Naive Art Research Articles

Artistic Heritage of Polina Raiko in the Space of Modern Culture: Relevant Ideas and Projects

The article is devoted to the unique wall paintings in the estate-museum of Polina Raiko in the town of Oleshky in Kherson region, which has been damaged and destroyed significantly by high water as a result of the criminal detonation of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in June 2023 by Russian troops. The flooding of the artistic heritage of Polina Raiko has actualized a number of problems related to the loss of cultural monuments in the conditions of the latest challenges, caused a deep rethinking of the visual experience of naive art in modern realities. Many scholars have written about P. Raiko’s unique house wall paintings. However, a profound scientific analysis of the significance of naive art in the modern cultural space of Ukraine, in the relationship between traditional and modern, in the aspect of preserving the artistic heritage in the conditions of the latest challenges, has not been carried out. Polina Raiko’s naive painting, despite the expressive authoress’s style, lack of professional background, creative autonomy in relation to the socio-cultural tradition of a certain center, retains genetic kinship with ritual folk culture. The deep connections between the artist’s wall paintings and the traditional visual practices of the South of Ukraine, manifested in a special world view, ornamental structures, motifs and painting techniques are investigated in the article. A number of current projects and artistic events in the space of modern culture has been inspired by wall paintings of P. Raiko. In this context, a review of the high-profile exhibitions of 2023 – «Polina Raiko. Disappearing» and «Special Operation “To Destroy Paradise”» aimed at supporting her house, restoration of creative heritage, mutilated during the Russian-Ukrainian war, is submitted.

‘Confusingly Unique’:

Given the reception of his work, transfer of the custody of the drawing Moscow (c. 1955) by Willem van Genk (1927-2005) to the Rijksmuseum is more remarkable than it might seem. A ‘labelling history’ shows that the man and his work were volleyed back and forth between the categories of psychiatric art, hobbyist art, naive art, art brut and outsider art – this, even though the artist himself would most likely have preferred to be recognized simply as ‘an artist’. The Rijksmuseum finally succeeded in doing so (albeit perhaps unwittingly). At the same time, Van Genk’s ‘case history’ reveals aspects of recent Dutch art history that have long been overlooked, such as the remarkable enthusiasm for naive art in the late nineteen-sixties. It also highlights some of the problems that can arise from our urge to categorize and label, both within and outside art history.

The intertextuality of visual and verbal works by naive artist Nadezhda Spirina

In modern humanities, it is customary to consider naive art and naive literature as two separate phenomena. Based on this approach, the study of naive fine art is given over to art criticism, and the study of naive literature remains within the framework of philology and linguistics. Culturology explores culture as the historical and social experience of people, which can manifest itself in their work and is interpreted in the "cultural texts" of art. This article actualizes the need to move from narrowly focused research to a comprehensive approach: contextual study of visual and verbal works of naive artists. The objects of this study are paintings and poems by the naive artist Nadezhda Spirina (Ivanovo region, the city of Yuzha). The subject of the research is the aesthetics and poetics of the intertextuality of the works of a naive artist. The aim of the work is to analyze the stylistics and composition of paintings in combination with the poetic texts of the author. Tasks – search for intertextual references and reminiscences in the works of N. Spirina, the disclosure in her works of various practices of the author's self-reflection, testing the hypothesis of expanding the status of the work of a naive artist as a cultural text, taking into account the semantic features of verbal utterance for the perception and reading of the visual text, that is, the intertextuality of works of naive art. Synchronistic, comparative, biographical, psychological, semiotic, cultural and historical analysis are used. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the analysis of the stylistics and composition of the paintings of a naive artist in combination with the poetic texts of the author, which makes it possible to more accurately interpret the artist's mission, which forms his naive utterance.

