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 contain 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 visual arts can be considered rock paintings found in caves in 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 subjected 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 “art naive” artists 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 a Croatian grandfather herds cows under the Eiffel Tower 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.

The inner world of Angela Jerich's drawings is 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 called “ 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 the village to paint his pictures and engage in subsistence farming, then he is a “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.

Traits of primitivism were also inherent in the works 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”: an outing into nature in 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 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.»

You've probably seen the paintings of these artists. It looks like they were drawn by a child. In fact, their authors are adults - simply not professionals. In painting, naive art originated around the second half of the 19th century. At first it was not taken seriously, and was not considered art at all. But over time, the attitude towards this style has changed dramatically.

Meet "naive"

So, what is commonly called naive art? In painting, this term denotes a special artistic style, the creativity of folk artists and self-taught people, preserving childlike freshness and spontaneity in seeing the world around them. This definition is given by the Encyclopedia of Arts. However, it is also present in sculpture, architecture, and graphics.

Naive art (or “naive”, as it is often called) is not such a new direction. Back in the 17th century in Europe, non-professional artists created their “primitive” masterpieces. However, no one seriously considered these paintings. Naive art emerged as an independent artistic style only at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The roots of “naive” are usually sought in icon painting. You have probably seen such icons in some rural provincial church: they are disproportionate, primitive, inconspicuous, but incredibly sincere. Features of naive art can also be found in the so-called figures - sculptural images on religious themes. It is customary to install such statues near Catholic churches (see photo).

Are naive art and primitivism the same thing? Art critics have three different opinions on this matter:

1. Yes, these are identical concepts.
2. Naive art is one of the directions of primitivism.
3. These are different concepts. If “naive” is the creativity of non-professionals and amateurs, then primitivism is the simplified, stylized creativity of professional craftsmen.

Main features of the style

Naive art has made a significant contribution to the artistic culture of many countries and peoples. Let's try to highlight the most important features of this artistic style. First of all, these include:

• lack of professional (academic) drawing skills;
• brightness of colors and images;
• absence linear perspective;
• flatness of the image;
• simplified rhythm;
• clearly defined contours of objects;
• generality of forms;
• simplicity of technical techniques.

It is worth noting that works of naive art are very diverse in their individual style. However, almost all of them are optimistic and life-affirming in spirit.

Geography of naive art

The vast majority of famous naive artists are ordinary people living in villages or small towns. As a rule, they earn their living by physical labor, and create in their free time. Often the passion for drawing awakens in adulthood or old age.

Naive art originated in France, but then gained unprecedented popularity overseas - in the USA. Also in late XIX centuries, paintings by naivists in this country were collected for museum and private collections. In Russia, this direction began to develop seriously only in the 80-90s of the last century.

When talking about naive art, one cannot fail to mention the so-called Khlebin School. This is a conventional name for several generations of peasant artists from the village of Hlebine, in northern Croatia. At the origins of the Hlebinsky (Podravsky) school stood, oddly enough, the academic artist Krsto Hegedusic (1901-1975). Its masters have perfected the technique of painting on glass. Khlebinsky painting is characterized by motifs from everyday life. village life.

The main museums of "Naiva"

“Naive is a state of mind” (Alexander Fomin).

Among all the museums of naive art in the world, three deserve special mention: Paris, Moscow and Zagreb.

Since 1985, at the foot of the Montmarte hill, in the building of a former textile market, the Paris Museum of Primitivism has been operating. It owes its emergence and existence to the French publisher Max Fourny. Thanks to the efforts of the latter, the core of the current collection was assembled, which today numbers over 600 paintings.

The Moscow Museum of Naive Art has existed since 1998. It is located in an old stone mansion at the address: Soyuzny Avenue, 15 a. Now the museum has about 1,500 works. Since there is little space in the small building, the exhibitions change almost monthly.

The Croatian capital, Zagreb, also has its own museum of naive and primitivism. It is located in the Upper Town, on Mark's Square. Its exhibitions feature works by twenty Croatian artists, in particular Ivan Generalić and Ivan Rabuzin.

Another unique example of “naiva” is located in northern Romania. This is the so-called “Merry Cemetery” in the village of Sepyntsa. Here you can see hundreds of colorful tombstones with poetic texts and original drawings.

