Henri Rousseau - Combat of a Tiger and a Buffalo

In the arts of the

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...

, Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that means to recreate the experience of ''the primitive'' time, place, and person, either by emulation or by re-creation. In

Western philosophy Western philosophy refers to the Philosophy, philosophical thought, traditions and works of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the Pre ...

, Primitivism proposes that the people of a primitive society possess a

morality Morality () is the categorization of intentions, Decision-making, decisions and Social actions, actions into those that are ''proper'', or ''right'', and those that are ''improper'', or ''wrong''. Morality can be a body of standards or principle ...

and an

ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

that are superior to the urban value system of civilized people. In European art, the aesthetics of primitivism included techniques, motifs, and styles copied from the arts of Asian, African, and Australasian peoples perceived as primitive in relation to the urban civilization of

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...

. In that light, the painter Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian imagery to his oil paintings was a characteristic borrowing of technique, motif, and style that was important for the development of

Modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...

(1860s–1970s) in the late 19th century. As a genre of Western art, Primitivism reproduced and perpetuated racist stereotypes, such as the " noble savage", with which colonialists justified white colonial rule over the non-white other in Asia, Africa, and Australasia. Moreover, the term ''primitivism'' also identifies the techniques, motifs, and styles of painting that predominated representational painting before the emergence of the

Avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

; and also identifies the styles of

naïve art Naïve art is usually defined as visual art that is created by a person who lacks the formal education and training that a professional artist undergoes (in anatomy, art history, technique, perspective, ways of seeing). When this aesthetic is ...

and of

folk art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative art, decorative. The makers of folk art a ...

produced by amateur artists, such as

Henri Rousseau Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (; 21 May 1844 – 2 September 1910)
at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Gug ...

, who painted for personal pleasure.

Philosophy

Primitivism is a utopian style of art that means to represent the physical world of Nature and humanity's original state of nature with two styles: (i) ''chronological primitivism'' and (ii) ''cultural primitivism''.Lovejoy, A. O. and Boas, George Boas. ''Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1935). In Europe, chronological primitivism proposes the moral superiority of a primitive way of life represented by the myth of a golden age of pre-societal harmony with Nature, as depicted in the

Pastoral The pastoral genre of literature, art, or music depicts an idealised form of the shepherd's lifestyle – herding livestock around open areas of land according to the seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. The target au ...

genres of European representational art and poetry. Notable examples of European cultural primitivism are the music of

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century c ...

, the Tahitian paintings of Paul Gauguin, and the African period artworks of

Pablo Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

. Stravinsky's '' The Rite of Spring'' (1913) is primitivist program music about the subject of

Paganism Paganism (, later 'civilian') is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Christianity, Judaism, and Samaritanism. In the time of the ...

, specifically the rite of

human sacrifice Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease deity, gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/prie ...

in pre-christian Russia. Foregoing the

aesthetic Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,'' , acces ...

and technical restraints of Western musical composition, in ''The Rite of Spring'' the composer employs harsh consonance and dissonance and loud, repetitive rhythms as a mode of Dionysian spontaneity in musical modernism. The critic Malcolm Cook said that "with its folk-music motifs and the infamous 1913 Paris riot securing its ''

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

'' credentials, Stravinsky's ''The Rite of Spring'' engaged in Primitivism in both form and practice" while remaining within the technical praxes of Western

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

. The primitivism movement is not just limited to Europe. Australia’s John Antill is known for his major primitive work Corroboree. According to Campbell, Corroboree holds significance for broader discussions of musical primitivism, as much of the musicological discourse in classical music often assumes certain musical gestures inherently signify primitivism or blends primitivism into the broader concept of musical exoticism. In contrast, Corroboree highlights representational primitivism by linking the ballet's prominent musical elements to historical ideas from the 18th to 20th centuries about the earliest phases of human musical evolution. ;17th century During the

Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a Europe, European Intellect, intellectual and Philosophy, philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained th ...

, intellectuals rhetorically used the idealization of indigenous peoples as political criticism of European culture; however, as part of the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, the Italian intellectual Giambattista Vico said that the lives of primitive non-Europeans were more attuned to Nature's aesthetic inspirations for

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

than the arts of civilized, modern man. From that perspective, Vico compared the artistic merits of the

epic poetry In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard t ...

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

and of the Bible against the modern literature written in vernacular language. ;18th century In the ''Prolegomena to Homer'' (1795), the scholar Friedrich August Wolf identified the language of Homer's poetry and the language of The Bible as examples of folk art communicated and transmitted by

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...