Cultural memory of Chornobyl in literature and fine arts (in case of a picturebook "The Flowers beside the Fourth Reactor" by K. Mikhalitsyna and paintings by M. Prymachenko)

From the category “cultural memory”, the paper compares the works of different arts – a picturebook <i>Kvity bilia chetvertoho</i> (<i>The Flowers beside the Fourth Reactor</i>) by K. Mikhalitsyna and paintings of a representative of naive art, an artist M. Prymachenko. The paper explores the interaction of various arts based on Chornobyl’s issue within the comparative interpretation. <i>The Flowers beside the Fourth Reactor</i> by K. Mikhalitsyna narrates the life of M. Prymachenko and refers to her paintings devoted to Chornobyl. From the reception of fine arts, the writer’s picturebook raises verbilised and visualised issues of generations, memory, and nature conservation.

The Main Approaches in the Art Criticism Examination of Naive Art: Positions of Western European and Domestic Researchers

The subject of this article is naive art, one of the important artistic trends of the XX - early XXI centuries. The object of the study is the main approaches of experts to the study of naive art. At the first stage: 1930s–1950s – a historical approach was formed, which is associated with the definition of naive art as one of the forms of amateur art, "hobby". At the second stage – the 1960s-1990s, the traditional approach is considered, which includes the consideration of naive art as a separate artistic direction. Innovative approach: 1990-2000: determined by the study of naive art from the point of view of outsider art. The main contribution of the research is to determine the criteria of naive art as a separate direction, and in the context of a whole range of directions of non-professional art. These include amateur creativity, naive art, "borderline artists", art brut, the art of outsiders. Their main features are determined. The novelty of the research is a generalizing analysis of the presented approaches to the study of naive art of the twentieth century, the main criteria of naive art are clarified and described. During its attribution and examination, it will allow the most accurate and complete to give an art criticism assessment, to talk about the authenticity, authorship, historical value of specific works of naive art.

The Meaning Making from Childhood Drawing into 3D Ceramic Art Form

This paper will discuss the meaning-making from a childhood drawing into 3D ceramic art. As well as that, it endures with the theme of childhood memories where it will expose the sentimental values of childhood drawings created back then. Affirmation, this research will also reveal the aesthetic developed in the childhood drawing from the past and celebrate it into a new body of art by recreating it into ceramic art. In addition, this paper will also reveal the relation between childhood drawing with faux naive art as the term of the nativity in the childhood characters. Keywords: meaning-making, childhood drawing, ceramic art, faux naive art. eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7iSI7%20(Special%20Issue).3798

The Archetype of Ideal City in the Naive Painting of Russian Artists of the 20th Century

The archetype of ideal city is one of the most significant in the development of world culture due to the fact that the idea of perfect world order, embodied in a spatial image, has reflected from ancient times the most important value orientations of the cultures of the Middle Ages and the Modern Times, both of the West and of the East. In Russian culture, the archetype of ideal city is embodied in the images of the Heavenly Jerusalem and the City of Kitezh. We have chosen as an object of research the works of Russian naive artists of the 20th century, which allows us to trace the development dynamics of this archetype in modern Russian culture. The subject of the research is the embodiment and peculiar interpretation of the archetype of ideal city in the works of naive artists Pavel Petrovich Leonov (1920—2011), Vagan Yerevandovich Sakiyan (1926—2002), Yury Dmitryevich Deev (1944—1998). The aim is to identify culturally conditioned interpretations of the national archetypes of ideal city in the naive art of the twentieth century. The article also conducts a multi-level cultural research of the creative world of the naive artists P.P. Leonov, V.E. Sakiyan and Yu.D. Deev, revealing the most characteristic features of this art phenomenon. The study of national Russian culture involves referring to a number of works on cultural studies, philosophy, mythology, history, philology, folklore studies, etc., devoted to the issues of national archetypes. The analysis of the naive painting works by Russian artists is carried out on the basis of cultural-philosophical, comparative-historical, typological, and analytical approaches. The naive art as a cultural phenomenon of Russian culture is very little studied in modern science; meanwhile, it combines many different cultural-psychological, cultural-historical and socio-cultural phenomena.

ЭСТЕТИКА ПРИМИТИВНОГО ИСКУССТВА: ПЛАСТИЧЕСКИЙ ЯЗЫК ТАНЦА

The article draws parallels between primitive and naive art. The language of dance is analyzed in the plane of its rhythmoplastic constructions in the context of primitive art, the role of the spontaneous state of consciousness in the process of creating the language of naive dance forms.

