aboriginal art, so the phrase “modernist primitivism” was coined. Along with this association also came the negative and positive stereotypical connotations attributed to primitive art being carried onto modernist art. There is a false parallelism created between modern art such as Matisse’s and Derain’s expressionistic works and that of aboriginal art and a even more worse parallelism which equates aboriginal or “primitive” art to degenerative, inferior, or primal qualities, sub-level to the “civilized” art world.

The modernists did use key elements or characteristics that they saw in aboriginal masks and statues and incorporated them in their works. It would be equivocal to say however that their whole expressionistic style was a stem off from aboriginal artworks. The artists themselves had a mystical preconception about the tribal art. They saw the simplicity of lines and carvings on woodcuts as ideally basic, child like, simple. Within the cultures they perceived the people as “noble”, unharnessed by a civilized cage of predisposed thinking. They emulated this and thus created a relationship between their assumption of these tribal cultures and the relationship of certain fundamental qualities of the culture with their art. In Henri Matisse’s Madame Matisse, 1913, oil on canvas, there are qualities about the painting which suggest Matisse’s adaptation of primitive elements into it. The subject’s face is reminiscent of a tribal mask-it’s shape oval with no distinct bone curvatures or prominent facial contours, the eyes almond shaped and hollow, colored in black as if void or empty as a mask’s eye holes would be. Also notice the sharpness of the subject’s nose. It is very similar to many African or other indigenous woodcarvings in which the nose carved out is thin, linear and the point very sharp and angled. The color of the face, painted in muted, flat grey also mimics the flat muted color of a mask. The entire painting in itself appears very flat, two-dimensional. Matisse utilizes black a variety of blue hues in this painting complimentary to its lighter or darker hue counterpart, particularly in the background and the suiting of the woman. The woman’s stature and shape also somewhat coincides with the broad shape of the green wrought iron chair in which she sits upon. The bright orange scarf serves as a contrast to the predominant dark blues of the painting, which is the only contrast which prevents the woman from disappearing into the uniform background, since there is little or no illusion of depth created into this picture plane. The bold colors and his use of non-geometrical shapes and fluid lines are trademarks of expressionist painting. Andre Derain’s The Houses of Parliament, 1905-1906 oil on canvas utilizes the bold and vivid colors of expressionist painting but does not incorporate any elements of tribal or primitive origin. This particular work seems to take from post-impressionism style but differs from it with shorter strokes that are less blended to together and in not-so-close proximity to each other. Here Derain utilizes various hue of blue just as Matisse, in combination with contrasting colors of greens, oranges, and reds. In the mid-line of the picture plane, Derain paints the dominant subject, the parliamentary buildings, not in fragmented strokes, but instead solidifies the object in a mass of blue with indistinct lines outlining the shapes and partitions of the building. Actually the lines aren’t lines, just illusions of outlines created by his use of black paint and blending of dark and light blues to create space and depth. This seemingly solid structure provides a contrast amongst the background and foreground of quick, almost large dots (think huge undetailed pointillism) spaced and unblended, though the abstracted image of the sky and water is apparent to the viewer. Both works of modern art represent the Expressionist movement at its beginning and its height. Although many of the modern artists including Matisse, Derrain, and Vlaminck came upon African art as early as 1906, they took elements of the sort into their paintings, but did not use them every single time in every work that they produced. The Fauves were enthused by the “discovery” of primitive art, and it influenced their later works but it is a generalization to say that primitive art dominated the modernist movement. Matisse and his counterparts “learned little if anything directly from African art” (Flam, 217). Rather, they took their predisposed mysticism and primal ideals to the aboriginal artworks and heralded the art for its “simple” and “fundamental” qualities, in other words, the return to the instinctual, carnal urges within human cognition and emotion. But who is to assume that Aboriginal art is basic, simpler, in other words, lesser than our, established, intellectualized art? Many ethnologists and critics were not even recognizing Aboriginal art as “art” but rather as simple utilitarian objects used by its cultures because creativity is associated with intellect, something that the “other” did not possess. Also note that to conclude that such creative pieces were simply utilitarian objects also asserts the idea that primitives were not capable of producing such works simply for pleasure, aesthetic beauty, or artistic skill. Such conclusions undermine and deny non-European cultures of their artistic, and consequently, their intellectual abilities (Goldwater, 24,25)

Many assumptions about the Modernist artists, their art, and the art of non-European cultures have been made. There is that assumption made by the Modernists themselves that intricacy and complication such as is present in their society, is undesirable. There is also that assumption that the older, father, more historical one goes the simpler things become; and because they are simpler, they are more profound, more valuable. For these reasons many have ogled primitive works and heralded them for their supposed “simple” qualities and connection to the basic instincts of humanity. It’s these unsuperficial, “oneness” with nature, genuine qualities that the modernists sought to embrace and therefor wished to incorporate into their works. The intentions were sincere, unhostile, and not demeaning, but with the Modernists’ attribution of the beauty of simplicity and fundamentalism to these peoples, came the simulates negative assumption that there was a correlation between the assumed simplicity of their productions and the simplicity of their social organization and their people. Thus the bad flip side of that glorified coin. This admiration of the primitive is somewhat dangerous because once again we come to these artworks with presupposed ideas and fantasies, the love for the “primitive” or the “savage”, which may actually just be a conjured up fantasy by our society’s imagination. In a negative light, the judgement by our society that out of these tribal cultures come the “fallen from grace” or “decline theory” ideals (Goldwater, 254), which associate the chronological order of existence of a people with primitivism and degeneration, can also arise. Darwinian theories have strongly influenced that type of association as well, concluding that the development of art was a part of natural evolution and that “savage” art was considered art in its lowest developed form (Goldwater, 24).

Primitive art has also been equated with juvenile artistry, and since there has been a relationship assumed with modernism and primitive art, the same equivocation between modern art and children have also been assumed. Conclusions that “savages are true children” that they “draw, mess in paints, and model, like children” and that “we can follow the aesthetic evolution of mankind in the development of the abilities of our children” are only some of the erroneous conclusions made by seeing “them” as the “other”(Goldwater, 22). Likewise the correlation of modernist art to that of children’s creations, alludes to the thought that creating art such as that of the Expressionists, or Cubism, or sculpting is nothing short of mere child’s play, something that one’s son or daughter can slap on a piece of canvas just as easily and interestingly (Goldwater, 257). This thought pattern seems to be primitivist in itself, for the lack of better terms.

In light of judging what is primitivist, what is modern art, and what we have to attribute modernism to and if there are any correlations between the former and the latter, the answer in my mind is no. Generalizations have always been a dangerous way to classify things that may have few similarities, but are in reality two different entities. As a result of such inaccurate generalizations we consequently regard them as one in the same, creating false relationships. To say that anything from the historical past is simpler, more fundamental, speaking in terms of art at least, is contradictory to the chronological order in which the elaborate and flamboyant Baroque art and the Rococo style of the early eighteenth century versus the Minimalist painters and sculptors of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s occur. Why does humanity need to categorize and label everything in its proper manner and order? The simplest conclusion is that it is one attempt to orient or position ourselves in this vast world of time and space in which we truly do not know where we came from, when we started, how we will get there, or when we will end.

Bibliography

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