. Later, the ideas of Vico and Wolf were developed at the beginning of the 19th century by Johann Gottfried Herder; nevertheless, although influential in literature, the ideas of Vico and Wolf slightly influenced the

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

. ;19th century The emergence of historicism — judging and evaluating different eras according to their historical context and criteria — resulted in new schools of visual art dedicated to historical fidelity of setting and costume, such as the art of

Neoclassicism Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative arts, decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiq ...

and the Romantic art of the Nazarene movement in Germany who were inspired by the primitive school of Italian devotional paintings, i.e. before

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...

and the discovery of

oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...

. Whereas academic painting (after Raphael) used dark glazes, idealized forms, and suppression of detail, the artists of the Nazarene movement used clear outlines, bright colors, and much detail. The artistic styles of the Nazarene movement were similar to the artistic styles of the Pre-Raphaelites, who were inspired by the critical writings of

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...

, who admired the painters before Raphael (e.g. Sandro Botticelli) and recommended that artists paint outdoors. In the mid-19th century, the photographic camera and non-Euclidean geometry changed the visual arts; photography impelled the development of artistic Realism and non-Euclidean geometry voided the mathematic absolutes of

Euclidean geometry Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to ancient Greek mathematics, Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry, ''Euclid's Elements, Elements''. Euclid's approach consists in assuming a small set ...

, and so challenged the conventional perspective of

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

art by suggesting the existence of multiple worlds in which things are different from the human world.

Modernist Primitivism

The three-hundred-year

Age of Discovery The Age of Discovery (), also known as the Age of Exploration, was part of the early modern period and overlapped with the Age of Sail. It was a period from approximately the 15th to the 17th century, during which Seamanship, seafarers fro ...

(15th c.–17th c.) exposed western European explorers to the peoples and cultures of Asia and the Americas, of Africa and Australasia, but the explorers' perspective of cultural difference led to

colonialism Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...

. During the

, the explorers' encounters with the non-European Other provoked philosophers to question the Mediaeval assumptions about the fixed nature Man, of society, and of

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

, doubted the social-class organization of society and the mental, moral, and intellectual strictures of Christianity, by comparing the civilization of Europe against the way of life of the uncivilized natural man living in harmony with Nature. In the 18th century, Western artists and intellectuals participated in "the conscious search in history for a more deeply expressive, permanent human nature and cultural structure in contrast to the nascent modern realities", by studying the cultures of the primitive peoples encountered by explorers. The spoils of European colonialism included the works of art of the colonized natives, which featured primitive styles of expression and execution, especially the absence of linear perspective, a simple outline, the presence of

hieroglyph Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters. ...

s, distortions of the figure, and the meaning communicated with repeated patterns of ornamentation. The African and Australasian cultures provided artists an answer to their "white, Western, and preponderantly male quest" for the ideal of the primitive, "whose very condition of desirability resides in some form of distance and difference."

Paul Gauguin

The painter Paul Gauguin departed urban Europe to reside in the French colony of

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

, where he adopted a primitive style of life much unlike the way of life in urban France. Gauguin's search for the primitive was a search for sexual freedom from the Christian constrictions of private life, evident in the paintings '' Spirit of the Dead Watching'' (1892), '' Parau na te Varua ino'' (1892), and ''Anna the Javanerin'' (1893), '' Te Tamari No Atua'' (1896) and ''Cruel Tales'' (1902). Gauguin's European perspective of Tahiti as a sexual utopia free of the religious sexual prohibitions is in line with the perspective of

pastoral The pastoral genre of literature, art, or music depicts an idealised form of the shepherd's lifestyle – herding livestock around open areas of land according to the seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. The target au ...

art, which idealizes rural life as better than city life. The similarities between Pastoralism and Primitivism are evident in the paintings ''Tahitian Pastoral'' (1892) and '' Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?'' (1897–1898). The artist Gauguin said that his paintings celebrated Tahitian society, and that he was defending Tahiti against French colonialism; nonetheless, from the

postcolonial Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and extractivism, exploitation of colonized pe ...

perspective of the 20th century, feminist art critics said that Gauguin's taking adolescent mistresses voids his claim of being an anti-colonialist. As a European man, his sexual freedom derived from the male gaze of the colonist, because Gauguin's artistic primitivism is part of the "dense interweave of

racial Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of va ...

and sexual fantasies and power, both colonial and patriarchal", which French colonialists invented about Tahiti and the Tahitians; European fantasies invented in "effort to essentialize notions of primitiveness", by Othering non-European peoples into colonial subordinates.

