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There are two possible ways of defining when Naïve art originated. One is to assume that it happened when Naïve art was first accepted as an artistic mode of status equal to every other artistic mode. That would date its birth to the early years of the twentieth century.

The War of Independence

Traian Ciucurescu, 1877

Oil on glass, 30 × 25 cm

Private collection

The other is to apprehend Naïve art as no more or less than that, and to look back into human prehistory and to a time when all art was of a type that might now be considered Naïve – tens of thousands of years ago, when the first rock drawings were etched and when the first cave-pictures of bears and other animals were scratched out.

The War of Independence

Emil Pavelescu, 1877

Oil on canvas, 55 × 80 cm

Private collection

If we accept this second definition, we are inevitably confronted with the very intriguing question, ‘So who was that first Naïve artist?’ Many thousands of years ago, then, in the dawn of human awareness, there lived a hunter. One day it came to him to scratch on a smooth rock surface the contours of a deer or a goat in the act of running away.

Weaver Seen from Front

Vincent van Gogh, 1884

Oil on canvas, 70 × 85 cm

Rijskmuseum, Amsterdam

A single, economical line was enough to render the exquisite form of the graceful creature and the agile swiftness of its flight. The hunter’s experience was not that of an artist, simply that of a hunter who had observed his ‘model’ all his life. It is impossible at this distance in time to know why he made his drawing.

The Schuffenecker Family

Paul Gauguin, 1889

Oil on canvas, 73 × 92 cm

Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Perhaps it was an attempt to say something important to his family group; perhaps it was meant as a divine symbol, a charm intended to bring success in the hunt. From the point of view of an art historian, such an artistic form of expression testifies to an awakening of individual creative energy and a need, after its accumulation through the process of encounters with nature, to find an outlet for it.

Me, Landscape Portrait

Henri Rousseau, 1890

Oil on canvas, 143 × 110 cm

Narodni Gallery, Prague

This first-ever artist really did exist. He must have existed. And he must therefore have been truly ‘naïve’ in what he depicted because he was living at a time when no system of pictorial representation had been invented. Only thereafter did such a system gradually begin to take shape and develop. And only when such a system is in place can there be anything like a ‘professional’ artist.

Sign for a Wineshop

Niko Pirosmani

Oil on tin plate, 57 × 140 cm

Georgian Museum of Fine Arts, Tbilisi

It is very unlikely, for example, that the paintings on the walls of the Altamira or Lascaux caves were creations of unskilled artists. The precision in depiction of the characteristic features of bison, especially their massive agility, the use of chiaroscuro, the overall beauty of the paintings with their subtleties of colorations – all these surely reveal the brilliant craftsmanship of the professional artist.

A Woman’s Portrait

Henri Rousseau, 1895

Oil on canvas, 160 × 105 cm

Musée du Louvre, Paris

So what about the ‘naïve’ artist, that hunter who did not become professional? He probably carried on with his pictorial experimentation, using whatever materials came to hand; the people around him did not perceive him as an artist, and his efforts were pretty much ignored.

Faces in a Spring Landscape (The Sacred Wood)

Maurice Denis, 1897

Oil on canvas, 94 × 120 cm

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

Any set system of pictorial representation – indeed, any systematic art mode – automatically becomes a standard against which to judge those who through inability or recalcitrance do not adhere to it. The nations of Europe have carefully preserved as many masterpieces of classical antiquity as they have been able to, and have scrupulously also consigned to history the names of the classical artists, architects, sculptors and designers.

The Girl with a Glass of Beer

Niko Pirosmani

Oil on canvas, 114 × 90 cm

Georgian Museum of Fine Arts, Tbilisi

What chance was there, then, for some lesser mortal of the Athens of the fifth century BC who tried to paint a picture, that he might still be remembered today when most of the ancient frescoes have not survived and time has not preserved for us the easel-paintings of those legendary masters whose names have been immortalized through the written word?

Motherhood

Morris Hirshfield

Museum Charlotte Zander, Bönnigheim Castle

The name of the Henri Rousseau of classical Athens has been lost forever – but he undoubtedly existed. The Golden Section, the ‘canon’ of the (ideal proportions of the) human form as used by Polyclitus, the notion of ‘harmony’ based on mathematics to lend perfection to art – all of these derived from one island of ancient civilization adrift in a veritable sea of ‘savage’ peoples: that of the Greeks.

St George Slaughtering the Dragon

Anonymous painter, glass painting

Serbia, region of Vojvodina

Private collection, Italy

The Greeks encountered this tide of savagery everywhere they went. The stone statues of women executed by the Scythians in the area north of the Black Sea, for example, they regarded barbarian ‘primitive’ art and its sculptors as ‘naïve’ artists oblivious to the laws of harmony. As early as during the third century BC the influence of the ‘barbarians’ began to penetrate into Roman art, which at that time was largely derivative of Greek models.

St Martin’s Gate

Louis Vivin

Oil on canvas, 50 × 61 cm

Museum Charlotte Zander, Bönnigheim Castle

The Romans believed not only that they were the only truly civilized nation in the world but that it was their mission to civilize others out of their uncultured ways, to bring their primitive art forms closer to the rigorous standards of the classical art of the Empire. All the same, Roman sculptors felt free to interpret form in a ‘barbaric’ way, for instance by creating a sculpture so simple that it looked primitive and leaving the surface uneven and only lightly polished.

Still Life with Butterflies and Flowers

Louis Vivin

Oil on canvas, 61 × 50 cm

Museum Charlotte Zander, Bönnigheim Castle

The result was ironically that the ‘correct’ classical art lacked that very impressiveness that was characteristic of the ‘wrong’ barbaric art. Having overthrown Rome’s domination of most of Europe, the ‘barbarians’ dispensed with the classical system of art.

A Fruit Shop

Mikhail Larionov, 1904

Oil on canvas, 66 × 69 cm

Russian Museum, St Petersburg

It was as if the ‘canon’ so notably realized by Polyclitus had never existed. Now art learned to frighten people, to induce a state of awe and trepidation by its expressiveness. Capitals in the medieval Romanesque cathedrals swarmed with strange creatures with short legs, tiny bodies and huge heads.

A Barn

Niko Pirosmani

Oil on cardboard, 72 × 100 cm

Georgian Museum of Fine Arts, Tbilisi

Who carved them? Very few of the creators’ names are known. Undoubtedly, however, they were excellent artisans, virtuosi in working with stone. They were also true artists, or their work would not emanate such tremendous power. These artists came from that parallel world that had always existed, the world of what Europeans called ‘primitive’ art.

A Provincial Dandy

Mikhail Larionov, 1907

Oil on canvas, 100 × 89 cm

Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow