Like the last lecture we start with an example from the history of music. So, take a moment to watch a bit of The Rite of Spring, in the original costumes and choreography:
Here are the chapters for this lecture:
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Throughout the video and articles I’ve noticed a major theme in the artworks which is nudity. The majority of them depict a woman’s breasts being revealed and everyone could see it, which adds to the primitivist works. One example is Andre Derain, The Dance, where it shows a group of south pacific tribal people dancing nude, while this may be shocking to people during the time, I don’t think it was the intention. It was to show appreciation to different cultures more specified in tribal cultures. Paul Gauguin traveled to the south to learn more about them, their outfits were completely different from his which would show a woman’s breasts, buttocks more than how regular women would wear which they would cover up their body in other continents. It makes you wonder why southern women would wear them. I feel like it shows the beauty of the body, even with the supposed “flaws” that would be shown.
Another artwork to talk about is Édouard’s Manet Olymipa, the artwork would showcase a working class prostitute. What makes this artwork interesting is how the prostitute is staring at the viewer which is giving us, the viewer, the idea that were the client to have sex with her. The majority of the work during those times would depict the woman’s body as an idealized and mythological way. Thus seeing Olymipa in a more modern and bizarre way was something new and supposedly unique, there’s no link to any mythological goddesses that artists would typically draw. Of course, people at the time weren’t happy about it, but why? Was it because there’s no mythology goddess there to bask in their beauty? Or how about it doesn’t have an idealized body that isn’t suggestive? That’s my thoughts when I was watching the video. Why did it become such a big deal that an artist wanted to make something entirely different but still keeping on theme with the nudity? I feel like it’s a major thing during these times as maybe Édouard was tired of mythological women having the idolization and not giving these women a chance to be in the spotlight.
So why the major backlash from this work? I feel like we need to go back to looking at the woman’s face, where she has a more stern look and is facing us, the viewer. Which is a major difference from the other artworks where it would show the goddesses with a more shy look to it, as if they were embarrassed to be nude. Olymipa showcases us that the woman isn’t embarrassed or shy, she looks more like a dedicated person in her work with her body really giving that sassy feel to it. I really enjoyed looking at these works, it really proves how far we can go with nudity that doesn’t necessarily have to always be something with idolization or having to show women being shy or embarrassed.
Hi Ahtziri
Your point that nudity is an important part of this lecture and the artworks. and I think it is interesting that the body is not always shown in the same way. In older art, the nude body was often connected to beauty, mythology, or an ideal form.
In this lecture, I think the word “primitive” is not simple. At first, it may sound like it means old, natural, or simple. But in this class, I think it means more than that. It shows how many modern European artists looked at non-European cultures, children’s art, folk art, and later the art of mentally ill people. They used these things to find a new way to make art. But this idea also has problems because many artists were looking at other cultures through fantasy, not through real understanding.
The 1903 reading helped me understand this problem. Gauguin was very important for modernist primitivism. The reading says that he influenced artists like Derain, Matisse, Picasso, and Kirchner. It also says that primitivism was connected to ideas like returning to nature, escaping modern life, and freeing instinct. But these ideas were often projected onto people from Oceania and Africa. So primitivism was not only about art. It was also connected to European colonialism and European ideas about other cultures.
This made me think about Gauguin in a more critical way. He wanted Tahiti to seem pure and outside modern civilization. But the reading explains that Tahiti was already a French colony, so it was not really an untouched paradise. This is important because it shows that Gauguin’s “primitive” world was partly made from his imagination. He was not only painting what he saw. He was also creating a dream of a place that fit his own ideas.
The 1907 reading about Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon shows another side of primitivism. Picasso used mask-like faces and broke the normal way of showing the human body. The reading says the painting was seen as a major attack on realistic representation. I think this is why the painting feels so strong. The figures do not look soft or natural. They look sharp, flat, and even uncomfortable. This makes the viewer feel that the painting is not trying to copy real life. It is trying to change how we see bodies and space.
The 1922 reading also adds another layer. It says some modernists became interested in children’s art and the art of mentally ill people because they were looking for “primal beginnings in art.” I think this connects to the lecture because modern artists wanted a kind of direct expression. But I also think this is complicated. These artists sometimes used other people’s work or cultures as tools for their own art.