NAIVE ART: FEATURES OF CREATIVE PERCEPTION

The purpose of the article is to define the specificity of the concept of "naive", to analyse the peculiarities of the works of art of this direction, their distinctive features on the basis of the visual works of Ukrainian naivists. Methodology. The research methodology is based on the art history analysis, the complex use of historical and comparative methods, system analysis, synthesis and eneralization. Results. The concept of naïve has been defined, its specificity in relation to the related, but not identical terms, such as "primitive art" and "outsider art" has been singled out, and the components of the development of the given tendency have been studied. On the example of Ukrainian naive art representatives, the characteristic features of the artists of this direction were defined. The urgency of the application of artistic images of naive in the realities of contemporary design is underlined. The scientific novelty. The category of artistic and compositional features of this kind of art in the works of Ukrainian naïve artists have been investigated, the characteristic visual techniques of this artistic direction, which are actual for the application in the modern design projects, have been determined. Practical significance. The identified features of the concept of naive, originality of creative implementation of this trend can contribute to the further research of this topical for the design of postmodern art form, and become a part of the discipline of art studies of students-designers to enhance their competitiveness in creating a visual culture of the modern society on the basis of images close to the national mentality.

Liudmyla Bruievych’s water-colors in the 1990s

The aim of this study is to analyze in detail the watercolors by Liudmyla Bruievych, made in the 1990s: “Tuha” (1992), “Raiuvannia” (1993), “Trapeza” (1995), “Myslyvets” (1998) and others.
 Methodology. The study of the works of the new generation of Ukrainian artists, which was completely formed after 1991, is just beginning. In particular, it refers to Liudmyla Bruievych, one of the most famous contemporary domestic graphic artists. The vast majority of publications about her works are popular and belong more to the genre of essay or interview (Bychkova (2000), Ivanochka (2012), Taran (1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2002), Shapiro (2012)) or are reviews for personal exhibitions of the artist (Lamonova (2004, 2004), Ostrovskyi (2002)). Among them there are extremely interesting texts of high literary quality (Tytarenko (2004), Borysova (1998), Panasiuk (1998, 1999)), but it is hardly possible to call them scientific researches.
 Results. Liudmyla Bruievych is one of the most famous contemporary domestic graphic artists. The most popular of her works are etchings, for which the author uses watercolor of four colors (cerise paint, emerald green, ocher and gold): “Nich” (1991), series “Spokii” (“Koty”, “Rusalka”, “Try ryby”, “Ryba”, “Vaza”, all — 1994),” “Tanok vuzhiv abo Neskinchennist”, “Doistorychna tvaryna abo Drakon” (both — 1997). But during the 1990s, Liudmyla Bruievych actively worked not only on etchings, but also on watercolors. Among them there are works based on the unexpected use of folklore sources (“Tuha” (1992), “Rusalochka”, “Koroleva-rusalka”), biblical images (“Trapeza”, “Hallelujah” (all — 1995)), techniques of naive art (“Myslyvets” (1998)). The artist also created watercolor miniatures.
 Novelty. This article is in fact the first scientific publication about the works of an interesting modern domestic graphic artist.
 The practical significance. The research is a part of the individual planned theme of the author “Peculiarities of national tradition interpretation in the Ukrainian graphics of the 90s of the XX century. — 10s of the XXI century” and the general planned theme of Fine and Decorative Applied Arts department of the Institute of Art History, Folklore and Ethnology of M. T. Rylsky Institute of Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnology of the NAS of Ukraine “Ukrainian art from the Middle Ages to modern times: the search and formation of national identity in the context of world cultural space”.
 Conclusions. Watercolors are an organic and integral part of the artist’s graphics. Plastic images found in watercolors could later be used in etchings.