Naive art: paintings and artists

Geographically, three regions can be distinguished in the development of “naive” and primitivism: the USA, Western Europe and the Balkans. Most famous representatives naive art in painting - artists of the second half of the 19th - 20th centuries, including:

• Henri Rousseau (France).
• Ivan Lackovic-Kroata (Croatia).
• Ivan Rabuzin (Croatia).
• Maria Primachenko (Ukraine).
• Grandma Moses (USA).
• Norval Morisseau (Canada).
• Ekaterina Medvedeva (Russia).
• Valery Eremenko (Russia).
• Mihai Dascalu (Romania).
• For the sake of Nedelchev (Bulgaria).
• Stacey Lovejoy (USA).
• Sasha Putrya (Ukraine).

Let's take a closer look at the work of the above-mentioned naive masters.

The founder of naive art in painting is considered to be Henri Rousseau, a customs employee who, after retirement, decided to devote himself to fine arts. He decorated his canvases with clumsy human figures and funny animals, without particularly worrying about perspective. The first to appreciate Rousseau's work was his contemporary Picasso. And Paul Gauguin, seeing Henri’s paintings, exclaimed: “This is the truth and the future, this is real painting!»

Ivan Lackovich-Croata

Lackovic-Croata is one of Hegedusic's students. In addition to painting, he was also involved in social and political activity, took an active part in Croatia’s struggle for independence in the early 90s, and was twice elected as a deputy to the Croatian parliament. On his canvases, Ivan Lackovich most often depicted still lifes, scenes from village life, and detailed landscapes.

Ivan Rabuzin is another Croatian artist, and another prominent representative of naive art in painting. His paintings are often called heavenly. Art critic Anatoly Yakovsky awarded Rabuzin himself the title of “greatest naive artist of all times and peoples." Landscapes by Ivan Rabuzin embody purity, extraterrestrial beauty and harmony. Almost all of his paintings are decorated with strange trees and fantastic flowers. Moreover, all objects on Rabuzin’s canvases, be they hills, forests or clouds, tend to some kind of sphericity.

Maria Primachenko

The brilliant Ukrainian artist Maria Primachenko was born and lived all her life in the tiny village of Bolotnya near Kiev. She started drawing at the age of 17, painting neighbors' houses. Maria's talent was noticed back in the late 30s. Her works have been exhibited in Paris, Montreal, Prague, Warsaw and other cities. Throughout her life, the artist created at least 650 paintings. The basis of Maria Primachenko's creativity is magical flowers and unreal animals invented by her.

Moses Anna Mary

Grandma Moses is a famous American artist, an internationally recognized icon of naive art. She lived for 101 years, leaving behind hundreds of bright, colorful and cheerful paintings. The uniqueness of Grandma Moses is that she first began to draw at the age of 76. The artist became famous only in the late 1930s, when an eminent collector from New York accidentally saw one of her drawings in a pharmacy window.

The central subjects in the paintings of Anna Mary Moses are rural pastorals, everyday scenes from the life of farmers, and winter landscapes. One of the critics most succinctly described the artist’s work in the following phrase:

“The appeal of her paintings is that they depict a lifestyle that Americans love to believe exists but no longer exists.”

Norval Morisseau

Norval Morisseau is a Canadian primitive artist of Indian descent. Born into the Ojibwa tribe near Ontario. He wrote about himself: “I am an artist by nature. I grew up on the stories and legends of my people - and I painted these legends." And that, by and large, says it all.

An interesting fact from the artist’s biography: in 1972, during a fire in a hotel in Vancouver, Norval Morisseau received serious burns. At that moment, according to Norval himself, Jesus Christ appeared to him. Subsequently, he became a new guiding star for him in his work. The artist begins to actively draw biblical characters, amazingly weaving them into the fabric of traditional Indian motifs.

Ekaterina Medvedeva

Ekaterina Medvedeva is a self-taught artist originally from the village of Golubino, Belgorod region, one of the most prominent representatives of modern Russian “naive”. She first picked up a brush in 1976, and already in the early 80s, notes about a “new folk talent” began to appear in the Moscow press. At that time, Katya Medvedeva worked as an ordinary nurse in a nursing home. In 1984, the artist’s works went to an exhibition in Nice, where they created a real sensation.

Valery Eremenko

Another talented primitivist artist from Russia is Valery Eremenko. Born in Semipalatinsk (Kazakhstan), studied in Tashkent, today lives and works in Kaluga. The artist has more than a dozen different exhibitions to his name; his works are exhibited in the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts, the Moscow Museum of Naive Art, and are also stored in numerous private collections. Valery Eremenko's paintings are bright, ironic and incredibly lively.