Hi Maosong!
I really liked how you went deep into the word ‘primitive’ and how it has a way more deeper meaning to it, its really intresting how Gauguin used his imagination to help with these ideas come out
Looking back at this lecture, the term “primitive” feels heavy. Not just basic, though it might seem that way at first glance. Instead, it carries weight from how European artists saw things beyond their world. Think ancient traditions, drawings by kids, handmade crafts from villages. Even work made inside psychiatric hospitals came into view, much later. The idea shaped a lot of what got called art. Art took a different turn when people started using these tools. Yet trouble came too, since lots of creators saw
distant traditions through imagination instead of truth.
One way to say it – after Gauguin passed in the Marquesas Islands during 1903 – he’d spent time making images that weren’t fully Tahitian, yet not entirely French either. Take Women on the Seashore from 1901, or The Call done a year later: flat shades for skin, bulky forms, odd angles on purpose. These aren’t snapshots of place, they’re pulled apart inside. A face shown sideways also stares forward like old Egyptian carvings; space bends into bright zones; shade doesn’t fall where light would make it. Not real life, more like stitching together pieces – Gauguin holds onto a movement, a story whispered once, some unease deep down, then shapes paint around that, never fixing limbs to match medical charts. Later, when Derain looked, then Matisse, Picasso, Kirchner – their eyes caught what came through shows in Paris, in Dresden after death – they each felt it: strength grows where rules break. Out past the palm trees, Gauguin wasn’t capturing islands. He painted hunger – what he missed, what he craved – and that ache shaped colors before they had names. Not sunshine, but absence bled into bold strokes. Later painters found tools there, not travelogues.
Famous it may be, yet those Iberian and African masks aren’t the whole story – your note points elsewhere. Not quite classical, though not entirely broken free, the trio on the left wear rounded faces shaped by old stone traditions. Across from them, the pair to the right stare out with mismatched eyes, wedge-shaped noses, their heads turned in ways bodies cannot move. Floating oddly up front, fruit rests in quiet planes that feel borrowed from Cézanne, too calm for what lies behind. Behind them, space collapses without warning or reason. Unity? Nowhere in sight. Attack comes through buildup. Not just one way to show things – Picasso pushes that idea hard. Most art picks a single angle, a fixed light, a set body shape. Here? Three or four at once, crashing into each other. This isn’t about honoring old styles. It feels more like cutting the legs off tradition. Out of nowhere, African and Iberian shapes crash into a scene set in a brothel, turning something usual – naked women – into something strange, almost hostile. This jolt explains the painting’s power: it showed how disorder might actually hold things together.
Prinzhorn put out Artistry of the Mentally Ill in 1922, showing drawings, embroidered pieces, and carvings made by people diagnosed with schizophrenia, psychotic depression, among others. Though illness shaped their lives, what caught Klee’s and Ernst’s attention was how form broke loose from rules. One drawing might swarm with lines like handwriting gone wild; another stitches together odd signs beside broken images of things seen; space gets squashed into visions that float without normal depth. Look at Klee’s Twittering Machine, done the same year, then jump to Ernst’s A Week of Kindness from 1934 – its roots dig deep into those earlier years. There, meaning stays slippery – the work won’t say if it’s naive, mad, or built with cold precision. Walking a line, Klee borrowed freely from raw marks untouched by training – marks like those gathered by Prinzhorn. Instead of planning, Ernst leaned on accident; his rubbings and cut-ups land somewhere between ancient ritual and icy dream. Here lies the turn: neither copied madhouse drawings nor mimicked their look – they dissected how such work arose, then repeated its moves with sharp intent. Their art pretends to fall apart, yet every stumble is placed just so. This is what sticks – the moment Prinzhorn opened a door for modern art to seem broken, wild, childish – even damaged – while staying tightly ruled behind the scenes.
