HOW PRIMITIVE ART INFLUENCED MODERNISM AND HOW IT CONTINUES

TO AFFECT CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS

TODAY.

Primitive Influences

European artists from the late 19th century were influenced by non-western cultures and the diversity displayed in primitive objects.

Paintings Sculptures

Pablo PicassoPaul KleePaul Gauguin

Constantin Brancussi

Barbara HepworthAlberto Giacometti

Modern Art made by artists in the early 20th century reflected a primitive aesthetic from the early 1900’s to the late 1930’s.

Cycles and Circles

Elements from Earth

Eva HesseAdolph GottliebJasper JohnsAfrican Images

Robert SmithsonChristo/Jean ClaudeBeverly Pepper

Contemporary artists in the second half of the 20th century were influenced by the primitive impulse and creating their own myth .

Biography Biography

Evan HollowayGray Matter

Loafers EliassonReverse Waterfall

In the 21st century there are artists who still emphasize nature and are inspired by earlier

examples of primitive works of art.

Individual ~Physical Art Group ~Conceptual Art

Each student will bring to school in a paper bag or shoe box an item taken from nature that is no longer living that they would like to paint.

A group of 4-5 students will conceptually design a work of art in a natural environment and draw their plan on a 2-dimensional surface.

Individual and Group Art Production Activities

Picasso was influenced by African masks.

Klee was inspired by African symbols and stamps.

Constantin Brancussi made modern sculptures that resembled African

masks.

Hepworth’s sculptures looked like ancient monoliths from Mexico.

Gauguin’s colorful paintings reflected the colorful elements of African headdresses and

costumes.

Giacometti’s sculptural figures reflected Dogon characteristics.

Circles and Cycles Seen in African Art

Carved Wooden Crest Mask

Copper and Metal Water Jug

Symbolism Constructed on Land

Spiral Jetty-1970 160’ x 1600’

The Great Arch Kabah 50’x mi

On the other side of the road a path leads 200 meters to the impressive Arch of Kabah.The six-meter (19.7-foot) high arch dates to A.D. 670–770 and marked one end of a grand sacbé, or raised stone-paved road, that extended 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from Kabah to Uxmal, and is still traceable today. The first 15 kilometers (9.3 miles), from Kabah to the settlement of Nohpat, the road runs perfectly straight, before veering slightly to reach Uxmal.North of the path leading to the arch is the Great Pyramid, the largest structure in Kabah. Yet to be excavated and off-limits to climbing, it remains for now an impressively huge mound covered in grass and trees.

Robert Smithson's monumental earthwork Spiral Jetty (1970) is located on the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Using black basalt rocks and earth from the site, the artist created a coil 1,500 feet long and 15 feet wide that stretches out counter-clockwise into the translucent red water. Spiral Jetty was acquired by Dia Art Foundation as a gift from the Estate of the artist in 1999.

Patterns and Schemas

The Mesoamerican city of La Venta, Mexico dates back to 400 to 500 ad. Unearthed at La Venta in the palatial area were 3 rectangular mosaics (also known as "Pavements") each roughly 15 ft × 20 ft and each consisting of up to 485 blocks of serpentine. These blocks were arranged horizontally to form what has been variously interpreted as an ornate Olmec bar-and-four-dots motif, the Olmec Dragon is a very abstract jaguar maska or a symbolic map of La Venta. Not intended for display, soon after completion these pavements were covered over with colored clay and then many feet of earth.

Symbols and Stamps

Personal Myth and Ancestry Objects

Earthworks and Land Art

Earthworks and Land Art

The Maya is a Mesomamerican culture noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Preclassic period (c. 2000 BC to 250 AD), many Maya cities reached their highest state development during the Classic period (c. 250 AD to 900 AD), and continued throughout the Postclassic period until the arrival of Spanish. At its peak, it was one of the most densely populated and culturally dynamic societies in the world.

Earthworks

The first exhibition in New York City entitled “Earthworks” began a new art movement known as Land or Earth art. While the exhibition included 9 works that were non-site installations, “Earthworks” expanded outside the gallery space and artists began constructing and working on site in situ by incorporating elements like earth, fire, water, air, viscosity, density, and opacity into their process oriented structures.

Evan Holloway

In Evan Holloway’s Color Stick Theory 2000 he focuses on combining the artificial system of a color spectrum with a natural 3-dimensional object. He tries to bond the synthetic with the organic and adds another significant alteration to our perceptual world. His natural sculptures are interactive and inviting due wacky and playful context and scale.

Circles and Cycles

Most African arts are made up of repeated patterns and symbols. Circles and cycles represent the way people live in an African ceremonial life. These peoples focus on the cyclical agricultural year, a human life from birth to death and reincarnation. Art contains many ideas about planting and harvests, transitions to adulthood, and ancestry burials. The Dogon peoples have a huge masquerade every sixty years to acknowledge the change from one generation to another.

Reverse Waterfall

Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson’s materials are elemental and ephemeral: light, heat, moisture, steam, and ice are manipulated by the artist. His work navigates a space between nature and technology, the organic and the industrial. Steam as a natural phenomenon in his ancestral homeland of Iceland, but in his work it is piped from the museum’s heating system to imitate a natural geyser. Elaisson’s work includes steel scaffolding, industrially produced steam, and water to create an experience that is at once physical, sensory, and emotional.

Evan Holloway