« 2022. # 3 (165)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2022. № 3 (165), 525—535

UDK 7.01:[75.077.038.4:159.955.2]”19/20″

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2022.03.525

«NAIVE ART»: EMERGING OF THE CONCEPT AND DIFFERENT NAMES OF THE PHENOMENA

SELIVATCHOV Mykhailo

  • ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9199-0270
  • Doctor of Art History, Professor,
  • Art Theory and History Department
  • in the National Academy of Fine Art and Architecture,
  • 20, Voznesensky uzviz, 04053, Kyiv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: mik_sel@ukr.net

Abstract. The actuality of the article is due to the modern parallel distribution in the 20th century multilingual professional literature of several dozen related variants of names, which gradually replaced the long-used concept of «primitive art».

The aim of the article is to clarify the origin and systematize new terms relevant to «naive art», to identify among them both synonyms and non-identical definitions related to certain features or aspects of perception of the denoted phenomena and concepts.

The method of work provided for the establishment of chronology, etymology and actual content of such terminological tokens, their conventional classification on the basis of a number of «taxons»:

1) level and method of teaching (amateurish art, autodidactic, unprofessional, primitive, provincial, self-taught and so on);

2) attitude to the dominant direction of culture (art-brut, grassroots, innocent art, instinctive, marginal, primitive, vulgar, wild art, outsiders etc.);

3) attitude to the tastes of a particular society or tradition (source art, folk, peasant, popular, mass, urban, bourgeois, native etc.).

As a result of the study, we concluded that the phrases «naive art» and numerous analogues discussed in the article refer to a wide range of dissimilar phenomena, the main common feature of which is the lack of academic training and the predominance of personal authorship, not burdened by sociocultural tradition. The latter distinguishes «naive art» from «folk». Relevant conceptual nominations do not constitute a hierarchy of types, but only parallel series of synonymous names, which are due to various motives, including commercial and political.

In general, the terminology of art is formed in individual languages, countries and each historical period in a unique way, by chance, becomes the subject of constant debate. Unlike the natural sciences, art definitions do not correspond to real phenomena, but to changing perceptions of them, and terminological tokens are rooted in this field not because of their logic and correctness, but mainly because they are lucky to accurately, wittily and sonorously «lie on the tongue» at the right time.

Keywords: concepts, nominations, notions, terms, polynomic, synonyms.

Received 2.04.2022

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