The work o f the South African artist Walter Battiss has in the existing literature been analysed and discussed in relation to his biography or in general descriptive terms. In contrast my project aims at revealing the confluence of the Modernist avant-garde notions of the “Primitive” and the anthropological project in Battiss’ work.

The interest Joris-Karl Huysmans showed for the Flemish, German and Italian Primitives played a large role in his works and life. His own Flemish origins coupled with the artistic and literary trends of his day contributed to his interest for the art of the XVth and XVIth centuries. His style was admirably suited for describing and commenting the paintings and sculptures of the end of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. A forerunner of Symbolism, he found himself at the crossroads of Impressionism and Expressionism. His influence on the writers and painters of the late XlXth and early XXth centuries cannot be denied. A worthy successor to Baudelaire, he showed how closely Art and Literature were related. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

This dissertation analyses the convergence of primitivism and nationalism in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century French and Russian art. The discourse of primitivism has yielded a number of critical studies focusing on the artistic appropriation of aesthetics derived from "tribal" arts, Asian arts, medieval icons, outsider art, and peasant arts and crafts. Within that scholarship, modern European art that appropriates the aesthetics of folk arts and themes of the peasantry is frequently considered to be representative of national identity and myth. The artistic elucidation of the peasantry as emblematic of national identity combined with their incorporation into primitivism produces a tension that complicates the conventional, binary structure of the discourse. It is therefore necessary to examine artistic expressions of national myth and the peasantry's absorption into the primitivist discourse, as this indicates a critical point at which issues of nationalism and primitivism converge. In the cultural realm, that juncture is located in the artistic idealisation of peasant cultures, which is indicative of a mythical state of being from which national identity could be rearticulated. / The myth of the peasantry as developed in nineteenth century European thought centres around the premise that rural populations were an unchanging element of society whose traditional customs, religious beliefs, and modes of production contrasted sharply with the accelerated changes in urban culture. A critical examination of selected paintings by the French artist Paul Gauguin (1848--1903), the Russian Neoprimitivist Natalia Goncharova (1881--1962), and the French Fauve painter Othon Friesz (1879--1949) within their specific, social contexts reveals the ways in which the modern, artistic maintenance of the rural myth elucidates current political and social issues of nationalism. This underscores the peasantry's symbolism within the nation as representative of a national, collective consciousness and ancestry. The peasantry's incorporation into the primitivist discourse and the cultural articulation of the rural myth are revealed in the paintings The Vision After the Sermon (1888), Yellow Christ (1889), Fruit Harvest (1909), and Autumn Work (1908). The paintings and their respective social contexts situate the peasantry both as constructions within the primitivist discourse and symbols of national identity, thereby disrupting the structure of alterity upon which primitivism is predicated.