To me, the word “primal” signifies origins—a concept embodying freedom and unbridled expression. It symbolizes a connection to the source and to nature. In this context, “primal” serves primarily as a means to escape or challenge conventional ideas; its appearance in art is not intended to authentically represent primal cultures, but rather to appropriate elements from other cultural systems to realize the artist’s own vision. Picasso’s *Les Demoiselles d’Avignon* employs this “primal” concept to depict five nude women; he drew upon elements of African culture—viewed at the time as being more closely linked to primal roots—to convey the tension inherent in the “gaze” and its counter-perspective. By incorporating African culture, Picasso not only broke away from the stylistic conventions of Western academic art—using sharper, more angular lines to shape the composition—but also conveyed the perspective of the subject being gazed upon. More importantly, he utilized primal culture to disrupt the standard viewing experience, allowing the audience to derive a radically different emotional resonance from the work. The very concept of the “primal” emerged to shatter artistic conventions and explore unconstrained artistic styles.
Yet, why was African culture chosen to embody this concept? This inevitably evokes associations with colonialism; indeed, Primitivism is inextricably linked to the colonial era. With the arrival of colonizers, African culture was frequently disparaged and deemed inferior to Western art. Colonizers associated African culture with crudeness, sexuality, and nudity, perceiving it as lacking the “intellect” and refinement characteristic of European artistic traditions. This is precisely why, at the time, the mention of Primitivism was immediately linked to African culture. While I acknowledge that the historical association between the “primal” and African culture was shaped by colonial discourse, I believe there exists a profound, intrinsic connection between African culture, nature, and humanity—a connection that far transcends such colonial constructs. Rooted in nature and daily life, African culture emphasizes a deep respect for the relationship between humanity and the natural world—a stark contrast to the superficial “primal culture” cobbled together from appropriated concepts. I can appreciate Primitivism as an art form that seeks a return to nature and the liberation of the self. However, can an artistic concept truly foster profound reflection and experience if it borrows from a foreign culture without fully understanding it? Indigenous cultures should not be reduced merely to tools for transcending or redefining the art of others; rather, art ought to promote mutual understanding, cultural respect, and deep reflection. Nevertheless, the concept of primitivism prompted Western traditional art to reconsider its premises, breaking with established artistic conventions and paving the way for the emergence of modernism.
After watching the video *Primitivism* and reading the relevant chapter, I have gained some insight into Primitivism; it represents both the inception of artistic innovation and a form of “cultural appropriation.” The video points out that Primitivism was less about understanding non-Western cultures and more about projecting Western fantasies onto them. Faced with unfamiliar civilizations and cultures, and a concept of the “primitive” that was largely unknown to them, Western modern society constructed a fantasy of the “primitive”—imagining Africans, Tahitians, and women as beings closer to nature, instinct, and authentic vitality—and used this imagined artistic creation to rebel against the order of modern civilization.
What both intrigues and repels me is how the “primitive” body became an arena for artistic rivalry. In the pursuit of the “primitive nature” envisioned by artists, the female form became inextricably linked with nudity; artists depicted women in various ways, driving artistic reform based on their own misconceptions. As explored in the chapter on 1903, artists such as Gauguin looked beyond Europe in search of artistic renewal, transforming Tahitian women into symbols of purity, sensuality, and authenticity. Similarly, Matisse and Picasso drew upon African and non-Western art to reimagine the female body, thereby challenging established artistic conventions. Yet, while striving to break free from the constraints of the Academic tradition, they often transformed women and colonized peoples into symbols of “the Other”—rather than presenting them as authentic individuals. The underlying colonialism, racism, gender oppression, and cultural appropriation were viewed by these artists merely as tools for innovation and reform. Such imposed romanticization obscured existing social issues, turning them into objects of aesthetic appreciation. Consequently, innovation in modern art has often been accompanied by significant social implications and historical costs.
The fantasy of “the Other” inherent in Primitivism shaped Modernism. Modernism cannot be understood solely as a history of formal innovation; it also entails the exploitation of the sources of inspiration lying behind the art. Modern art treated groups viewed by Western society as “the Other” as vessels of inspiration, mining them for new visual resources. While artists such as Gauguin and Picasso transformed Western art in revolutionary ways, their innovations often depended on appropriating and reimagining cultures they did not fully understand. So therefor raises some crucial questions: Can we appreciate the artistic achievements of Modernism while simultaneously confronting the unequal power dynamics that enabled them? Can artistic innovation stemming from cultural misunderstanding still be regarded as progress?
Primitivism…where do I start? To be honest, I was struggling to understand the movement, or I found categorizing it a nuisance. It overlapped with various movements or styles, such as Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.” I understand paintings and work can fall under various categories, but I was always taught about the Cubism aspect of Picasso’s work, so primitivism was foreign to me.
However, after looking at everything, I think I get it. But I’m not quite sure those artists at the time really got it. In a vacuum, their intentions were genuine, but I don’t think they understood the damage they were doing at the time. From my perspective, they weren’t really trying to understand “the Other” walks of life. It was more or less an excuse to live out their fantasies under the veil of being an avant-garde and to project their ideologies onto other people and cultures. I mean, given their history of colonialism, I think it was “second nature”…maybe. The example that I’m really fixated on is Paul Gauguin. I was kinda cringing as I got more information on him.
But his work, “The Spirit of the Dead Watching,” is an example of taking primitivism too far. While his art found the change and inspiration, he lost me morally with the way he went about escaping modernity. I could separate the art from the artist. But as an artist, I know they work in unison.
I’ll pay devil’s advocate and admit Edouard Monet’s “Olympia” piece was in good taste for the most part, as far as the depiction of Laure. But a lot of the other primitivist work makes those specific groups look too… well, primitive. And I think they had a lasting effect, even until today, where people look at these “others” as too primitive and foreign to them that they place damaging labels on that “other” group. For example, a lot of people think Africa is just full of huts, savage people, and barren lands. It’s not entirely the art movement’s fault, but it plays into, like, a global propaganda campaign about unique groups of people.
On a vague note to end, it really is about the perspective of whoever is making the primitivism-related work.
Compelling comment, Marc, well thought through…
When looking at the lecture “Primitive”, it feels deep because of how westerners are being innovative by combining various aspects of either race, gender, sexuality, and well, different species. Combining and being innovative by taking culture from non-westerners and changing it to how they see it, hence creating their fantasy.
As for the text, 1903, it goes to when the European modernists were talking about looking ‘outside’ the western traditions and how they were strategically executing within art for the Westerns:
“But even as a fantasy-construction, primitivism had real effects: it was not only part of the global project of European imperialism, but also part of the local maneuverings of the avant-garde.garde. Like prior returns inside Western art, these primitivist sojourns outside Western art were strategic: they appeared to offer a way not only to exceed old academic conventions of art but also to trump recent avant-garde” 1903, pg 76
Gauguin Matisse and Picasso weren’t trying to be a part of the non-western cultures but they instead used primitive methods to break academic restrictions and pretty much bypass stuff like impressionism and/or realism as well as using it as a challenge against their forefathers. It goes to show that it doesn’t deny innovative approaches from Picasso or Matisee but how we look at it, it confronts how in early modernism was dependent on machines and how using things like artifacts and the bodies of other people as a way to revive the Western culture. An example of usage of bodies can be seen with The Spirit of the Dead Watching.
“Gauguin copied Olympia on canvas as well as in a photograph, which he took to Tahiti as a kind of talisman, and he painted his adolescent Tahitian wife Teha’amana in a scene that cites Manet’s painting. But The Spirit of the Dead Watching recalls Olympia mostly in order to trump it.”
Thanks, Jose. Your comment feels a bit disjointed. It’s also quite general in tone and seems to fall into the trap of summarizing. Try to think through a specific idea from my lecture and the readings (if still unclear on how to approach these comment sections, do revisit the assignment guidelines, they give lots of tips and advice)
When reading the assigned chapters and watching the lecture, I began to gain a deeper understanding of primitivism. Primitivism is a reflection of the relationship between cultures, artists idealizing non-western society, both drawn to and repelled by what they view as unconventional. Instead of gaining a deeper understanding of the culture they are taking from, they created their own ideas to challenge the traditions of European culture. This was not created with the intention of authentically representing the cultures portrayed, rather to fantasize and appropriate African American culture, through the artist closed view of the culture. Ill-conceived notions not only affect the artwork being created, but how the artwork is viewed within time
Paul Gauguin had interested me in this matter. He had traveled to Tahiti in search of a life he believed was more natural and in touch with nature than the modernized life of Europe. He was not interested in accurately documenting Tahitian life, rather than portraying a version that upheld his own beliefs and personal desires. The text for assigned reading expresses this as artist wished to “challenge European conventions that they felt to be repressive, and all imagined the primitive as an exotic world where style and self might be refashioned dramatically.” (1903, page 76). In a search for an authentic natural world, for unconventional art to push against established European ideals, artists like Gauguin would often represent and imprint their own views onto others.
The artwork Olympia by Edouard Manet expresses the idea of pushing back against this form of idealization in the form of a woman’s body. Olympia, presented as a modern figure not surrounded by mythology was new, she presents herself as confident, not shying away from her own nudity. Her body is showcased in a realistic view without her expressly hiding. Nudity can be a beautiful expression of oneself, a form of confidence and a true form, it does not need to be something embarrassing. Because of this representation of nudity, this piece was scrutinized, backlash rooted in this idea that a woman must be soft, submissive, rather than fully herself.
Thanks, Easton. While well-written and clear, this comment does fall into the trap of summarizing and being too general. Instead, try to think through a specific idea from my lecture and the readings (if still unclear on how to approach these comment sections, do revisit the assignment guidelines, they give lots of tips and advice)
My initial interpretation of what Primitivism is was using aesthetics and pieces of old history to convey a specific feeling of old earth. Through watching the lecture and doing the readings I came to a different understanding of what it is. Primitivism is a practice in which the artist uses aesthetics, cultural imagery and themes. This specific way would be the stereotypes engraved in society at the time of the artist. Whether it be gender, sexuality or race all these different identities are up for interpretation through the lens of said artist. Specifically in the context of race, the presentation of those of the African diaspora haven’t had the best track record. Throughout time there has been a constant persisting idea to compare black individuals to animals, specifically apes and monkeys. This prejudice invaded a lot of art that would depict black people. Artists would darken their skin to extremes, and warp parts of their bodies to the point of dehumanization. Thankfully though Manet’s depiction does show black people especially black women in a more accurate light. It’s interesting looking at different artworks and seeing the depiction of specific ideals for the time. The talk about nudity and if it’s appropriate or not in some pieces comes to mind. Nudity stands as a symbolism for many things. Most of the time it usually means to depict a specific character or person as purity, innocence, truth or freedom. The talk about its appropriateness inherently turns into a piece of art that would try to push the message of freedom or purity to something about sexuality. That the body is a tool for sexuality and not something that can be the vehicle to provide a message.
Nowadays we understand that schizophrenia is a mental disease. Something that makes you see and hear things that aren’t there. It is interesting to say at least that through the lens of an artist the different perspective of the world is a cool thought We all wouldn’t necessarily see something the same,with or without schizophrenia, but the thought about the mind presentation of events under its influence is interesting., Art is about freedom and expression, so the ultimate form of expression would be the perspective of a specific event through a different lens.Does 3-D objects become flat? Does the orientation change? Do inanimate objects start moving? I could make a lot of assumptions on their view but I think putting pen to paper or pen to tablet for some would allow us to see properly how they perceive the world.
Overall, I found both the lecture and all of the readings to be very interesting. I also found some of the major themes of the readings to be intriguing as well.
In the first reading from 1903, I found it interesting how primitivism in art wasn’t mainly created with respect or admiration in mind for the culture but rather was often offensive to the culture represented. The cultures represented were often based on fantasies and projection from the artists, often shown as places of purity and freedom which were heavily tied to racism at the time. Gauguin’s art for example was often more of a hybrid instead of pure, with his art often combining different cultures and mixing visual languages, which would later on influence primitivism in modernist art as they would take heavy influence from his mixing and borrowing of cultures.
In the reading from 1907, something I found to be interesting was how the interpretation of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon shifted over time. Early on, critics tended to treat the painting as if it was a rough draft of what cubism would eventually be and treated it as a stepping stone to the start of it based on the outer culture influences and the stylistic inconsistencies. I found it interesting how the texts argue that the flaws were intended by Picasso to challenge normal traditions.
