What Is Naive Art?


What do you think of when you hear the word naive art? Peter Denham was an artist and founding member of The Association of British Naive Artists, and said “it is, after all, art by the people, of the people, for the people.” I love this way of thinking about naive art, as it’s inclusive and it gives the lay person permission to make art. You can go to university and get a degree in the arts but you don’t have to. It’s open to all and it’s freeing. Many naive artists are self taught and develop their skills creating art in their own homes, increasing their knowledge of materials, examining concepts and learning about other artists through reading, learning from other creative people, watching You Tube videos or other social media platforms, or taking online courses. There are many options, but naive art begins with an irrepressible desire to create, and the artworks can be kept private, or shared with the whole wide world.

There is a beautiful child-like - but not childish - charm to naive art. For me, it is an act of creation ungoverned by the rules of perspective or moulded by the expectations of others. On some level I know I am breaking the ‘traditional rules of art’ and that’s fun. The painter Pablo Picasso is not known as a classic naive artist, however, he did abandon the rules that the "artistically correct" learn at well-known art academies. His paintings dispose of three-dimensional perspective and harmonious proportion. He used distortion and borrowed from the art of primitive cultures. When a naive art aesthetic is emulated by a trained artist like Picasso, the result is sometimes called primitivism, pseudo-naïve art or faux naïve art.

Today, there are some very well known naive artists, however, it first attracted widespread public interest through the works of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), and a number of other naive artists when German art collector and critic Wilhelm Uhde organised the first Naïve Art exhibition, which took place in Paris in 1928. The participants were Henri Rousseau, André Bauchant, Camille Bombois, Séraphine Louis and Louis Vivin, known collectively as the Sacred Heart painters. This interest in naive art has now developed into an international phenomenon, fuelled by serious collectors willing to pay high prices and museums procuring naive artworks for their collections.

Do you have a favourite work of naive art? Some of my favourite naive works of art are by L.S. Lowry (1887-1976), Henri Rousseau (1844-1910), Grandma Moses (1860-1961), Amadeo Luiciano Lorenzato (1900-1995), Dora Holzhandler (1928-2015), Alfred Wallis (1855-1942) and Paul Klee (faux-naif 1879-1940) to name but a few.

The most wonderful thing about naive art is that it is available to everyone and for everyone to enjoy.

A selection of Kunjan Thankey’s naive art paintings shown below and she is a member of The Association of British Naive Artists.


Previous
Previous

The Healing Power Of Art