The concept of primitivism has played an important role. This includes both “cultural” primitivi ...

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The concept of primitivism has played an important role. This includes both “cultural” primitivism, which involved the appropriation of symbols and artifacts from non-western, non-European or pre-modern cultures (Delacroix, Gauguin, Picasso, Blue Rider, Rivera and Siqueiros, the Harlem Renaissance) and “cognitive” primitivism, which was concerned with recovering some deeper or more fundamental aspect of human aesthetic, psychological or perceptual experience (Cezanne, Kandinsky, Surrealism and the unconscious). Drawing on examples from at least two of these movements discuss the role that primitivism played in late nineteenth and twentieth century art in Europe or the U.S. How did it allow artists to re-define the social relevance and function of their work?