Mihai Dascalu

Lifelike, simple-minded and very juicy subjects - these are the main features in the work of the Romanian naive artist Mihai Dascalu. The main characters of his paintings are people. Here they dance, sing, play cards, pick mushrooms, quarrel and fall in love... In general, they live a full worldly life. Through his canvases, this artist seems to be trying to convey to us one single thought: all beauty is in life itself.

Trees are endowed with special symbolism in the works of Mihai Dascalu. They are present in almost all of his paintings. Either in the form of the main plot figures, or as a background. The tree in Daskalu’s work, in fact, symbolizes human life.

For Nedelchev's sake

The key object in the work of the Bulgarian artist Radi Nedelchev is the road. Either this is an ordinary rural dirt road overgrown with knotweed, or the stone pavement of an ancient city, or a barely noticeable path along which hunters go into the snowy distance.

For the sake of Nedelchev, he is a generally recognized master in the world of naive art. His paintings are widely known far beyond the borders of modest Bulgaria. Nedelchev studied at a painting school in the city of Ruse, and then went to Switzerland for European recognition, where he spent his personal exhibition. For the sake of Nedelchev, he became the first Bulgarian artist whose paintings ended up in the Paris Museum of Primitive Art. The author's works have visited dozens of major cities in Europe and the world.

Stacey Lovejoy

Contemporary American artist Stacey Lovejoy has gained recognition for her unique style, in which the features of “naive”, abstractionism and futurism are mixed into one bright and stunning cocktail. All her work is, in fact, a reflection real world in some abstract mirror.

Sasha Putrya

Alexandra Putrya is a unique artist from Poltava. She began drawing at the age of three, as if anticipating her early death. Sasha died at the age of eleven from leukemia, leaving behind 46 albums with pencils and watercolor drawings, sketches, cartoons. Her numerous works feature anthropomorphic animals, fairy tale characters, as well as heroes of popular Indian films.

Finally…

This art is usually called naive. But if you carefully study the works of prominent representatives of the style, a logical question arises: are their authors so naive? After all, “naive” in this case does not mean “stupid” or “ignorant.” These artists simply do not know how, and do not want to paint according to generally accepted canons. They depict the world as they feel it. This is where all the beauty and value of their paintings lies.

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 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 of folk craftsmen, as well as self-taught artists, preserving childlike freshness and spontaneity of vision of the world”. Maybe you have come across these paintings - 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 Pirosmani’s animals bear little resemblance to real animal faces, and they all have the same look: sad and defenseless, be it “Giraffe” (1905) or “Bear on a 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 at best a couple of hours a day for it, 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.

“The desire to paint was born in me oil paints. I had never painted them before: and then I decided to experiment with them and drew a portrait of myself on canvas,” Tula nobleman Andrei Bolotov wrote in his diary in the fall of 1763. More than two and a half centuries have passed, and the “hunt for painting” continues to overcome our contemporaries. People who have never picked up a pencil and brush are suddenly overcome by an irresistible passion for fine art.

The emergence of a new direction

Naive art XX - beginning of the XXI century is noticeably different from the primitiveness of previous centuries. The reasons for this, oddly enough, lie in the development of “scientific” art. At the end of the 19th century, leading European masters were acutely aware of the “fatigue” of their contemporary culture. They sought to gain vitality from a savage, primitive world that existed in the past or still survives in remote corners of the planet. Paul Gauguin was one of the first to follow this path. Refusing the benefits of decrepit European civilization, the artist tried to equate “primitive” life with “primitive” creativity, wanted to feel like a person with the blood of a savage flowing in his veins. “Here, near my hut, in complete silence, I dream of lush harmonies among the intoxicating smells of nature,” Gauguin wrote about his stay in Tahiti.

Many masters of the beginning of the last century went through a fascination with the primitive: Henri Matisse collected African sculpture, Pablo Picasso acquired and hung in a prominent place in his studio a portrait of Henri Rousseau, Mikhail Larionov at the exhibition “Target” showed the public craft signs, works by Niko Pirosmanashvili and children’s drawings.