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Graduate

Joan Brotat (Barcelona, 1920-1990) fue un artista destacado en el proceso de recuperación de la modernidad pictórica durante los años de la postguerra española, aunque luego cayó progresivamente en el olvido. Esta tesis estudia y establece su trayectoria profesional vinculada a su biografía personal (contexto familiar y social), a los factores inducidos por el sistema artístico local y en relación con en el contexto nacional e internacional (fortuna crítica, evolución artística y comercial). Brotat fue uno de los máximos exponentes de una tendencia que podríamos denominar como figuración primitivista. Definimos aquí las características de esta tendencia, su lugar frente a otras opciones de vanguardia de la época como la abstracción y apuntamos sus variantes y principales representantes. Abordamos también las razones de su declive a partir del análisis de la carrera profesional de Brotat. Descubrimos, gracias al estudio de su archivo familiar, la participación de Brotat en la guerra civil como parte de la Quinta del biberón republicana, hecho que escondió toda su vida y cuyo trauma influyó de toda evidencia en su obra. El análisis iconográfico y evolutivo del ingenuismo nos muestra una dimensión trágica y existencial. Así, su etapa expresionista, singular síntesis entre ingenuismo e informalismo, parece responder a una genuina necesidad psicológica. La comparación de su obra artística son sus proyectos profesionales en el campo de la ilustración infantil nos permiten hacer la diferencia entre naif el ingenuismo, que tanto preocupó a la crítica de la época. Un aspecto fundamental es el descubrimiento de una etapa abstracta a finales de los años cuarenta que contradice la jerarquía evolucionista que explica la figuración esquemática como un paso previo a la abstracción. El primitivismo ingenuista fue una opción consciente y deliberada. En su período de madurez, la obra de Brotat muestra una tendencia al amaneramiento y entra en decadencia, que se puede describir por la perdida de refinamiento y el estancamiento de los argumentos críticos que la apoyaron. La relación con los marchantes (Maurice Bonnefoy y Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún particularmente) se revela ambivalente en sus resultados. Lo mismo sucede con el aprovechamiento de la política artística franquista, dirigida por Luis González Robles. El primitivismo figurativo catalán de postguerra es una combinación coherente (aunque intuitiva y sin programa militante) de medievalismo e ingenuismo. El ingenuismo de vanguardia de postguerra tiene dos manifestaciones, a veces coincidentes y otras divergentes: la radical y la nostálgica. El primitivismo se apoyó en un discurso crítico específico y ocupó un lugar, móvil, en el debate artístico. Estudiamos las diversas fuentes de este primitivismo y constatamos la influencia fundamental de Joan Miró. De entre los referentes internacionales destaca Massimo Campigli. Asimismo, se encuentran paralelos y vínculos con artistas españoles como Rafael Zabaleta, Benjamín Palencia y el núcleo valenciano con Manuel Gil y Salvador Faus. Un caso especialmente interesante es el de Manolo Millares, quien tuvo una relación significativa con Cataluña en esos años. Entre los artistas catalanes, el primitivismo tuvo gran protagonismo y adoptó diversas formas. De Sucre o Joan Ponç representan la vertiente más radical y atormentada, Albert Ràfols Casamada o Joan Vilacasas la opción más ingenua y afrancesada. Se observa una clara tendencia a la politización (Francesc Todó, Josep Guinovart, Estampa Popular). La opción lírica o poética, representada especialmente por Brotat, fue dejada progresivamente de lado. A menudo teñido de nostalgia y religiosidad, coincidente con cierta moda franciscanista, el discurso teórico al respecto del primitivismo fue ambivalente y pasó de la modernidad al conservadurismo. La constatación de una corriente primitivista, de la cual Brotat sería la figura paradigmática en su éxito y su fracaso, obliga a repensar el canon del arte catalán de postguerra. El primitivismo no fue un estadio inmaduro de la modernidad en el camino hacia la abstracción sino que responde al contexto histórico particular de la España de postguerra con soluciones originales. / Joan Brotat (Barcelona, 1920-1990) was a prominente artist in the process of recovery of pictorial modernity in Spain after the Civil War, but then his work gradually fell into oblivion. This thesis studies his professional career, in relation to his personal biography (family and social context), the local art system, and the national and international context (critical fortune, artistic and commercial development). The thesis proposes that Brotat was in fact a paradigmatic figure of a primitivist tendency. Primitivism was not an immature stage of modernity on the way toward abstraction, but responded to the particular historical context of Postwar Spain with original solutions. The success and then failure of Brotat and Primitivism invites to reconsider the canon of Postwar Catalan art. Untill his death, Brotat did hide his involvement in the Civil War, a trauma that marked his work and existence. The iconographic analysis and the evolution of his modern naif style shows a tragic and existential undertones. A key aspect is the discovery of an abstract stage in the late forties contradicting the evolutionary hierarchy that explains schematic figuration as a step toward abstraction. On the contrary, naive primitivism was a conscious and deliberate option. Postwar Catalan Figurative Primitivism was a coherent mix of medievalism and naiveté(although without a declarated program). The naiveté of postwar art has two aspects : the radical and nostalgic, which sometimes appear together and sometimes separately. Among Catalan artists, primitivism had great prominence and took various forms. De Sucre or Joan Ponç represent the more radical and tormented side, Albert Rafols Casamada or Joan Vilacasas the most naive and influenced by French modernism. There is, later, a clear trend towards politization (Francesc Todó Josep Guinovart, Estampa Popular). We studied the various sources of this primitivism and found the fundamental influence of Joan Miró and Massimo Campigli. Likewise, there are links to Spanish artists such as Rafael Zabaleta, Benjamín Palencia, the valencians Manuel Gil and Salvador Faus or Manuel Millares. Often tinged with nostalgia and religiosity, in sinthony with a Franciscan fashion, the theoretical discourse about primitivism was ambivalent and evolved from modernity to conservatism.

The Owl House is situated in the Karoo village of Nieu Bethesda, and the person responsible for its creation, Helen Elizabeth Martins (1897-1976), is South Africa's best known Outsider artist. A number of newspaper and magazine articles, television programmes, radio interviews, play, films, short stories, theses and art works have resulted directly from her work. Interest in The Owl House continues to grow, with visitors coming from all over South Africa, and various parts of the world,to visit it. The Owl House was Helen Martins' home for most of her 78 years. During the last 30 or so years of her life she devoted all her time and energy to transforming the interior of her house into a glistening fantasy world of colour and light, using crushed glass stuck to almost every surface, coloured glass pane inserts in the walls, mirrors of many sizes and shapes, and countless paraffin lamps and candles. She called her garden' A Camel Yard', and filled it with over 500 cement statues, structures and bas reliefs. All the labour involved, apart from crushing and sorting the coloured glass, was provided by at least four different men, who assisted her over the years, Johannes Hattingh, Jonas Adams, Piet van der Merwe and Koos Malgas, though Helen Martins was the inspiration and director behind it all. Through a study of Helen Martins' background and life, and their effects upon her psyche, a rigorous attempt has been made to reach some understanding of why she became a recluse, and what caused her to create this unique body of work comprising her entire domestic environment. She became increasingly asocial as her life progressed, and ultimately ended it by committing suicide in 1976. Through the universality of symbolism, the meanings of the subjects, themes and concerns which she chose to depict are studied. Then, together with some knowledge of her life and personal influences, an attempt has been made to deduce what it was that Helen Martins was trying to express and work through in her creations. This study also led to an awareness of the fact that, although each one is unique, there are many examples of Outsider Art throughout the world. Fundamentally, creators of Outsider Art remain asocial in relation to their cultural milieu and cultural context. Some other examples of Outsider Art, both in South Africa as well as in Europe and India, were visited, and are described and compared with The Owl House as well as with one another. The way in which society reacts or responds to Outsider Art and its creators is studied through the comprehensive records of one specific case which caused great controversy in Johannesburg during the 1970s. Ultimately, working alone or with assistance, it is the Outsider artist who is the driving force behind these unique works, and whose indefinable inner fire of passion alone makes it possible to bring them into being. It would seem that the fascination with Outsider Art is that through their work, creators allow others a glimpse into a different sense of reality which is both mysterious and inexplicable.