This picture was called “Joyeusete” which means joyfulness and happiness. There were two people sitting beside the dog. Gauguin was interested in the relationship between art and music. So, he tried to show how woman is playing a pipe creating music. People behind them were following the music and dancing in front of the statue of the God. These increased the sense of joyfulness and liveliness in the picture.
At this time, he believed that he was ready to go back to France and cause people to impress by his revolutionary style. However, when he got back, nobody interested in his paintings. He could not sell any of them. He got furious again with this people who did not understand what painting should be about. So, he went back to Tahiti again for the second time.
When he returned to Tahiti, he was very happy. Nevertheless, happiness went up and down. He now had no money and because of this he decided to commit suicide. But before that, he painted one last painting.
His last painting was “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?”. This was his own question about life. On the right-hand side, there was a young baby innocently born. Then it moved to an adult life and adult people. On the left-hand side, the old woman depressed as a life was going to end; and she was going to die. Fortunately, Gauguin did not die. And afterwards, he was able to sell this picture.
From his later period, this picture was called “Two Tahitian Woman with Blossom Mango ”.
Even though Gauguin was never appreciated by anyone in his lifetime and died of poverty, he was the father of the Primitive Art who later influenced many artists in the 20th century. The strange weird forms and anti-intellectualism of African images fascinated German expressionists (Flemn, 1963: 173). One of them was Erich Heckel who really admired Gauguin. “I admire Gauguin very much, I have seen some very beautiful paintings by him in the Folkwang Museum” (Lloyd, 1991: 24).
This painting was called “Standing Child”. She got a mask-like face and the child herself, as yet unfound by ‘civilized’ conventions (Lloyd, 1991: 36).
This painting, Portrait of a Man also had a mask-like face (Hamilton, 194).
Another German artist who was also influenced by Gauguin was Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. He was interested in primitive artifacts, especially those from Polynesia.
This painting, Striding into the Sea, responded to the complex associations of the primitive art. It also used bright colors (Lloyd, 1991: 60).
In Street Scene, one of several painted in Berlin after he moved there in 1911, it had the simplified form for the men in the background is a convention is much primitive art (Hamilton, 194).
This picture, Munch’s Puberty, strongly recalled Gauguin’s primitivizing, Young Girl with Fan, in the Folkwang Museum. Both of them had mask-like faces (Lloyd, 1991:76).
The work of Karl Schmidt-Rottluff was even more aggressive in technique. Although he usually painted neutral subjects such as figure studies, the nude, landscapes, and still life, he exploited clashes of strong colors and linear distortions (Hamilton, 194).
This picture, Nude Before a Mirror, based on primitive art. The face and figure were from African masks and figures (Hamilton, 194).
This painting, Four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, was keeping with the idea that interior design should unite different media and art forms. The mask-like heads made a far more general reference to tribal art (Lloyd, 1991: 60).
Emil Nolde also had a journey to New Guinea which one can notice of how this native people greatly influenced his works.
With this picture, An Aborigine with Headscarf, the new style of facial decoration, scarification, hairstyle, jewelry and costume were shown. The bone structure of the native face was shown a pattern of light and shadow (Lloyd, 1991: 220).
Gauguin did not influence only the German artists but also French artists, among them, Matisse, found in their simplified geometrical forms and a justification for their abstract designs. Matisse was popularly known as Fauves or wild beasts, which their artistic father were Gauguin and Van Gogh.
These paintings, The Dance and The Music, were strongly influenced by Gauguin. Matisse used strong bright colors, which were blue and green in the backgrounds. The figures were simply the native people.
This was called “Blue Nude” which made of paper in 1952. Matisse made series of this kind of art. It was very simple, which inspired by Gauguin’s primitive art. It was unsophisticated but so simple as so difficult to do.
The second primitive French artist was Rousseau. He also inspired by contemporary companionships including artists…Gauguin. He also used bright colors in his works, for example this picture, Self Portrait ().
