The Main Approaches in the Art Criticism Examination of Naive Art: Positions of Western European and Domestic Researchers

Avdeyeva Vera Vladimirovna PhD in Art History Associate professor, Department of History of Art and Museology, Ural Federal University named after the First President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin 620000, Russia, Sverdlovskaya oblast', g. Ekaterinburg, prospekt Lenina, 51 avdvera.@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Today, naive art is a universally recognized artistic phenomenon of the twentieth century. In Western Europe, the main collections and museums of this orientation have long been formed. Among the main European collections (usually private): in France – the International Museum of Naive Art by Anatole Jacowski in Nice, the Museum of Naive Art in Laval, the Museum of Naive Art by Max Fourny (Mus?e d'art Na?f – Max Fourny) (Paris); in Germany – the Museum of Primitive Art by Egon Hassbecker (Museum Haus Cajeth or House Kayet Museum) (Heidelberg), Zimmer Gallery (Dusseldorf), separate collections of the Clemens-Sels Museum (Neuss) and the Recklinghausen City Museum, the Charlotte Sander Museum of Outsiders (Cologne) (From 1996 to 2020 was in Beningheim, the last exhibition was in May, then moved to Cologne). Russian Russian only in the late 1990s. the first specialized museum collections began to appear and private collections were formed: the Museum center of Folk Art "Gamayun" (Yekaterinburg, 1994), the State Museum of Naive Art (Moscow, 1996) (In 2014 merged with the Museum of Russian Splint and became known as the Museum of Russian Splint and Naive Art, includes three branches), the Museum of the Soviet Naive (Perm, 2013 – 2017), the Museum of Naive Art, as one of the branches of the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts (2015). In this connection, the problem of identifying works of naive art in Russia and neighboring areas has matured, art criticism expert assessment of many areas of non-professional art, including the works of naivists, has become the most in demand.

The fundamental material for constructing a hypothesis related to the definition of naive art by professional expert evaluation will be considered to be the widespread art criticism approaches of Western European and Russian studies, starting from the late 1930s (V. Ude, Germany-France), the late 1950s-early 1960s (O. Bihali-Merin, Serbia; Sh. Tkach, Czech Republic), 1970s (T. Grokhoviak, Germany; R. Cardinal, England; M. Tevoz, France; J. Ro, Germany), the beginning of the 1980s (F. Grunde, France), completing the XX–XXI centuries abroad (K. Dichter, Germany, K. G. Bohemian, Russia). They are conventionally arranged in three main periods: the historical approach (1930s–1950s), the traditional approach (1960s-1990s), the innovative approach (1990-2000). Within each of them there is a certain concept associated with the specifics of the status and definition of naive art: "naiv-hobby", "naiv-naiv", "naiv-amateur", "naiv-primitive", "naiv-outsiders".

At the first stage of expert activity in the historical approach – 1930s - 1950s - the art criticism assessment was associated with the definition of naive art as one of the forms of amateur art, "hobby". Its important component was the identification of an entire artistic group – the so-called "sacred heart" artists. This was first done by the German collector Wilhelm Oude (1874-1947), who emigrated to France. He named the artists of the "Sacred Heart" ("Coeur Sacre", "Les Peintres du Coeur sacr?") a group of French naive artists whom he exhibited in 1928 at the Quatre Chemins gallery in Paris – Henri Rousseau (?-1910), Andre Beauchamp (1873-1958), Louise Serafina (1864-1942), Louis Vivin (1861-1936), Camille Bombois (1883-1970) ^{[3, p. 133]}. Thus, the historical approach also assumes the fixation of real events, facts from the history of the formation of a naive direction. Already later, among the wealthy citizens, there were persons -"aristocratic ladies, officials, wealthy bourgeois" ^{[2, p. 17]}, who in their spare time were engaged in creativity. So naive art, which became a hobby, appeared in the English art culture of the early 1970s. Therefore, the concept of "Sunday afternoon art", "seventh day" appeared in the vocabulary of art criticism. Amateur naivists in the Czech Republic, and then in France, are studied by the French art critic Anatole Jakovsky (Researcher and author of a monograph on Grigory Musatov (1889-1941), a Czech self-taught artist (1931), creator of the Museum of Naive Art in Nice (Mus?e International d'art Na?f Anatole Jakovsky, 1982).) (1907-1983). He calls them a more expanded concept of "the art of seven Sundays a week" ("Peintres de la Semaine des Sept Dimanches") ^{[3, p. 135]}, reflecting the phenomenon of naive creativity itself. For real self-taught masters, there was no difference between weekends and weekdays, they created every day.

At the second stage – 1960 – 1990- The art criticism expert assessment includes a traditional approach that evaluates naive art in a classical way. This approach involves considering naive art as a separate artistic direction. When it sounds in various European languages: "naive Kunst" - German, Schweiz.; "naive art" – English; "art na?f" - French. One of the first art historians who gave an accurate expert assessment of the activities of naive artists was Otto Bihali-Merin (1904 – 1993, Serbia). researcher, collector, curator of exhibitions (Cologne, 1959; Paris, 1960; Stuttgart, Berlin, Cologne, Mainz, 1973) Serbian art historian proposed his own classification of non-professional art: primitive art, folk art, folk (popular) painting, rural and urban amateur, pseudo-naive, conscious naivety and naive art ^{[18, s. 19]}. Such a classification, however, does not carry aesthetic assessments, but only helps to navigate the extensive material ^{[4, p. 108]}.

The position and status of naive art was finally consolidated in the art world by Stefan Tkach, a Slovak researcher. Being the curator of "Insita" (translated as "other art"), the international Triennial of naive art, it has been held every three years since 1966 in Bratislava and gathers a circle of the largest and most talented representatives of naive art. The Belgian researcher A. Danois confirmed the place of naive art in expert circles, defining it as "the art of the naive". Since the work of self-taught artists cannot inherently be naive, only the authors of the works themselves become carriers of a naive vision. This group of foreign experts-specialists of naive art includes the figure of the German art critic Juliana Ro (1909-1987) (She was the wife of the famous art critic Franz Ro (1890-1965), who studied the work of artists of the "new materiality", he called them "magical realism"), nee Bartsch, who during this period discovered creativity German self-taught master Adalbert Trillhase (1859-1936), calling him "the French Henri Rousseau" ^[24].

The German art historian Thomas Grohoviak (1914-2012) brings greater clarity to this problem. As a specialist of naive art, he questions the expert assessment of Ude, who defined self-taught artists as "artists of pure heart". Because it "was often misunderstood later because of a touch of sentimentality" ^{[20, s. 11]}. Also in the examination of naive art, T. Grokhoviak was against the evaluation of the naive artist as an amateur artist ("die Laienmaler"). In the examination of naive art, he saw an important feature based on "inexperienced, undirected on formative principles and trends, the power of the image, which is the decisive criterion of genuine naive art" ^{[20, s. 11]}. The principled position in assessing non-professional trends was the fact that an amateur artist as a representative of a marginal environment has always existed. He absorbed the qualities of an amateur, a person inclined to creativity, but not actually a vocation or profession for him. As a rule, "such an amateur artist works out of pleasure and love of work, although he does not have a certain manner of portrayal and the creative need to invent his own or new forms of expression" ^{[20, s. 12]}. Of course, "enjoy with pleasure" may be a naive person, but it is his true or authentic (the concept introduced by Grokhoviyak) that distinguishes two important qualities from an amateur artist: firstly, the presence of his own handwriting, and secondly, the unconsciousness of action, he works on a whim.

The next in the group of traditional approaches is the position of defining naive art with amateur or folk art. The most significant point of view is the Bulgarian art expert N. Mikhailov, for whom the masters of the naive direction are an artistic phenomenon "die Laienmaler" or "painting of amateurs" or "amateur artists" (M. A. Bessonova interprets not quite accurately as "the art of the laity"). In the expert assessment of those years, the definition of "amateur" was added. Such a position dominated in Russian art history throughout the twentieth century until the early 1990s, for example, in G. K. Wagner ^{[6, pp. 46-55]}. As a rule, it implied the mutual influence of amateur (or in our case, naive) and folk arts. Precisely, this ratio forces us to look at the terminological vicissitudes from a new perspective.

Since the folk direction is firmly rooted in peasant creativity, which is primarily reflected in the meaning itself. The fusion of aesthetic and utilitarian functions, imaginative thinking and technical ingenuity is clearly traced. Artisans have essentially developed certain techniques, schemes that are only partially subject to structural and functional changes. "Their products will never want to be "art for art's sake", although the target objects and commissioned paintings were those whose function was to link customs and historical traditions, life habits, rules and rituals through generations" ^{[20, s. 14]}. As in his personal interpretation and new ideas, as Grokhoviyak accurately notes, the consciousness of a naive master is not just closed in the flared folk craft. It is purely individual and independent.

Proceeding from this, it is "amateur activity" (creativity "outside the folk tradition") that anyone interested in art, but without special education, can do" ^{[6, p. 46]}. Therefore, relying on the reasoning of G. V. Wagner, an amateur artist (self-taught) is not bound by any rules and traditions, like a folk master. Also, a self-taught master is often inferior to traditional folk art in terms of professionalism. The fundamental difference between Wagner's theory is the following: "the range of amateur creativity does not have such a systematic structure as folk art, or rather its system is not closed, but open, since it includes heterogeneous (different-structured) phenomena ... these are the paintings of the so-called "naivists" ^{[6, pp. 52-53]}. Thus, the naive direction becomes in this case a kind of amateur art.

In the expert assessment of all non-professional art, and naive creativity, in particular, Russian art critics, despite a number of discrepancies, stand on a common position. "Recognizing the existence of numerous varieties of the primitive, the blurring of its boundaries in the areas of contact with the "big" art and folklore, researchers consider all forms of the primitive as historical and national modifications of a single artistic phenomenon" ^{[5, p. 34]}. When determining the features of local schools, one can rely on the typological scheme put forward by A.V. Lebedev. Its classification includes three types of primitive – "genetic", "socio-ethical" and "aesthetic" ^{[12, pp. 9-27]}. The latter type at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries realizes its own artistic value, emerging as a qualitatively new version of the primitive. The creativity of naive masters, at the same time, belongs to the sphere of aesthetic primitives.

Roger Cardinal (1940-2019, England), professor at Oxford University, giving an expert assessment of naive art, uses the term "neo-primitivism", and called the artists themselves "primitivists". Let us recall the positions of the expert O. Bikhali-Merin, which, despite the prescription of the presentation ^[18], remains, according to the author, quite relevant at the moment. This assessment is as follows: naive creativity is a natural continuation of the art of primitive peoples, and, apparently, for this reason, both researchers (both O. Bihalii-Merin and R. Cardinal) interpret it as "non-primitive". At the same time, if a Serbian researcher uses the term "naive" more often, then in the texts of an English scientist we find more concepts of "modern primitive", and its representatives are called "primitivists" ^{[10, p. 5]}...One can only guess what this is connected with – either with inaccuracy in Russian-language publications, or indeed, naive artists are called primitivists. The most important thing is that these researchers are talking about the same phenomenon.

