Prymitywizm w sztuce awangardy pierwszej połowy XX wieku. Mitologie i obrazy pierwotności

Abstract

This book, entitled Primitivism in Avant-garde art of the first half of twenty century. Mythologies and images of primordiality, is a monograph on the phenomenon of primitivism in the work of representatives of avant-garde, operating in the first half of the twentieth century. It also attempts to present primitivism as a research issue subjected to varying assessments, closely associated with the transformations that were also present in art history. Primitivism in the avant-garde art of the first half of the twentieth century can be seen as recognition of ideas and excitements related to mythologies present for a long time in European culture. We are dealing with a complex process in which my thologies associated with what is "primitive" and "prime", were subjected to become another mythology in the art. Mythologies are thus both the first concepts about the " savagery," "primitive" and "primitiveness" and also the processing itself, performed in the avant-garde art. This book is a monograph on the phenomenon of primitivism restricted to the framework appointed by the works of avant-garde artists in the first half of the twentieth century - the representatives of the classical avant-garde, sometimes caIled the great avant-garde. However, primitivism cannot be contemplated only as outlined in the framework of avant-garde art. Therefore it is necessary to consider both, the past and the future - until the events taking place in the second half of the twentieth and even at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The first part of the book is devoted to ideas of myth, mythology, and different ways of understanding the primordial. Reference is made also to changing methods of treatment of tribal art and changes in its function ing in European culture. The following sections present many opinions, views and ways of conceiving the phenomenon of primitivism by scholars and art crities. Much attention was paid to the exhibitions that were important from the perspective of the history of primitivism, including the acdaimed exhibition organized by William Rubin at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1984 and it's even better known criticism. Phenomenon of primitivism in the work of avant-garde representatives of various groups is a major topie of subsequent parts of this book. It elaborates on various forms of searching for ways to "primitiveness", different strategies employed by artists, refusing to participate in the old "worn out" patterns, and Iooking for support in what seemed to them much closer, even though it was much more distant in spatial and cultural terms. The book relates to primitivism in art of Fauvists, Picasso, the German Expressionists, Wasilli Kandinsky, ltalian Futurists and Dadaists, Surrealists and then representatives of the different varieties of constructivism. A separate chapter is devoted to the sculpture, while exiting section talks about Polish art. Avant-garde primitivism was undoubtedly open to the "world of art", but had little in common with genuine knowledge of the Other, as well as the culture in which He would live. It was the consequence of complex set of myths, ideas, imagination and longing for the Other and His tribal cultural and artistic reality, existing in modern culture. Primitivism of avant-garde was purely axiological in its character and allowed for the withdrawal from "maIadjusted" reality. It was a result of critical assessment of modern reality - understood both in the narrow sense, as an artistic culture, and in broad sense as a human environment. Another thesis of the book is the assumption that the primitivism of avant-arde allowed to perceive states of "primordial", imagined differentIy by different artists, and often, in the opinion of artists, allowing to go beyond historical time and to experience the mythical time - in Eliade's sense.