Psychological approach towards studying the naive art: practice of art brut

The subject of this research is the peculiarities of the psychological approaches of European experts of the late XIX – early XX centuries (psychiatrists of the so-called “historical psychiatry”), art historians and painters of the XX century, specializing in collection of the works of mentally ill people (or art brut). The historical-comparative method is applied for determination of the specifics of the naive art of Western Europe in the XIX – XX centuries and its comparison with other areas of amateur art of this period. The psychological approach is essential for studying the works of mentally ill people (or art brut) and its key peculiarities. The comparative method allows analyzing the modern forms of art brut and naive art. The novelty consists in outlining the principal psychological approaches of foreign experts with the art brut, the interpretation of which contributes to decoding of all amateur art. Evolution of views stems from determination of similarities between genius and mental disorders, tracing patterns in creative process of the patients, assessment of the ability of a person with mental disorder to creative thinking and invent the object of art prior to learning the artistic beginning. In this regard, the psychological approach revealed the key trends in studying amateur art: from the perspective of Marseille Rege (with his “embryonic” view) to the point of view of Morgenthaller (with his realization of creativity of the patients), and artistic views of Prinzhorn and Dubuffet, who focus on the art criteria: vision of form, color, composition and other formal attributes of an artwork. Thus, the interpretation of art brut becomes a certain “bridge” for understanding the sphere of the naive art.

К вопросу о художественной ценности авторских копий наивных художников: Нина Варфоломеева

Nina Varfolomeeva is one of the most famous Russian amateur artists, her name was included in the World Encyclopedia of Naive Art, her works are in public and private collections. Her work is limited to 20 repetitive subjects, and her example allows us to talk about a fairly common phenomenon in artistic primitive. The concept of “originality of a work” is of value for author’s creativity, however, in naive art, author’s self-repetition is not uncommon — there may be three or four copies of one work, which does not affect their value in the art market. Naive art has such a feature due to its borderline state between “high” and folk art, in which there are no concepts of “original” and “copy”. The artist’s painting style differs in the early and late periods, which also speaks of another feature of some naive artists — the transition from an amateur painting style to a popular print. It should be assumed that this is a direct consequence of the success of the artist’s works in the art market and the increase in the number of works created. The article proves that the simplification of the artistic language of Varfolomeeva’s later works is a transition to decorativeness, characteristic of folk art.

«Миру — мир, а Господу — слава». О некоторых мотивах творчества Любови Майковой

The works of L. M. Maikova are one of the most striking pages of Russian naive art, which we understand as the work of people of folklore consciousness beyond the genres that exist in folklore consciousness. But in oral folk art, there are works that resemble the poetic compositions of non-professional authors (poetic memoirs, letters in verse, poems with soap opera plots). And painting as such is absent in folk art. Therefore, the pictorial material makes it possible to most clearly differentiate naive amateur creativity and primitivism as a style of author's professional creativity. Naive creativity is not a form of leisure activity, which presupposes the existence of leisure organizations and their management. Naive creativity is a form of leisure practice that denies leadership and any organizational forms. As a phenomenon of leisure practice, naive creativity ceases to be anonymous, becomes authorial and competitive, which means that it becomes art. In Maikova's paintings, as the works of a naive artist, the role of verbal text is higher than in the works of a professional author, so the title is placed in the visual space of the painting itself and performs the function not of the textual frame, but of the text itself. Finally, in the work of a naive artist, ideological layers of different origins are organically combined, sometimes even opposing each other.

