« 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

REFERENCES

  • Selivatchov, M. (Ed.). (1996). Ukrainian folk art in the concepts of international terminology (primitive, folklore, amateurism, naive, kitsch…): Collective research on the materials of the Second Honchar readings. Kyiv: Ivan Honchar Museum; Rodovid [in Ukrainian].
  • Bakhtin, M. (2010). Collect. op.: in 7 vol. (Vol. 4 (2). Creativity of Francois Rabelais and folk culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Rabelais and Gogol (The art of words and folk culture of laughter). Moscow: Languages of Slavic Culture [in Russian].
  • Otkovych, V. (1990). Folk current in Ukrainian painting of XVII—XVIII centuries. Kyiv: Naukova dumka [in Ukrainian].
  • Popova, L. (1885). Folk icon painting of Ukraine of the 19th century. Author’s Cand. art history dissertation abstract. Leningrad [in Russian].
  • Tananaeva, L., & Prokofiev, V.N. (Ed.). (1983). On grassroots forms in the art of Eastern Europe in the Baroque era of the XVII—XVIII centuries. Primitive and its place in the artistic culture of modern and contemporary times. Moscow: Nauka [in Russian].
  • Tin, M.B. (2007). The first forms. The abstract design language of folk art. Oslo: Novus publishing house; Department of Comparative Cultural Research [in Norwegian and English].
  • Bessonova, M., & Prokofiev, V.N. (Ed.). (1983). Henri Rousseau and French naives. Primitive and its place in the artistic culture of the new and modern times (P. 133—159). Moscow [in Russian].
  • Jakovsky, Anatole. (1973). The Proverbs seen by the Naive Painters. Published by Editions Max Fourny, Paris [in French].
  • Bihali-Merin, O. (Ed.). (1959). Art of the Yugoslavian primitivists. Belgrade: Yugoslavia [in Russian].
  • Bihalji-Merin, O. (1984). World Encyclopedia of Naive Art: A Hundred Years of Naive Art. University of California.
  • Huyghe, R. (Ed.). (1965). Larousse Encyclopedia of Modern Art. New York: Prometheus press.
  • Museum of Naive and Marginal Art (Yagodina). Serbia and Montenegro / Central Serbia / Jagodina / Yagodina / Boska Duricica, for free access: Retrieved from: https://wikimapia.org/15709011/ru/%D0%9C%D1%83%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%B9-%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B8% D0% B2% D0% BD% D0% BE% D0% B3% D0% BE-% D0% B8-% D0% BC% D0% B0% D1% 80% D0% B3% D0% B8% D0% BD% D0% B0% D0% BB% D1% 8C% D0% BD% D0% BE% D0% B3% D0% BE-% D0% B8% D1% 81% D0% BA% D1% 83% D1% 81% D1 % 81% D1% 82% D0% B2% D0% B0 (as of 10/25/2020) [in Russian].
  • (1994). The International Exhibition of Naive Art INSITA’94. Bratislava: Slovac National Gallery [in Slovak, German and English].
  • Polsky, A. Housing and communal art. Institute for Street Art Research; available at: Retrieved from: http://streetartinitute.com/communal-art (last assess 10/25/2020) [in Russian].
  • Polsky, A. (2017). Informal ethics of street art. Art magazine, 102, 144—153 [in Russian].
  • Bohemskaya, K. (2001). Understand the primitive. Amateur, naive and outsider art in the 20th century. St. Petersburg: Aleteya [in Russian].
  • Bohemskaya, K. (Ed.) (1992). Primitive in art: the edges of the problem. Moscow: RII [in Russian].
  • Marra, A. (2004). Outsider Art: The Art of the Insane. In David, J. Bromley VCU Honor Program. Modern Influences in Contemporary Art. 2004 season.
  • Carrier, D., & Pissarro, J. (2013). Wild Art. New York; London: Faeidon.
  • Kuspit, D. (1991). The appropriation of Marginal Art in the 1989s. American Art, 1/2 (Winter-Spring) (Vol. 5, pp. 132—141).
  • Walker, J.A. (1992). Naive Art (also Innocent Art, Peintres Naifs, Primitive Art). Walker’s Glossary of Art, Architecture and Design since 1945.
  • Reitman, F. (1950). Psychotic Art. Psychology Press.
  • MacGregor, J.M. (1989). The Discovery of Art of the Insane. Princeton University Press.
  • Vlasov, V. (2004—2009). Articles about inzit, naive art, primitives etcetera in his ten-volume «New Encyclopedic Dictionary of Fine Arts». St. Petersburg: Classics [in Russian].
  • Lebedeva, A. (2018). Artistic construction, technical aesthetics, design: the terms are not disputed — they are agreed. Art of Ukraine of the first half of the XX century in the global context: coll. abstracts of reports of international scientific conf., Kyiv, April 11, 2018. Kyiv: NAMU [in Ukrainian].
  • Lozhkina, Alisa. (Ed.). (2020). Space inside. Naive and art of outsiders in Ukraine and the world: definitions, historical context, research cases. Proceedings of the online conference within the Festival of Naive Art. Kyiv: Artbook Publishing House [in Ukrainian].

Read»

Our authors
Daily bread baking of ukrainians in the south-western ethnographical region at the late XIX to early XXI cc.
The paper has dealt with analytic study in prescriptions, signs, customs, methods, ways of selection, procurement and some peculiarities in usage of subsidiary means — water, firewood and leaves in bread baking. The final aim of the mentioned actions had been (and still is) selection of the means and ingredients fit, by their characteristics, for the backing of bread. The paper has demonstrated dependence of bread backing subsi­diary means criteria from the folk nutritional standards and world outlook stereotypes as well as from regional social and economic, natural and geographical factors and peculiarities of material culture.
Read »

Wax candle as ukrainian Christmas and epiphany ritualistic text
For the first time in native ethnology the article has brought some results of special study in sign functionality of a wax candle under the context of Ukrainian Christmas and Epiphany ritualistic text (ritualism of Christmas Eve, New Year, Epiphany Eve and Feast of Epiphany). The study has stated extremely high semiotic position of a wax candle as projection of Sun, mediator between the spheres of sacral and prophane elements, symbolic analogue of human existence, apotropy, cultural symbol re-establishing borders of acculturated space.
Read »

Traditional folk clothes of velikobychkovsky hutsuly of XIX — the first half of XX century
In the study based upon numerous field materials, literature sources as well as ethnographic, historio-cultural and regional museum collections has been performed complex analysis in traditional folk clothes by Hutzul population of Velyky Bychkiv village in Transcarpathian region. Detailed descriptions of femi­nine and masculine clothing complexes of the mentioned area have been presented. In characterizing of those main attention has been paid to the detail of cut in separate components of dress; cut of feminine shirt has been added as an illustration.
Read »

On bessarabian and moldavian ukrainians in the studies of historical ethnography
The article has thrown some light upon a sum of scientific findings got during XIX to XXI cc. in historio-ethnographic studies of Bessarabia and Moldavian Ukrainians. In the pre­sent paper has been given author’s answer to the problem of lacking progress as for the numerous themes concerning Ukrainians. State and achievements of the research-works in Ukrainians’ material and spiritual culture by the scientists of Moldavia and Ukraine through the years of independence has been exposed.
Read »