The Pulitzer: The Precociousness of the "Primitive"

"Critics are always talking about this and that influence on Matisse's work.  Well, the influence on Matisse when he painted this work ["Portrait of Marguerite," 1907] was his children, who had just started to draw.  Their naive drawings fascinated him and completely changed his style.  Nobody realizes this, and yet it's one of the keys to Matisse."  (Picasso to John Richardson, 1962)

Last week, at the Bruno David Gallery, it was the students of St. Michael School who taught the lessons.  Their gallery-spanning watercolors allowed visitors to develop an informed idea of what youthful drawing is all about.  To me, it seemed to be about the artist stimulating his or her own imagination.  Whether the students' efforts were playful or willful, their works were always sites of discovery.  The pictures invented stories, revisited experiences, or were themselves the residue of some experiment. 

Of course, it's difficult not to see children's drawings through the lens of modern art.  Because of artists like Picasso and pictures like "Portrait of Marguerite," mentioned above, naiveté often resembles sophistication.

Yet one of the things that struck me about the SMS watercolors was that they didn't look half as genuinely naive as Picasso and Matisse had led me to expect (i.e. the modern masters created children's drawings that look more childish than the real thing!).  Looking closely, you could tell that many of the children had assimilated certain models: there was a dog the same breed as Snoopy, birds the same breed as Toucan Sam.  And one picture could have been titled "Self-portrait in the Manner of Whoever Draws Dora the Explorer"!  So interesting.  The children had devoured aspects of art by adults--some of which is (ironically) based on the art of children--to make their own statments.  Looking at their watercolors, at times, it was like watching someone learn to talk--fluently.  (Camran)