In my opinion, this picture shows a very simple posture. In the previous period of painting, I notice that most of the artists’ self-portrait just showed only first half of the body that looked formal and uncomfortable. Similarly in Gauguin works, he presented the local people in a comfortable and easy way. He painted with simple, pure colors and clear outlines, every single leaf of a tree and every blade of grass on a lawn (Gombrich, 1995: 586).
Another French artist who inspired by primitivism was Sonia Delaunay. Actually, she was born in Ukraine but later moved to France. At first she determined to be a mathematician, she then studied under the draughtsman Schmidt-Reutte in Karlsruhe (1903-4) and arrived in Paris in 1905. Inspired by Van Gogh, Gauguin and the Fauves, she was recognized as a bold, innovative artist (www.cubism-asada.com/artist/sonia%20delaune.html).
This picture was called “Nature Morte Portugaise”. In the picture, there are many bright colors such as blue, red, yellow, orange, pink and others in which Gauguin was the first artist that used these completely bright colors.
Further, “the Spanish artist, Picasso, who for a time has his African period that has been one of the important pictures of modern art” (Flemn, 1963:173). In one evening, Picasso with his friends went to the apartment of Matisse where he saw for the first time an example of African Negro sculpture. Then, the following morning, his friend, Jacob (a poet and painter) found Picasso in his studio, where he had spend the entire night drawing a woman’s face dominated by a long nose joined to the mouth around a single eye. He did many versions of this face, obviously in the style of the African sculpture (Stites, 1740:735).
Then this was appeared in a picture called “The Young Ladies of Avignon”. The three women on the left with a sense of an Egyptian, and the two next to her, passive, motionless against the folds of the draperies. They are strange, unfamiliar, frightening, and defiant figures (Greenfeld, 1971:85).
The second Spanish artist who inspired by the bright colors of Gauguin and the Fauves was Joan Miro. (. From this picture, there are bright colors such as green, orange, red, yellow, blue and others.
The impact of primitive art completely effects the young Italian painter, Modigliani when he came to Paris in 1906 (Flemn, 1963:173).
One of his sculptures, Head, was influenced by the African mask on the left-hand side. He also used stylized oval faces and elongated forms in his later works.
In this picture, Nude, the face was an African-like face. This picture was illegal because of hair and pornography.
Not only paintings, the primitive art also effected the sculptures in 20th century. The British sculptor, Henry Moore, was considered as the great sculptor during this time. His works mainly inspired by primitive art.
When Moore started to do a sculpture, he did not start by looking at his model. He started by looking at his stone. He wanted to ‘make something’ out of it. Not by smashing it to bits, but by feelings his way, and by trying to find out what the stone ‘wanted’ (Gombrich, 1995:585). One can see from this sculpture, Recumbent Figure. Moore made use of the natural shape of Wood like Matisse’s Blue Nude.
After the Second World War, he built this large figure, King and Queen, in Bronze. It probably the most famous work.
Personally, I like this Primitive art the most because of the bright colors such as green, red, yellow, orange, and blue. Whenever, I see these pictures I feel fresh and relieve. Moreover, I do not have think much about the pictures because most of the previous pictures usually had their meanings. I think that art should not be something that I have to spend a lot time to think about it. It should be something that can make me feel good and relaxed.
Bibliographies
Adams, Stephen. Lecture of History of Western Art, 2002.
Flemn, William. Art and Ideas. United States of America: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1963.
Gombrich, E. H. The Story of Art. London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1995.
Greenfeld, Howard. Pablo Picasso: An Introduction. Chicago: Follett Publishing
Company, 1971.
Hamilton, Heard George. 11th and 20th Century Art: Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture.
New York: Harry N. Abrams, Unknown date of publication.
Lloyd, Jill. German Expressionism: Primitivism and Modernity. London: Yale UP, 1991.
Stites, J. Raymond. The Arts and Man. United States of America: McGraw-Hill, 1940.
