How To Give Artistic Power

“Primitive”, a genre of painting commonly seen across the globe, serves as a universal cultural phenomenon. Without regular education in art, the primitive painters interpret the world from their own perspectives and in their own ways. However, their art has been acknowledged by the academic circle and the audience and has injected power into art like what academicism has done, thus leaving an impressive stroke in the art history. This paper states the meaning of primitivism through studies on this unique but common phenomenon.This paper makes analysis of primitive in four parts. In the first part, reasons of why the painting genre could be found and accepted by people at that time are listed through studies on its aesthetic value and historical background. For one thing, primitive is distinct from others its emotional expression and form of beauty. For another, at the end of 19 th century and the beginning of 20 th century, the claim of “Europe as the Center” was broken and the power that demands innovation emerged; meanwhile, the philosophical concept that stresses self-consciousness as well as the scientific and technological methods all exerted significant impact on the development of primitive.The second part makes studies on the spiritual world of Rousseau and his frankness reflected in his paintings, which shows that his unconscious perspective view, unique sense of space and surreal description all originate from his anti-rationality that is also unconscious. This part looks into the complexity and richness of primitive art by these features in Rousseau’s paintings.The third part makes analysis of the uniqueness and university of primitive. They developed a school of their own in art history due to their simplicity, frankness and directness as they received no education in art. Research shows that primitive is universal in paintings created by servants, clericals and dentists.The fourth part describes that the school of painting with Rousseau as its representative focuses on the expression of emotions and subjective feelings and diverge art inwards, thus exerting certain impact on modern art.Essence of art should be an expression of true emotions, just like what the primitive artists have done in their expression without utilitarian purposes. Art should be a tool for artists to convey subjective intentions and self-reflections or emotions and requires them to distill objective images to those that are in line with their inner need. The inner desire of artists prompted them to convey their inner demand in an outright way without using any techniques and rules. All in all, our works should employ what we have learned from master’s work, what is offered by school and what we feel in nature into our inner feelings, that Given the power of Art.