Innovative approach - 1990 – 2000- e gg: determined by the study of naive art from the point of view of outsider art. The position of expert researchers was influenced by the fact that Roger Cardinal (1940-2019, England), a professor at Oxford University, introduced the English-language term "outsider Art" (Outsider Art) in 1972 to define the term art brut (art of the mentally ill). It was designated by the French artist and critic Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985). In fact, the concept of "outsider art" introduced, being just a synonym for art brut, initially moved away from the equivalent French definition. The term "outsider art" introduced, surprisingly, expanded the position of non-professional art, including naive creativity. This led to the fact that by the end of the 1990s, an innovative position on non-academic art began to spread in the West, rather than in the domestic expert environment. It is connected with the fact that many foreign experts were able to identify the so-called non-professional art or "third culture" (according to V. N. Prokofiev), or primitive, only with the art of outsiders. The term "Outsider Art" began to define all non-professional areas, including naive art. Some museums have been partially affected by this negative influence. There are examples. When the specialized Charlotte Zander Museum of Naive Art in Germany will be renamed the Museum of Outsiders. At the moment, according to the expert art criticism of K. Dichter, in the USA it is customary to distinguish various directions within Outsider Art: naive art, folk art, works of mediums, amateur art (Self Taugt) and art brut ^{[21, s. 13]}. A domestic expert, collector V. V. Gavrilov notes that in Russia outsider art is interpreted more as the work of the mentally ill, in America, on the contrary, it is associated with the work of ethnogroups ^{[8, p. 225]}. In addition to the expert assessment of K. Dichter, it turns out that in Europe, art science strictly distinguishes the art of outsiders, naive art, folk art and the art of the mentally ill, although the boundaries between them are sometimes vague and uncertain ^{[21, s. 13]}. This is the focus of our research: to understand the expert assessments of the XX–XXI centuries and apply them in the modern artistic situation. On the one hand, all artists of non—professional trends lack academic education, on the other - with all the originality of their work, there is a noticeable borrowing of classical and recognized samples, or, conversely, cultural indifference. It is not surprising that there are difficulties with defining the basic criteria of naive art.

Therefore, the next component of the expert art criticism assessment is the definition of criteria for naive art as a separate direction, and in the context of a whole range of areas of non-professional art.

According to the version of Slovak researchers Sh. Tkach and A. Poribny, the main features of naive creativity: fixing the world, understanding the meaning of things, motivation and expressive means. Developing this Western European line, Grokhoviak defines a wider range of evaluation criteria for naive art: firstly, it is, to a greater or lesser extent, originality, secondly, artistic fantasy, and thirdly, poetic persuasiveness and expressive power. In addition, the uniqueness of creative success and the immutability of personal "handwriting" with its individual "palette" of color transmission become important components. Finally, the results of the creative process include such qualities as expressive forms and manner of writing. All of the above features are united by "an indissoluble unity in consonance of all figurative elements without exception, which, as always, constitute the value and quality of a work of art" ^{[20, s. 17]}. Marianne Kuhn, a collector, determined her own criteria ^{[17, pp. 44-46]}, according to which she selected artists for her collection. The main one is immersion in the natural element of naive art. The next important criterion for evaluation is the presence of an original handwriting and manner of execution in the work of the naive.

Let's define the main criteria of art criticism evaluation of naive art: this is the definition of talent or its absence, a plot-thematic complex, features of the construction of space, signs of expressiveness of artistic language (expressive subject motifs, closed form, local color, lack of movement). First of all, traditions, proximity to the academic environment, talent turn out to be important aspects of art criticism assessment, which modern art experts pay attention to.

As the Russian art critic M. V. Alpatov (1902-1986) accurately noted back in the 70s of the twentieth century ^{[1, p. 5]}, it is impossible to follow only traditions in non-professional creativity, although it is obvious that the basis of any kind of art is laid in the worldview of a certain people. Therefore, the main criterion lies in the nature of what the artist himself creates. An important criterion for evaluating the creativity of naive artists is their connection with the professional world of art, the constant proximity and kinship with which allows them to draw artistic techniques and themes. Although some experts believe that the naive have not learned either the artistic techniques or the conventions of the art of professionals.

The next, and almost the main, criterion of a naive master is his personal talent, the personal giftedness of the artist, whose talent is expressed in his own handwriting, a new vision and, finally, in a completely different meaning. Or "the primary, originally genetically given to a person the ability to create" ^{[9, p. 131]}, At the moment the evaluative classification of naive art has expanded, the criteria have become more differentiated and lined up in a certain hierarchy, but, in fact, their meaning has remained the same. In all likelihood, the tradition of studying naive art in modern art studies itself serves as a fairly good reason for such an extensive material.

Secondly, the presented group of researchers applies the thematic-content principle of differentiation of naive artists in art criticism expertise. "The plot-thematic complex as a manifestation of mythological consciousness", as defined by E. I. Kirichenko in his work ^{[11, p. 15]}. Researcher L. O. Vakar says that in the works of naive authors there is already an "archetypal reduction of the image" with an obvious "mythologism of consciousness" ^{[7, p. 5]}. Stefan Tkach and Arsen Poribny define this criterion as a form of "fixation of the world" ^{[23, p. 52]}. The themes of the plot-thematic complex vary depending on any national school. In him, like no other, we will find a variant of community or mentality.

Although, that at the moment there are two ways of differentiation: stylistic and thematic-content. The author naturally makes full use of the latter option, which, in his opinion, is one of the sufficiently developed in art criticism expertise. This typology is based on the concepts of prominent European art historians - Sh. Tkach, A. Poribny (Serbia) ^[22]. From the many criteria of naive art , they isolated the following: fixation of the world, understanding of meaning and things, motivation and expressive means by which groups of naives were determined. We are talking about such groups as "traditionalists", "realists", "historians" and "expressionists". The expert view of the French researcher F. Grunde is somewhat different. She identified three groups: "naive symbolists", "naturalists", "brutes"

The next group of criteria for naive art consists of the features of the construction of space in the works of naive authors: "space-time code" ^{[11, p. 15]}, or a special "line composition", "ideography" ^{[7, p. 5]}, which changes as complexity increases. As a rule, there is a certain style-forming moment in it. For example, "the preservation of the plane and the desire to show space lead to the approval of drawing, cartographic techniques" ^{[7, p. 5]}. Most often, the upper point of inspection or "their multiplicity, raised high on the horizon line" is used ^{[7, p. 5]}.

The last group of criteria for naive art are the signs of the main features of the artistic language or "signs of the expressiveness of the artistic language" ^{[11, p. 18]}, "static images", "modeling" ^{[7, p. 5]}. Expressive means are expressed in the following: in the expressiveness of the subject motifs, the closed form and the local color accompanying it, in the absence of movement, static, in the hierarchy of images (they depend on the meaning that the author attaches to them). Some aspects of modeling, namely, the plane, or "uncomplicated, simplified and completely flat form of the image" ^{[6, pp. 46-55]}, the principles of light-and-air perspective, decorativeness, or "the desire for color, clear filling and coloring of the surface" and ornamentation bring German naiv closer to folk art" ^{[6, pp. 46-55]}.

Finally, the last stage in the definition of art criticism is the identification of the main features by which amateur creativity, naive art, "border guard artists / border area", art brut, outsider art are distinguished. What are their main similarities and differences (see Table 1). Let's turn to the definitions of Russian experts on naive art:

Primitive ^{[13, p. 476]} (from Lat. primitivus – the first, the earliest) – a monument of art belonging to the early stage of its development, having no signs of professional excellence. Italian, Flamand., German were attributed to it. et al . artists before the 16th century, as well as Greek archaic and Etruscan art, and then in general the early stages of the art of each people and primitive art after its discovery. In the 20th century . the aesthetics of P. is associated mainly with the art of self-taught (“naive art”) and amateurs (“Sunday afternoon art"): this is a vast field of artistic creativity, different from folk art with its deep traditions and from “learned” art with its professional school, includes a household portrait, related works of non-professional artists of the 18th and 19th centuries, amateur art and works of “naive artists” in the 19th and 20th centuries, who did not receive special education, but played an important role in the development of art of modern times: Henri Rousseau, Camille Bombois in France, Niko Pirosmanishvili in Georgia, Ivan Generalich, Franjo Mraz in Croatia, Horace Pipin in Germany, Anna Mary Robertson (“Grandma Moses”) in the USA, thanks to the vivid originality of images and expressive means unfamiliar to professional art, have occupied a prominent place in artistic culture of its time and significantly influenced its development (compare naive art).

Naive art ^{[14, p. 343]} – (English. naive art, French. art naif, German. naive Kunst) is one of the areas of primitive art of the 18th and 20th centuries, including fine folk art, the work of self-taught artists (including household portrait), as well as amateur art (painting, graphics, sculpture, decor. art, architecture): a common feature of N.I. is that it develops in areas mastered by professional art, but retains its own goals and its own original methodology.

Thus, it is difficult not to agree with M. Tevoz's statement that a naive master draws his technique and many of his subjects from academism - religious, mythological or allegorical, historical, genre scenes, landscapes and portraits. However, applying the achievements of "high" culture, the naivist fails, it manifests itself in his poorly constructed perspective, incorrect ratio of sizes, anatomical proportions, the use of contours, as well as in unrealistic simplification, which alternates with excessive exaggeration of details.

Representatives of art Brut show relative indifference to cultural norms or do not perceive them at all, which is typical in general for outsider artists. Outsiders are non–professional artists who do not follow any cultural (academic) or folk traditions in their work, who are not aware of themselves as artists and are driven solely by an inner need to draw ^[16].. As a material, they use random objects and things bearing a certain imprint of cultures, "use these materials "artistically" as amateurs or “do-it-yourself". These "petrified" cultural elements are captured in unusual and hitherto unknown combinations"^{[15, p. 93]}. "Border artists", in their works concentrate and intertwine the features of naive art and creativity of outsiders. At some point, they stepped over the realm of naivety, drawing from it the immediacy of expression, techniques, plots. The features of outsiders have become predominant in their work – the inventiveness and unusual nature of the works, in which it is important to reflect the author's inner alternative world, rather than realistic reality, they are like a monologue. "Grenzgaenger" are masters of the border region, due to their intermediate position between naive art and art brut.

Table 1Criteria for evaluating naive art and other trends

Popular

Thus, in the formation and development of art criticism of naive art, the theories of Western European scientists are used, many for the first time, for example, German-speaking authors, including the coryphaeus of naive creativity, the Serbian specialist O. Bihaly-Merin (1903-1993). Not only Western methodology contributed to the formation of these approaches, the position of domestic experts (K. G. Bogemskaya, G. K. Wagner, A.V. Lebedev, E. I. Kirichenko, L. O. Vakar, etc.) became equally important. The experience and methodology of Russian art historians in the study of Russian naive art, as one of the areas of aesthetic primitives, seem fruitful and useful. Despite the heterogeneity, vagueness and some categoricality of the presented approaches, the fact that the same field of non-professional art is studied equally, namely the naive direction, becomes a fundamental point. So, in the historical approach, naive creativity is defined as a variant of leisure activity, acquiring additional meanings (the art of "Sunday afternoon", "seventh day", "the art of seven Sundays a week"). Or connected with a single exhibition project of "artists of the sacred heart". (V. Ude project) This is only the early period of the formation of naive art. It is replaced by the heyday of the naive trend, starting from the 1960s and up to the early 1990s, in which the traditional approach dominates. It has a number of branches. So, the classical version of Western European art studies defines this phenomenon as "creativity of the naive", or "naive realism", "insita" ("other"). Also, a more expert assessment of naive art as "the art of amateurs" ("die Laienkunst") determined its indirect connection with folk art. In addition, the evaluative view of experts additionally came into contact with the non-primitive. Since its transformation in the scientific world took place historically, and the appearance of various expert assessments only clarifies and systematizes this direction. Nevertheless, the problem of art criticism expert evaluation of naive art is relevant, it allows us to isolate its main criteria and talk about the authenticity, authorship, historical value of specific works of naive art.