The Origins of Primitivism in Western Art of The Modern Age
Primitivism gained a new impetus from anxieties about technological innovation but above all from the “Age of Discovery”, which introduced the West to previously unknown peoples and simultaneously opened doors for colonialism and the direct scrutiny of radically different peoples. As the European Enlightenment and the collapse of feudalism ensued, philosophers started questioning many fixed medieval assumptions about the nature of man, the position of man in society, and the dogmatic Catholic cosmology. They began questioning the nature of humanity and its origins through a discussion of the natural man, which had intrigued theologians since the European encounter with the New World.
From the 18th century onwards, Western thinkers and artists continued to engage in the retrospective tradition, that is "the conscious search in history for a more deeply expressive, permanent human nature and cultural structure in contrast to the nascent modern realities". Their search led them to parts of the world that they constituted as representing alternatives to modern civilization.
Up until the 19th century only very few explorers were able to travel and bring back objects. But the 19th-century invention of the steamboat made indigenous cultures of European colonies and their artifacts more accessible to the direct observation and analysis of art lovers. European-trained artists and connoisseurs prized in these objects the stylistic traits they defined as attributes of primitive expression: absence of linear perspective, simple outlines, presence of symbolic signs such as the hieroglyph, emotive distortions of the figure, and the energetic rhythms resulting from the use of repetitive ornamental pattern. These energizing stylistic attributes, present in the visual arts of Africa, Oceana, and the Indians of the Americas, could also be found in the archaic and peasant art of Europe and Asia, as well.
Read more about this topic: Primitivism
Famous quotes containing the words origins, western, art, modern and/or age:
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)
“Signal smokes, war drums, feathered bonnets against the western sky. New messiahs, young leaders are ready to hurl the finest light cavalry in the world against Fort Stark. In the Kiowa village, the beat of drums echoes in the pulsebeat of the young braves. Fighters under a common banner, old quarrels forgotten, Comanche rides with Arapaho, Apache with Cheyenne. All chant of war. War to drive the white man forever from the red man’s hunting ground.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“... for the modern soul, for which it is mere child’s play to bridge oceans and continents, there is nothing so impossible as to find the contact with the souls dwelling just around the corner.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)
“Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)