Творчество Натальи Северцовой

Наталия Алексеевна Северцова-Габричевская (1901-1970 гг.) была яркой и незаурядной личностью. Природный темперамент, артистичность, красота привлекали к ней ученых и художников. И если в московской жизни профессиональная занятость и научные штудии круга друзей ее мужа определяли и ритм, и стиль общения, то в Коктебеле, куда ехали жить свободно, играть, отдыхать, складывалась атмосфера, в которой расцветал ее талант хозяйки дома, душевного круга, дар художницы. Н. А. Северцова создавала то, что специалисты определяют как наивное искусство. Можно было бы сказать, что ее творчество сформировалось вопреки тем вкусам и художественным идеалам, которые были присущи ее друзьям и наставникам из ближайшего окружения. Это был пример наивного видения, остающегося целым в элитарной среде. Однако, Н. А. Северцова была человеком своего круга – подлинным интеллигентом, с присущим независимо мыслящим людям взглядом на мир, острым, часто ироничным, всегда нестандартным. С течением времени – десятков лет, прошедших с того периода, когда вокруг стола в коктебельском доме Габричевских собиралась веселая дружеская компания, – становится ясно, что угнетающему давлению советской действительности противостояли люди, связанные дружескими и профессиональными отношениями, общими интересами и увлечениями. В искусстве Н. А. Северцовой воплотился тот образ жизни и стиль самовыражения, который был присущ кругу людей, собиравшихся в доме Северцовых-Габричевских, наследовавший бытовой культуре отцов и дедов, хранивший их привычки, манеры, способы суждения столь же бережно, как произведения живописи и графики, достававшиеся в наследство. Эти традиции продолжает хранить племянница и воспитанница Н.А. Северцовой – О.С. Северцева (р. 1931). Она сохранила не только все художественное наследие Н. А. Северцовой, но и архивы всех ученых, принадлежавших этой исключительной семье.

Aspects of Study of the 20th Century Naive Art in Russia: Researchers, Collections and Names

This article explores the main stages of the study of naive art in Russia, starting from the first decades of the 20th century and till the 1980s, when naive art was called an “amateur art”. This is the period of IZORAM (Saint Petersburg Art Workshops of Working Youth) activity and the long work of the National University of Extramural Studies. The first amateur art exhibitions took place in the 1970s, later leading to the establishment of specialized collections. In the 1980s, academic research into naive art began to filter through the image of a primitive, or so-called “third”, culture supposed to exist between “high” and “grassroots” art. Only since the 1990s has naive art begun to be perceived as a separate artistic movement. In Russian art criticism, naive art was defined as one of the primitive art areas of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. During this period, separate museum collections began to take shape in Moscow including a private museum of outsider art, where some works by naive artists were presented, and the Municipal Museum of Naive Art. In Ekaterinburg, Gamayun Municipal Center for Folk Art and Crafts began to study naive art in 1994. In the 2000s, interest in the naive art of the 20th century began to grow. At this time, public and private collections of naive art were being formed in the following museums: B.U.Kashkin Museum at the Ural State University; Soviet Naive Art Museum; and Museum of Naive Art, which in 2015 became the part of the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts.
 Keywords: primitive art, amateur art, naive art, folk art, outsider art.

Glass Artworks of the Naive Artist Albert Korovkin

Naïve art is still under-represented in Russian museum and professional art institutions, with the works and heritage by many artists remaining under-exhibited and underresearched. Albert Korovkin (1935) is an artist whose name features in the World Encyclopaedia of Naive Art. His works entered the collection of the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts as part of the gift from Yevgeny Roizman. Among the donated works, there were about 50 pieces of glass-blowing art. Korovkin worked as a glassblower at the Institute of the Ural Scientific Centre, where he manufactured scientific equipment, but did not have a professional glassblower education. Since the collector did not register attribution data at the time of the acquisition of works, any information on the technology of manufacturing works, as well as a comparative analysis of the series of paintings and glass-blowing works, is relevant. This article presents an attempt of such an analysis providing relevant information on the artist’s background, style and technique.
 Keywords: amateur art, artistic glass, glass-blowing technique, glass staining

Examination of Paintings of Naive Artists from Urfa in Terms of Colors, Compositions, Space and Subjects

