Naïve art 1800 – …

The history of naive art is both the history of the complex evolution of the many art forms lying outside the fine arts tradition and of the critical attempts to disentangle a distinct strand from this broader fabric In the course of the 19th century in Europe, the arts and crafts of rural peoples (normally termed folk art, or sometimes ‘peasant art’) and the urban traditions of semi-skilled craftsmen gradually faltered in the face of growing industrialization Factory products enfeebled the individual impulse to fashion handmade artefacts; itinerant portrait painters (‘limners’) found their trade dwindling after the advent of photography; and in general the rise of an industry-based economy and the growth of cities sapped the vitality of vernacular and communally recognized artwork such as embroidery, toymaking, the carving of ships’ figureheads, painted targets and so forth Similar developments took place in North America, though at a slower pace, partly determined by a wilful defence of inherited models on the part of culture-conscious immigrants

Naïve art is any form of visual art that is created by a person who lacks the formal education and training that a professional artist undergoes (in anatomy, art history, technique, perspective, ways of seeing) When this aesthetic is emulated by a trained artist, the result is sometimes called primitivism, pseudo-naïve art, or faux naïve art Unlike folk art, naïve art does not necessarily evidence a distinct cultural context or tradition Naïve art is recognized, and often imitated, for its childlike simplicity and frankness Paintings of this kind typically have a flat rendering style with a rudimentary expression of perspective

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One particularly influential painter of “naïve art” was Henri Rousseau (1844–1910), a French Post-Impressionist who was discovered by Pablo Picasso

Naïve art is often seen as outsider art that is by someone without formal (or little) training or degree While this was true before the twentieth century, there are now academies for naïve art Naïve art is now a fully recognized art genre, represented in art galleries worldwide

naive art can be regarded as having occupied an “official” position in the annals of twentieth-century art since – at the very latest – the publication of the Der Blaue Reiter, an almanac in 1912 Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc, who brought out the almanac, presented 6 reproductions of paintings by le Douanier’ Rousseau (Henri Rousseau), comparing them with other pictorial examples However, most experts agree that the year that naive art was “discovered” was 1885, when the painter Paul Signac became aware of the talents of Henri Rousseau and set about organizing exhibitions of his work in a number of prestigious galleries