Good, Michael, but can you work on being more specific, and bringing out more details from one or more specific art works (details that may not be obvious upon first glance)? Try also to involve something from my lecture
Looking at the works that define the primitive there was hints of this development even in the previous lecture of shock such as Matisse’s The joy of life. An interesting aspect of this theme of primitive is the motif of nature. within the various works that is shown not only do we have the same interest of erotic depiction of the human body often contain some floral designs. some examples are the floral design on the black bed of Gauguin’s painting the Spirit of the Dead Watching, and the grapes and fruit in the foreground of Pablo Picasso’s les Demoiselles. While seeing these artist include this floral motifs there is this question of whether of nature or aspects of nature is a crucial part of the primitive. while these floral motifs works in the way of how primitive artworks wishes to return to a more pure natural aspect of subject matter. it doesn’t quite push the moral convention or the western traditions as floral patterns isn’t something inherently controversial and in fact has been a subject matter used for centuries prior dating back even into roman art. This puts to question within the various aspects that define primitive art in what order are they hierarchal ordered. We see this is not same for all artist as well such as the case with Picasso’s les Demoiselles and Matisse’s The Blue Nude. They both speak to the female sexualization but Picasso comes from this personal perspective while Matisse’s is historical.
This also brings the other concern i have with the movement in general and that is the attitude in how the women are portrayed is used within the artist’s artworks. The artwork themselves while not necessarily ignoring the colonialization of African history out right they still go out of their way to depict Women of color as sexualized symbol for the sake of shock. The artworks neither condone nor condemn the history behind such treatment of women but rather feels like just as a tool to push their own concept of the art piece. This in a way i would argue kind of propagate the same kind of view of women in society. that of course brings up another can of worm in the form of whether artist’s work has a certain obligation to promote moral virtues. of course this moral virtue is often determined by the concurrent societal standards and that would just go against the philosophy of the art produced at this time.
I agree with your negative assessment of these primitivist visions of women, Jonathan, you’ve really understood this angle from my lecture and the reading
The first thing that comes to mind when I think of the word Primitive are my stop motion films. It’s a term that I use quite frequently to describe them. For me, having primitive qualities involve having a childlike, youthful sort of trait. I think of simplicity, rawness and the way cavemen drew on a wall in the Neolithic period. Now, upon viewing our lecture on Primitivism, I feel slightly deceived. Some of the words that came up in our lecture describe Primitivism as animalistic, feminine, the use of bodies and instinctual. I cannot help, but somewhat make a negative connotation to it. For me, looking at some of the examples of the work shown focuses on the exaggeration of the female body, cultural appropriation and in a way dehumanize people. If we look at most of the figures shown, such as the prostitutes in Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” we see overly sexualized women staring at us (the viewer), in a super sexualized way. The painting almost gives me an uneasy feeling of being drawn in a provocative way saying, “I’m available”. It makes me wonder what Picasso was thinking when he painted this knowing that he didn’t have a good reputation when it came to women. The African masks are also an example of cultural appropriation, which is said in the past that Picasso has been known to steal ideas from other artists. Another example of why I felt that Primitivism was used in a negative way in our lecture was in relation to the Greeks. The Greeks made drawings of the Persians as animals, to almost dehumanize them. Referring to people as animals gives them a savage like presence. It says they’re not equal or civilized. Another painting that stood out to me was “The Spirit of the Dead Watching” by Paul Guaguin. It has an underage like girl who also seems to be planted on a bed in a somewhat submissive state. It seems to share the same provocative feeling that Picasso’s painting has. It’s almost like both artists are fantasizing and fetishizing these women. In this particular case, it’s someone of a different culture. It’s an outsider seeking in and observing someone like an object. Overall, I’d say that I have a different perspective on how I view the word Primitive, but I also have to keep in mind that context matters. I believe that it can mean and describe a lot of different things depending on tone and historical elements. If anything, it makes me look at some of these paintings as perversive.
Great comment, Biarly, I like the before and after approach