A-Humanism, Primitivism, and the Art of the Future

Abstract

In The words of Sidney Janis, artists today are engaged “in the process of creating the visual counterpart of the anatomy and structure and inner spirit of the time in which they live … the new realities of the twentieth century.”1 That is a commonplace; a conscious or unconscious assumption that certain things are Real, and certain others are not, provides a framework of reference within which all thought processes are carried out—and one of these thought processes is the creation of Art. Hardly a new idea, then; but to judge from the characteristic productions of our time, the new realities of twentieth-century art involve some propositions vastly different from the older traditions of the West. “In the early days of cubism, Picasso and I were engaged in what we felt was a search for the anonymous personality. We were inclined to efface our own personalities in order to find originality.”2 And of this Picasso, an early and perceptive critic wrote, “How he does hate the human race! How he enjoys pushing its face!”3 No isolated sentiments these, but very typical; and no mere sensationalism, which so negates the value of the individual personality, and of Man in general as superior to other material or immaterial forms—a negation which, for want of a better term, we might call a-humanism, the Abolition of Man.4