What is NAIF art: outstanding works and artists

With the term naive usually refers to something naive, innocent or childish, although in the case of art it usually refers to a style that does not bend to academicism and is self-taught, fleeing from conventions. An idealized and simple vision of the world that turned naive art into a phenomenon from the hand of one of its most emblematic figures, the painter Henri Rousseau. In this lesson from unPROFESOR.com we offer you an approach to what is naive art, artists and works most prominent.

Index

1. What is naive art and its characteristics?
2. Henri Rousseau, one of the painters of naive art
3. Anna Mary Robertson Moses
4. Frida Khalo, a very representative naive artist
5. Other Naïf artists

Naive art was also called innate, instinctive art or neo-primitivism, being an art that has always existed linked to the rural, artisan and folkloric world and that, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, was became one of the artistic movements linked to urban uprooting, a nostalgic vision of the past and a certain oneirism, bordering on the surrealism.

Characteristics of painting and naive art

Between the most characteristic signs of naive art the following stand out:

• Lack of depth and perspective.
• The contours are very defined and accurate.
• Use of a lot Colour to provide expressiveness and volume.
• Volumes are blueprints.
• The themes are varied, and it is common for scenes from the daily life, dream scenes, landscapes, traditions, folklore, customs, etc.
• Inspiration in themes of the nature it is very common among naive artists, although it always appears idealized.

Image: Slideshare

“The naïve artist observes life in a more cheerful and optimistic way”(Carmen Artigas, in CUV3, Leisure & Culture July 5, 2011).

Naive artists have as their main reference and representative Henri Rousseau, also know as The customs officer. Rousseau (1844-1910) is considered the first artist of him defined as properly naive, being from his work that the basic characteristics of this style began to be defined. He was not an artist as such, painting being his great passion and dedicating himself to it fully from the age of 49. Rousseau worked in the Customs offices in Paris and had no training. He was being ridiculed, but some of his colleagues like Picasso ended up praising him.

His lack of academicism, their vivid and intense colors and the exoticism and dreamlike touch of his paintings are some of the keys to his unmistakable style. An original and unique style that aroused admiration years later. And it is that Rousseau created his own universe full of exotic animals and landscapes, being the case that he hardly traveled outside of France. His work was finally recognized by the anti-traditionalist and anti-bourgeois avant-garde in the years 1904 and 1905 after his participation in the Salon des Independents because of his primitivism. He had a great influence in the Dadaists and the surreal.

Naive works of Rosseau

Among his most outstanding naive works are Moi même-Myself, self-portrait of H. Rousseau, 1890, Narodny Galerie, Prague. In this work you can see Rousseau dressed in a black suit, the painter's palette in hand and located next to a bridge and with a ship and a hot air balloon behind it as symbols of progress technical. A painting that he defined as a new pictorial genre, the portrait-landscape, consisting of making an overview of a new one of your favorite places in Paris, then adding a person in the foreground.

Other outstanding works are: Lto war (The Ride of Discord), 1894, The Dream (1910) and Portrait of Pierre Loti (1910).

Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860-1961), popularly known as "Grandma Moses" ("Grandma Moses"), was a naive or primitivist artist from United States. Moses achieved great recognition in her country, being a painter of what rural and folkloric. She began painting at age 70 without her style being influenced by any movement, developing a very personal and unique style.

An artist who focused on familiar and traditional scenes, showing the rural world and North American folklore. A humble and endearing work that aroused the admiration of art collectors around the world.

Among her works stand out "Joy Ride ", 1953, at the Galerie St. Etienne, New York, or "The Old Checkered House ", which at her time was sold for only $ 10 and today is estimated to have a value of $ 51 million and "Fourth of July", painted for President Eisenhower and found in the White House.

Frida khalo (1907-1954) is one of the great artists of the 20th century and an icon. Unclassifiable, she herself did not want to be considered surrealist, considering that her work had more of reality than of oneirism. Other critics considered his work primitivist, close to Rousseau's styleThe ingenuity and simplicity of her work being remarkable.

A undeniable naive air that in Frida she also had many other nuances such as her Mexican nationalism or her vindication of female sexuality. Among her most important works are "Diego and I" (1931), "Self-portrait on the border between Mexico and the United States" (1932), "The two Fridas" (1939), "Self-portrait with a necklace of thorns and a hummingbird ”(1940), among others.

In addition to those already mentioned, here is a list of other naive artists highlight:

• Séraphine Louis (France 1864-1942)
• Orneore Meteli (Italy 1872-1938)
• André Bauchant (France 1873-1958)
• Miguel Garcia Vivancos (Spain 1895-1972)
• Antonio Ligabue (Switzerland 1899-1965)
• Aristide Caillaud (France 1902-1990)
• Ivan Generalic (Croatia 1914-1992)

If you want to read more articles similar to Naive art: artists and works, we recommend that you enter our category of Story.

• Bihalji-Merin, Oto (1978). Naive Art. Work
• Ocampo Siquier, Estela, Primitivism in Europe and America. University Documents