Primitivism

Probably not primitivism, but I think I can recognise some characteristics of primitivism in Arthur Boyd's - The Beach. There are two basic elements of life present in the image - sex and death. Other than the simple boat/coffin, there are no man made objects in this flat and distorted painting. The naked couple on the beach merge with each other and nature, oblivious to the corpse and the strange spirit that lingers over it. In this paintings coarse brush strokes, we can see: life, death and an apparent after life, depicting our whole existence at it's most basic levels.

The Beach, 1944

BOYD, Arthur

http://cs.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=73961

The term primitive was used at the turn of last century to describe people who were deemed by "more civilised cultures" to be living a simple, and even naive existence. Primitivism describes the art movement in which artists painted, and even admired these fore mentioned "simple' cultures, believing that the art and the lifestyle had a truth to it, that was missing in their own materialistic and pretentious societies. These artists, some of whom were even untrained, developed a style that was simple and raw, in reflection of the cultures they were observing.

An example of contemporary primitivism may be found in people living what may be known as an alternate lifestyle - distancing themselves from materialistic technologies. Perhaps growing their own food and making there own clothes. Terms, or labels that may be used by some to describes the contemporary primitivist's include; hippies, anarchists, or feral's.