Since the 1910s, primitive artists have had the opportunity to display their works alongside the works of professional artists. As a result, a dramatic change occurred with the primitive: it realized its own artistic value and ceased to be a phenomenon of peripheral culture. The simplicity of the primitive is becoming more and more imaginary. Shortly before his death, Rousseau admitted: “I retained my naivety... Now I could no longer change my style of writing, acquired through hard work.”

At this moment, naive art emerges as a special artistic phenomenon, different from primitive art. Often the work of naive artists is defined as unprofessional art, highlighting the lack of academic artistic training. But this is clearly not enough to understand its difference from amateurism and handicraft. “Naive” shifts the emphasis from the result to internal causes. This is not only “unlearned”, but also “simple-minded”, “unsophisticated” - a direct, undifferentiated, unreflective sense of reality.

Distinctive features

The self-taught artist, in search of self-expression, unconsciously turns to the forms of children's creativity - to contours, flattened space, decorativeness as the primary elements of the new world he creates. An adult cannot draw like a child, but he can directly perceive his surroundings like a child. Distinctive feature naive art lies not in the artist’s creations, but in his consciousness. The painting and the world depicted on it are felt by the author as a reality in which he himself exists. But his visions are no less real for the artist: “What I want to write is always with me. I immediately see all this on the canvas. Objects immediately ask to be put on canvas, ready-made in both color and shape. When I work, I finish all the objects until under the brush I feel that they are alive and moving: animals, figures, water, plants, fruits and all nature” (E. A. Volkova).

The prototypes of the depicted objects exist in the author’s imagination in the form of materialized but inanimate phantoms. And only in the process of completing the picture do they become animated. This life created on canvas is the birth of a new myth.

// pichugin2

A naive artist depicts not so much what he sees, but what he knows. The desire to convey your ideas about things, people, the world, to reflect the most important points in the flow of life involuntarily leads the master to schematization and clarity - a state when the simpler things become, the more significant they are.

A lake with ducks, work in the fields and gardens, washing clothes, a political demonstration, a wedding feast. At first glance, the world is ordinary, ordinary, even a little boring. But let's take a closer look at these simple scenes. They tell a story not so much about everyday life as about being: about life and death, good and evil, love and hate, work and celebration. The depiction of a specific episode is perceived here not as a fixation of a moment, but as an edifying story for all times. The artist clumsily writes out the details, cannot separate the main from the secondary, but behind this ineptitude there arises a system of worldview that completely sweeps aside the accidental, the momentary. Inexperience turns into insight: wanting to tell about the private, the naive artist talks about the unchangeable, eternally existing, unshakable.

Naive art paradoxically combines the unexpectedness of artistic solutions and the attraction to a limited range of themes and subjects, quoting once found techniques. This art is based on repeating elements corresponding to universal human ideas, typical formulas, archetypes: space, beginning and end, homeland (lost paradise), abundance, holiday, hero, love, great beast.

Mythological basis

In mythological thinking, the essence and origin of a phenomenon are identical to each other. On his journey into the depths of myth, the naive artist comes to the archetype of the beginning. He feels close to the first person to rediscover the world. Things, animals and people appear on his canvases in a new, unrecognizable form. Like Adam, who gives names to everything that exists, the naive artist gives new meaning to the ordinary. The theme of heavenly bliss is close and understandable to him. The idyll is understood by the artist as the original state given to a person from birth. Naive art seems to return us to the childhood of humanity, to blissful ignorance.

But the theme of the Fall is no less widespread. The popularity of the “expulsion from paradise” plot indicates the existence of a certain family connection between the myth of the first people and the fate of the naive artist, his worldview, his spiritual history. The outcasts, the lumpen of heaven - Adam and Eve - acutely feel the loss of bliss and their discord with reality. They are close to the naive artist. After all, he knows the serenity of childhood, the euphoria of creation, and the bitterness of exile. Naive art acutely reveals the contradiction between the artist’s desire to understand and explain the world and the desire to bring harmony into it, to resurrect lost integrity.

The feeling of “paradise lost,” often very strong in naive art, exacerbates the artist’s sense of personal insecurity. As a result, the figure of a protective hero often appears on the canvases. In traditional myth, the image of a hero personifies the victory of the harmonious principle over chaos.

In the works of naive artists, the appearance of the winner, well known from popular prints - Ilya Muromets and Anika the Warrior, Suvorov and the conqueror of the Caucasus, General Ermolov - takes on the features of a hero civil war Chapaev and Marshal Zhukov. All of them are an interpretation of the image of the serpent fighter, stored in the depths of genetic memory, and go back to the iconography of St. George slaying the dragon.