Fauves and Pablo Picasso

In 1905–1906 period, a group of artists studied the arts from

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

and from

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

, because of the popularity of the Gauguin paintings of Tahiti and the Tahitians. Two posthumous, retrospective exhibitions of Gauguin's works of art in Paris, one at the Salon d'Automne in 1903, and the other in 1906, influenced fauve movement artists such as Maurice de Vlaminck, André Derain and

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

, but also

. In particular, Picasso studied Iberian sculpture, African sculpture, and African traditional masks, and historical works such as the Mannerist paintings of El Greco, from which aesthetic study Picasso painted '' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'' (1907), and invented Cubism.Cooper, 24

Anti-colonial primitivism

Primitivism in art is usually regarded as a cultural phenomenon of Western art, yet the structure of primitivist idealism is in the art works of non-Western and anti-colonial artists. The nostalgia for an idealized past when humans lived in harmony with Nature is related to critiques of the negative cultural impact of Western modernity upon colonized peoples. The primitivist works of anti-colonial artists are critiques of the Western stereotypes about colonized peoples, while also yearning for the pre-colonial way of life. The processes of

decolonization Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby Imperialism, imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholar ...

fuse with the reverse

teleology Teleology (from , and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology. In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Appleton ...

of Primitivism to produce native works of art distinct from the primitivist artworks by Western artists, which reinforce colonial stereotypes as true. As a type of artistic primitivism, the artworks of the Négritude movement tend to nostalgia for a lost golden age. Begun in the 1930s, by

francophone The Francophonie or Francophone world is the whole body of people and organisations around the world who use the French language regularly for private or public purposes. The term was coined by Onésime Reclus in 1880 and became important a ...

artists and intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, the Négritude movement was readily adopted throughout continental Africa and by the African diaspora. In rejection of Western

rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the Epistemology, epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to ot ...

and European colonialism, the Négritude artists idealized pre-colonial Africa with works of art that represent pre-colonial Africa as composed of societies who were more culturally united before the Europeans arrived to Africa. Notable among the artists of the Négritude movement is the Cuban artist Wifredo Lam who was associated with Picasso and the surrealists in Paris, in the 1930s. On returning to Cuba in 1941, Lam was emboldened to create dynamic tableaux that integrated human beings, animals, and Nature. In ''The Jungle'' (1943), Lam's polymorphism creates a fantastical jungle scene featuring African motifs among the stalks of sugar cane to represent the connection between the neo-African idealism of Négritude and the history of plantation slavery for the production of table sugar.

Neo-primitivism

Neo-primitivism was a Russian

art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific art philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined ...

that took its name from the 31-page pamphlet ''Neo-primitivizm'', by Aleksandr . It is considered a type of avant-garde movement and is proposed as a new style of modern painting which fuses elements of Cézanne, Cubism, and

Futurism Futurism ( ) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the ...

with traditional Russian '

' conventions and motifs, notably the

Russian icon Russian icons represent a form of religious art that developed in Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox Christianity after Kievan Rus' Christianization of Kievan Rus', adopted the faith from the Byzantine Empire, Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire in ...

and the lubok. Neo-primitivism replaced the symbolist art of the Blue Rose movement. The nascent movement was embraced due to its predecessor's tendency to look back so that it passed its creative zenith. A conceptualization of neo-primitivism describes it as anti-primitivist Primitivism since it questions the primitivist's Eurocentric universalism. This view presents neo-primitivism as a contemporary version that repudiates previous primitivist discourses. Some characteristics of neo-primitivist art include the use of bold colors, original designs, and expressiveness. These are demonstrated in the works of Paul Gauguin, which feature vivid hues and flat forms instead of a three-dimensional perspective.

was another neo-primitivist known for his children's pieces, which were based on Russian folklore. Several neo-primitivist artists were also previous members of the Blue Rose group.

Neo-primitive artists

Russian artists associated with Neo-primitivism include: * David Burlyuk * Marc Chagall * Pavel Filonov * Natalia Goncharova * Mikhail Larionov * Kasimir Malevich * Aleksandr Shevchenko *

Museum exhibitions on primitivism in modern art

In November 1910,

Roger Fry Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and art critic, critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent ...

organized the exhibition titled ''Manet and the Post-Impressionists'' held at the Grafton Galleries in London. This exhibition showcased works by

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work introduced new modes of representation, influenced avant-garde artistic movements of the early 20th century a ...

, Paul Gauguin,

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French Modernism, modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism (art movement), R ...

, and

Vincent Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...