Naive art is the kind of art that is performed independently of the artistic characteristics of a certain period in art history, art movement and theory. Naive artists, who do not have any vocational education history, work with their inner creative impulses without using any academic painting techniques and having contemporary art inclinations. Naive artists come from various socio-economic backgrounds and have various occupations. They mostly handle subjects such as their childhood memories, ordinary scenes of everyday life in the environment where they grew up, and subjects related to folk art. However, there are examples of fantastic, symbolic, surrealistic, satirical and critical content, as well as historical and social aspects, which also come into prominence in the works of Naive artists, who do not self-censor what they think and feel. The works of Naive artists differ from the works of amateurs and countryside artists who have received art education in terms of their content and execution of shapes. In the same way, folk art that depicts traditional culture cannot be evaluated in the same art category as Naive art. Each element in these paintings, which are created with childish sensitivity, is described in finest details and with attentive insight. Most of the time, Naive artists work without worrying about the rules of art like perspective, dimensions or balance and without making comparison between their own work and other pieces of art in an academic sense during the creation process, since they focus on the story or events to be depicted in their work. The Naive artist tries to introduce new worlds, new phenomena, by discovering new details during the process of production. In this study, some evaluations concerning the historical evolution of Naive art and its reflections on Turkey will be made. Secondly, the works of Namuslu Ali, Osman Gorgun, Sefika Gunes, Naci Buyukkircali, Abdurrahman Birden, Abdurrahman Polat, Neset Uckan, Necmi Kaya and Muharrem Celik, some of the Naive artists from Urfa who work with a Naive approach bringing local motifs and themes into the forefront, are examined in terms of characteristics of colors, composition, space and subjects.

Art and the Environment: Brazilian water resources from the NAIF perspective

Brazil is a privileged country in terms of the amount of water available in its territory. The way water is represented in the paintings highlights the artist’s perception of this natural resource. The objective of this work was to emphasize the importance of Brazilian water resources and to promote naive art. Regarding the methodological procedures, a documentary research was carried out, based on the catalogs of the exhibitions: Bienal Naifs do Brasil at SESC in Piracicaba/SP (1996 to 2018); International Biennial of Naif Art Totem Cor-Ação – BINAIF de Socorro/SP (2017 and 2019); and the National Exhibition of Naive Art in the State of São Paulo (2019). The study was descriptive, with a qualitative analysis of the paintings and their relationships with water resources, in turn, the water resources painted in the works were presented in a technical way. Fifteen works were selected for their relevance to the theme. The set of paintings analyzed includes the multiple uses of water, in addition to geographic, historical, cultural aspects and different biomes of the hydrographic basins. Problems such as flooding, scarcity and pollution of water resources were also observed. The research made a trip through Brazil, from north to south, dealing with both continental waters and oceanic waters that bathe the coast of the country. In view of this, it is concluded that water is an indispensable natural resource, valuing it through naive art also encourages its preservation and thus contributes to the management of water resources.

Representation of the Memory in the Exhibitions of the Museum of Naive Art

The article deals with the main exhibition projects of the Museum of Naive Art of Yekaterinburg in 2018. In studies aimed at designing the contents of the museum narrative, the creators of the expositions rely on “naive ego-history” as an important source and resource. We reveal the narrative potential of previously excluded forms of artistic reflection of historical processes, sensations of the destinies of the homeland and the people, embodied in artistic images.
 Keywords: naive art, oral history, exhibition, text of the artist

La imagen femenina en el arte cubano. Un análisis desde la perspectiva de género

El tratamiento de la imagen femenina en el arte cubano responde a la evolución histórica de la representación de la mujer en el ámbito internacional. Durante su desarrollo ha estado atada a los cánones establecidos por una cultura patriarcal, de manera particular en el arte naif, que refleja la subjetividad de los autores sin mediar los filtros académicos. En el escenario cubano no existe una abundancia de literatura científica sobre la representación de la imagen femenina en el arte y su relación intrínseca con los contextos sociales de las mujeres, que en Cuba y Latinoamérica están conectados a una cultura históricamente falocéntrica. Se plantea como objetivo del estudio: identificar las características de la imagen femenina en el arte cubano, con énfasis en el arte naif. Para la obtención de resultados se emplean métodos en los niveles teórico y empírico. En el nivel teórico se emplea el método histórico-lógico. En el nivel empírico se utiliza el análisis documental, fundamentalmente los autores María Teresa Alario (2000), Adelaida de Juan (2002, 2006) y Yolanda Wood (2017). El presente artículo aborda el tratamiento de la imagen femenina en el arte cubano desde una perspectiva de género. Se concluye que la representación de la imagen femenina en el arte naif cubano responde a los esquemas de dominación patriarcal normalizados en la sociedad cubana actual.