The opposite of the warrior-defender is the cultural hero-demiurge. Moreover, in this case, the emphasis is transferred from external action to internal tension of will and spirit. The role of the demiurge can be played by a mythological character, for example Bacchus, who taught people winemaking, or a famous historical figure- Ivan the Terrible, Peter I or Lenin, personifying the idea of ​​an autocrat, the founder of a state or, referring to the mythological overtones, a progenitor.

But the image of the poet is especially popular in naive art. Most often, the same compositional technique is used: a seated figure is depicted with a piece of paper and a pen or a book of poetry in his hands. This universal scheme serves as a formula for poetic inspiration, and a frock coat, lionfish, hussar mantik or blouse act as “historical” details confirming the deep authenticity of what is happening. The poet is surrounded by the characters of his poems, the space of the world he created. This image is especially close to the naive artist, because he always sees himself in the picture universe next to his heroes, experiencing the inspiration of the creator again and again.

Soviet ideology had a great influence on the work of many naive artists. Built on mythological models, it formed images of the “beginning new era"and "leaders of peoples", replaced the living folk holiday Soviet rituals: official demonstrations, ceremonial meetings and ceremonies, awards for leading production workers, and the like.

But under the brush of a naive artist, the depicted scenes turn into something more than illustrations of the “Soviet way of life.” From many paintings a portrait of a “collective” person is built, in which the personal is blurred and pushed into the background. The scale of the figures and the stiffness of the poses emphasize the distance between the leaders and the crowd. As a result, the feeling of unfreedom and artificiality of what is happening clearly emerges through the external outline. Coming into contact with the sincerity of naive art, ideological phantoms, against the will of the authors, turn into characters in the theater of the absurd.

// pichugin

The essence of naivety

In naive art there is always a phase of copying a model. Copying can be a stage in the process of developing an artist’s individual style or a conscious independent technique. For example, this often happens when creating a portrait from a photograph. A naive artist has no shyness in front of a “high” standard. Looking at the work, he is captured by the experience, and this feeling transforms the copy.

Not at all embarrassed by the complexity of the task, Alexey Pichugin performs “The Last Day of Pompeii” and “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution” in painted wooden relief. Quite accurately following the general outlines of the composition, Pichugin fantasizes in detail. In The Last Day of Pompeii, the pointed Roman helmet on the head of a warrior carrying an old man turns into a round brimmed hat. In “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution,” the board for decrees near the execution place begins to resemble a school board - with white text on a black background (in Surikov it is the color of unpainted wood, but there is no text at all). But most importantly, the overall flavor of the work changes dramatically. This is no longer a gloomy autumn morning on Red Square or a southern night illuminated by the flashes of flowing lava. The colors become so bright and elegant that they conflict with the drama of the plots and change the internal meaning of the works. Folk tragedies translated by Alexey Pichugin are more reminiscent of fair festivities.

The “creative inferiority complex” of the master, which was one of the attractive aspects of the “old” primitive, is short-lived these days. Artists quickly discover that their less-than-skillful creations have their own charm. The unwitting culprits for this are art critics, collectors, and the media. In this sense, paradoxically, exhibitions of naive art play a destructive role. Few people manage, like Rousseau, to “preserve their naivety.” Sometimes yesterday's naive people - consciously or unconsciously - embark on the path of cultivating their own method, begin to stylize as themselves, but more often, drawn in by the inexorable elements of the art market, they fall into the embrace of mass culture, wide as the gates.

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.

A very important question for art critics is how to distinguish a naive artist 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 paintings, Paleolithic sculpture and even ancient kouroses and caryatids - all this was done in a primitivist manner. The emergence of naive art as an independent movement of fine art did not happen overnight: this process took more than a century and ended at the end XIX century. 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 - 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 naive artist is formed as an artist in a certain isolation, remains forever closed within the framework of his own ideas and his own style, and can work throughout his life with a range of eternal themes. 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 a wonderful illustration female share in 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. Especially artists, such as Elfriede Milts, are 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 illustrates, for example, 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. A feast of love, a feast of fun, a feast of the family circle - every artist finds something very personal and valuable in this theme. 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 themes 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. For example, in a 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 the senior researcher for his help in preparing the material 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.