Exploring 'The Wonderful World of the Naif Painters'

The exhibition "The Wonderful World of the Naif Painters," underway at Shanghai Jiushi Art Museum through November 12, showcases 50 Naive Art canvases by a group of 19th- and 20th-century French artists who defied attempts to classify them.

In reality, they were at first glance a group of ordinary individuals: Henri Rousseau, the founder of Naive Art; Louis Vivin, a postman; Seraphine Louis, a maid; Dominique Peyronnet, a printer; Andre Bauchant, a gardener; Camille Bombois, a wrestler; Rene Rimbert, a postal officer; Jean Eve, a mechanic; and Ferdinand Desnos, a country musician.

Starting with Rousseau, Naive artists were often unjustly labeled "amateur," "sloppy," "childish," or "incomprehensible."

"Although they did not attend the school or workshops of the masters, their imaginations were fueled by the print media: Press, illustrated books, catalogues and postcards gave them access to a whole library of images," said Alex Susanna, the curator of the exhibition.

"What is enchanting about these cityscapes and seascapes, domestic scenes, portraits of loved ones, and still-lifes is not so much the primitive narrative style, but the unbridled imagination of artists who were unconstrained by the limitation of genres."

Their artistic language is direct and pure, fusing a sense of sincerity and simplicity and shying away from artifice or embellishment.

"When encountering Naive art, viewers might not need to concern themselves with the formal painting techniques," said Felix Ma, also a curator of the exhibition. "In fact, the stacked visual elements in their paintings reveal that they treated every detail with equal importance."

Guided by their instincts and their sensory organs, the artists faithfully documented a diverse array of figures, scenarios, and objects through the sincerity of free consciousness and perception.

For example, "City View of Open Window" by Rene Rimbert adopts an angle through a semi-opened window. It is also interesting for viewers to find a small facsimile of "Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer hanging on a wall in Rimbert's painting.

One of the highlights of the exhibition is the work of Seraphine Louis (1864-1942), the so-called "female van Gogh."

Born into an ordinary shepherding family, Louis taught herself to paint. Influenced and inspired by religious art and stained glass windows in churches, she created a unique and intensely expressive painting style, known as "flower-and-leaf painting."

In 1881, she worked as a maid at the Convent of the Sisters of Providence in Clermont, Oise.

Starting in 1901, she began working as a maid and housekeeper for middle-class families. In 1912, the significance of her works was recognized by German collector Wihelm Uhde. However, the outbreak of war in 1914 interrupted Uhde's support for Louis. In 1927, under Uhde's sponsorship, her artistic career entered a new phase. Two years later, Uhde organized an exhibition for the "Painter for the Sacred Heart," where Louis exhibited her works alongside renowned Naive artists such as Rousseau, gaining recognition as a representative female Naive painter. However, she died in a lunatic asylum due to her mental illness in 1942.

"Seraphine," a movie about the life of this legendary female artist, won the 2009 Cesar Award for Best Film.

Picasso himself once exclaimed, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a life time to paint like a child."

In 1908, the 27-year-old Picasso purchased a painting from Henri Rousseau for 5 francs.

He recognized that Rousseau and the Naive painters had achieved what he aspired to, free from the hesitations that burdened their colleagues who were stepped in orthodox art education and bound by the weight of public opinion.

Exhibition info:

Date: Through November 12, 10am-6pm

Venue: Shanghai Jiushi Art Museum

Address: 6/F, 27 Zhongshan Road E1

中山东一路27号6楼