The Peculiarities of XX Century American Naive Painting

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to show the new primitivism which prevailed in XX century American naive painting.

The main research question of this paper is: How did the USA naive painting develop from XVIII to XXI centuries?

Primitivism is called a naïve painting school, in which artists or sculptors don’t have an academic degree. They are mentioned as self-taught artists. An American naïve painting is called “folk-art” unlike European naïve painting.

This research is based on studying some American artists’ works from the collection of American folk museum: Rose Erceg, Stew Harley, Lawrence Lebduska, Anna Mary Robertson Moses, Joseph Pickett, Fannie Lou Spelse, Joseph Elmer Voakun.

According to this study, they are characterized by primacy of mind and intellect. Every composition is built with strict geometrical calculation. These artists are intellectuals, very educated and erudite. The genre of landscape is for them the object of imitation of nature but their compositions contain fewer aesthete values which are characteristic of art work. So, it can be said, that these artists worked with the dictation of their minds.