Henri Rousseau i have come to realise is a big inspiration for me, i have looked at his work for years now, back when i was doing my GCSE’s i used one of his paintings in my work as i like the way it was done, it was simple yet you can still tell which each element is, the painting i used was Surprised! Tiger in a Tropical Storm. I didn’t know the term naive art when i looked at Rousseau years ago but to me that didn’t matter, i don’t like work based on the term it is called, i like work because of how it appeals to me, and Henri Rousseau’s work appeals to me. While looking at him again years later i still like his work and now knowing how are works are similar with them both being naive i like it even more as i can relate to it better. I’m looking at him again not only because his work is naive but also because he uses animals in his work which is my biggest inspiration with art.
My work has been called naive which at first I thought was a bad thing as I had never heard the term before but the more I looked into it I realised that it wasn’t and I had heard of some of the artist associated with the term, Henri Rousseau being the main one who I will discuss in another post.
Naive art is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique. While many naive artists appear, from their works, to have little or no formal art training, this is often not true.
I always knew my painting style wasn’t realistic enough yet i still tried to make my animals as realistic as i could, but it never seem to work. Now i know that there is nothing wrong with the way I paint, I have accepted that my work right now isn’t going to look realistic in the way I would of wanted it to. My work has a child like feel to it but i have no come to like the way my paintings look, yet you can still tell what each animal I’ve painted is.
These two images are examples of naive art from two naive artists, Hoosick Falls, N.Y. in Winter is by an artist known as Grandma Moses (1860 – 1961) and Holly Mountain II is by Horace Pippin. I like them, they are simple yet you can tell exactly what the artist has done, I like that about some art, it doesn’t have to have so much detail to get the point across, I feel that about my work, even though before I tried to get so much detail in my work I realised I didn’t need to do that and have found that I am liking my work more.
