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.
The exhibition was of particular importance "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)

“The desire for painting with oil paints was born in me. 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 arts.

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. IN late XIX centuries, leading European masters were acutely aware of the “fatigue” of their contemporary culture. They sought to gain vitality from the 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 the decrepit European civilization, the artist tried to equate “primitive” life with “primitive” creativity; he 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 person, in search of self-expression, unconsciously turns to forms children's creativity- to contour, 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 fate 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 the 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 " Last day Pompeii" the pointed Roman helmet on the head of a warrior carrying an old man turns into a round hat with a brim. 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.

naive art

In the 20th century All more attention began to attract one phenomenon that had previously not been considered art at all. This is the work of amateur artists, or so-called. weekend artists. Their work is called naivism or primitivism. The first naivet taken seriously was a French customs official Henri Rousseau(1844 – 1910), who devoted himself to painting after retiring. His paintings depicted those events Everyday life, then full of fantasy images of distant countries, deserts and tropical forests. Unlike many later naiveists, Rousseau was unfeignedly naive, he believed in his calling and painted his paintings with clumsy, helplessly drawn and funny human and animal figures, without doubt.

He didn't care about the future either. But the color combinations in his paintings are beautiful, and the simplicity and spontaneity give them great charm. This was noticed already at the beginning of the century by the Cubists, led by Picasso, who were the first to support naivism.

Another outstanding naiveist who never received recognition during his lifetime was the Georgian Niko Pirosmanashvili (1862 – 1918).

In the paintings of this self-taught artist we see animals, landscapes, life ordinary people: labor, festive feasts, fair scenes, etc. Strength Pirosmanashvili's creations - a magnificent range of colors and a pronounced Georgian national identity.

Museum of Naive Art in Paris

Most of the naivists are people who live in remote corners, in small towns or villages and are deprived of the opportunity to study painting, but are full of desire to create. Even in the technically helpless works of the naivists, the freshness of feelings that both strive for and high art Therefore, naivism also attracted professional artists.

The fate of naivism in America is noteworthy. There already in the 19th century. he was taken seriously and the works of the naivists were collected for museum collections. There was little in America art schools, large art centers Europe was far away, but people’s desire for beauty and the desire to capture their living environment in art did not weaken. The solution was the art of amateurs.

Anna Silivonchik was born in 1980 in the city of Gomel. From 1992 to 1999 studied at the Republican Lyceum of Arts (Minsk, Belarus). 1999-2007 - training in Belarusian State Academy Arts, department of easel painting in Minsk. Since 1999 - participation in regional and republican exhibitions. Diploma of the 4th Tashkent International Biennale of Contemporary Art (2007).

Currently lives and works in Minsk.

Among young Belarusian painters, she is rightfully considered a bright individual for her unusually original author’s style and the creation of a special world of images. The source of Anna's aesthetic guidelines should be sought in the fantastic realism of M. Chagall, the naive art of the primitivists of the early twentieth century, and, of course, in folk arts and crafts and folklore.

Anna works in traditional technique oil painting, but constantly experiments with different visual means, using the texture and pattern of the canvas, which is selected specifically for each work. A very subtle sense of color and thoughtfulness of line, meticulous work on details help to very accurately express a certain mood

We must pay tribute: the artist’s works are permeated with a good dose of subtle humor and give viewers a strong emotional charge, striking with their metaphorical nature, giving rise to many unexpected associations.

Works are in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Minsk, Belarus, and in private collections in Russia and abroad.

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