, among others. This exhibition was meant to showcase how French art had developed over the past three decades; however, art critics in London were shocked by what they saw. Some called Fry "mad" and "crazy" for publicly displaying such artwork in the exhibition. Fry's exhibition called attention to primitivism in modern art even if he did not intend for it to happen; leading American scholar Marianna Torgovnick to term the exhibition as the "debut" of primitivism on the London art scene. In 1984, The Museum of Modern Art in New York had a new exhibition focusing on primitivism in modern art. Instead of pointing out the obvious issues, the exhibition celebrated the use of non-Western objects as inspiration for modern artists. The director of the exhibition, William Rubin, took Roger Fry's exhibition one step further by displaying the modern works of art juxtaposed to the non-Western objects themselves. Rubin stated, "That he was not so much interested in the pieces of 'tribal' art in themselves but instead wanted to focus on the ways in which modern artists 'discovered' this art." He was trying to show there was an 'affinity' between the two types of art. Scholar Jean-Hubert Martin argued this attitude effectively meant that the 'tribal' art objects were "given the status of not much more than footnotes or addenda to the Modernist avant-garde." Rubin's exhibition was divided into four different parts: Concepts, History, Affinities, and Contemporary Explorations. Each section is meant to serve a different purpose in showing the connections between modern art and non-Western 'art.' In 2017, the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in collaboration with the Musée National Picasso – Paris, put on the exhibition ''Picasso Primitif''. Yves Le Fur, the director, stated he wanted this exhibition to invite a dialogue between "the works of Picasso – not only the major works but also the experiments with aesthetic concepts – with those, no less rich, by non-Western artists." ''Picasso Primitif'' meant to offer a comparative view of the artist's works with those of non-Western artists. The resulting confrontation was supposed to reveal the similar issues those artists have had to address such as nudity, sexuality, impulses and loss through parallel plastic solutions. In 2018, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts had an exhibition titled ''From Africa to the Americas: Face-to-Face Picasso, Past and Present''. The MMFA adapted and expanded on ''Picasso Primitif'' by bringing in 300 works and documents from the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac and the Musée National Picasso – Paris. Nathalie Bondil saw the issues with the ways in which Yves Le Fur presented Picasso's work juxtaposed to non-Western art and objects and found a way to respond to it. The headline of this exhibition was, "A major exhibition offering a new perspective and inspiring a rereading of art history." The exhibition looked at the transformation in our view of the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas from the end of the 19th century to the present day. Bondil wanted to explore the question about how ethnographic objects come to be viewed as art. She also asked, "How can a Picasso and an anonymous mask be exhibited in the same plane?"Ian McGillis, "MMFA Show Shines a Light on How Picasso Tapped into Africa to Redefine Art in the 20th Century," Montreal Gazette, May 4, 2018.

Notes

References

*Antliff, Mark and Patricia Leighten, "Primitive" in ''Critical Terms for Art History'', R. Nelson and R. Shiff (Eds.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996 (rev. ed. 2003). * Blunt, Anthony & Pool, Phoebe. ''Picasso, the Formative Years: A Study of His Sources''. Graphic Society, 1962. *Connelly, S. Frances. ''The Sleep of Reason: Primitivism in Modern European Art and Aesthetics, 1725–1907''. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. * * Cooper, Douglas ''The Cubist Epoch'', Phaidon in association with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art & the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, London, 1970, *Diamond, Stanley. ''In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization''. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1974. * Etherington, Ben. ''Literary Primitivism''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018. *Flam, Jack and Miriam Deutch, eds. ''Primitivism and Twentieth-Century Art Documentary History''. University of California Press, 2003. *Goldwater, Robert. ''Primitivism in Modern Art''. Belnap Press. 2002. *Lovejoy, A. O. and George Boas. Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1935 (With supplementary essays by W. F. Albright and P. E. Dumont, Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins U. Press. 1997). *Redfield, Robert. "Art and Icon" in ''Anthropology and Art'', C. Otten (Ed.). New York: Natural History Press, 1971. *Rhodes, Colin. ''Primitivism and Modern Art.'' London: Thames and Hudson, 1994. * *Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. "Going Native: Paul Gauguin and the Invention of Primitivist Modernism" in ''The Expanded Discourse: Feminism and Art History'', N. Broude and M. Garrard (Eds.). New York: Harper Collins, 1986.

External links

*John Zerzan, ''Telos'' 124, ''Why Primitivism?''. New York: Telos Press Ltd., Summer 2002.
Telos Press
.
Articles on Primitivism
Primitivism, or anarcho-primitivism, is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. Primitivists argue that the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation. "
Research Group in Primitive Art and Primitivism (CIAP-UPF)
* Ben Etherington
"The New Primitives"
''Los Angeles Review of Books'', May 24, 2018.