Primitivism is an aesthetic idealization that emulates or recreates primitive experiences. In the 19th century, the influx of tribal arts from Africa, Oceania, and Native Americans offered new visual vocabularies for artists to explore. Primitivism includes art from these regions as well as other prehistoric rock art and tribal art from Asia and the Americas. It emphasizes simplicity of subject and technique. Various artists and creative works explored primitivism through different mediums like literature, theater, music, film, and visual arts.

2. PRIMITIVISM
•IT IS A MODE OF AESTHETIC IDEALIZATION THAT EITHER EMULATES OR
ASPIRES TO RECREATE "PRIMITIVE" EXPERIENCE.
•19TH CENTURY, THE INFLUX OF TRIBAL ARTS OF AFRICA, OCEANIA, AND
NATIVE AMERICANS INTO EUROPE OFFERED ARTISTS A NEW VISUAL
VOCABULARY TO EXPLORE.

3. •IT INCLUDES AFRICAN ART, OCEANIC ART, ABORIGINAL ART, OTHER
TYPES OF ROCK ART FROM PREHISTORY AND TRIBAL ART FROM
THE AMERICAS AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA.
•SIMPLICITY OF SUBJECT AND TECHNIQUE
•FEATURES:
- TECHNIQUE
- VISION

4. TRISTAN TARZA
Tzara’s reaches the conclusion that the necessary
ingredients for a new kind of art are outside Europe:
“concentration, the lines from the base to the apex of a
pyramid forming a cross’. Peremptorily, his recipe
includes “symmetrical” natural elements from the cosmic,
mineral, and animal realms ‘the moon, plants, darkness,
metal, star, fish’ – all of which primitive art explored.
His opening towards Otherness was more than a means
of self-fashioning in relation to his fellow artists and
writers; he gradually reclaimed “primitive” art as the
exemplar against Western civilization.

5. STANISLAW
PRZYBYSZEWSKI
GARY
SNYDER

6. LITERATURE
THIS MARKED A TWENTIETH-CENTURY
MOVEMENT AWAY FROM SIMPLE
EVOLUTIONARY BINARY DIVISIONS
BETWEEN NOTIONS
OF “PRIMITIVE” AND “CIVILIZED” FORMS OF
RELIGIOUS PRACTICES TO MORE
CULTURALLY RELATIVIST APPROACHES.

7. THEATER
• THE SCENARIO DEPICTS
VARIOUS PRIMITIVE RITUALS
CELEBRATING THE ADVENT OF
SPRING, AFTER WHICH A
YOUNG GIRL IS CHOSEN AS A
SACRIFICIAL VICTIM AND
DANCES HERSELF TO DEATH.
THE RITE OF SPRING
BY IGOR STRAVINSKY

8. M
U
S
I
C
The six
works
combine
difficult
and
dissonant
music
with
mysterious
sound.

9. FILM
Denying the Arabs, a positive voice in
the movie’s story, Cameron went along
with the monochromatic paradigm of
the contemporary action-hero genre:
this movie were not only anti-
intellectual, but they harbored their own
primitive form of racial animus.

10. SPIRIT OF THE DEAD
WATCHING
BY PAUL GAUGUIN
• GAUGUIN'S VIEW OF TAHITI AS AN
EARTHLY ARCADIA OF FREE LOVE,
GENTLE CLIMATE, AND NAKED
NYMPHS IS QUITE SIMILAR, IF NOT
IDENTICAL, TO THAT OF THE
CLASSICAL PASTORAL OF
ACADEMIC ART, WHICH HAS
SHAPED WESTERN PERCEPTIONS
OF RURAL LIFE FOR MILLENNIA.
VISUAL ARTS