"There are ultimate origins of art...at home in the nursery. Don't laugh, Reader! Children can do it too, and there is wisdom to be gained from the fact that they can." (Paul Klee, 1912)

A quite usual reaction to naive [primitive] painting from one section of the viewing public, is bewilderment or scorn. Some are puzzled by naive paintings because they are not a photographically accurate and skilful rendering of the visual world. To them the paintings show childlike distorted perspective, childish subject matter and no obvious painterly skills. To these viewers naive art seems to be at best an example of mental weakness or at worst a confidence trick played on the gullible.

'Cat on Piano' by Colin Ruffell

However, naive art gives great pleasure to many others. It is universally respected, and is in widespread use in greetings cards, illustrations and reproductions, while the best originals boast collectors, dealers and prestigious places in galleries and national collections.

This contradiction in appreciation can be explained by the psychological starting point of the two points of view, and by a reference to the various theories on what is art.

The puzzled and scornful are often adult sceptics with strong practical mind-sets that admire skill and traditional artforms. These viewers are adult and responsible, and they have usually forgotten how to play and enjoy life that has no rules or constraints. They hope to be informed by art. They see art as a record of the culture of a civilisation.

'The Lighthouse Keeper' by Fran Slade

Naive art has a separate and quite distinctive charm. It is about the wonderful world of innocence. It is the world as witnessed by the unspoilt and unsophisticated stranger. It is a vision of the universe as seen and delighted over by young children. In psychological terms it is about the de-conditioning and gratification of the archaeopsychic ego state.

The noted American psychologist Dr. Eric Berne described this archaeopsychic ego state as "a still-active ego state fixated in early childhood", and as such is an echo within every grown up of the creative phase of innocent delight in all things. This ego state can be re-awakened by viewing naive art, and is the basis for the creation of such art.

It is accessed by trained artists with painful difficulty. It is not easy to shake off many years of formal education, cultural programming and the mass media value systems.

"The child's artistic output is ephemeral; as he develops his instinctive powers are reduced....The work of the naive artist has a chance at permanence; the art of the child passes away." (Modern Primitives, Thames and Hudson, London, 1971.)

Picasso is quoted as saying, "I used to draw like Raphael, but it has taken me my whole life to learn to draw like a child." And again, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist after he grows up".

To enter the world of innocence, and while therein produce desirable objects of quality, and return intact to the everyday mundane world of reality, is a skill that has to be developed over time with the dedication of a pupil of Zen. And as in Zen, the artists quest is a humility of the spirit which has to be discovered and revealed. Bianca McCullogh writes in Australian Naive Painters, published by Hill of Content; "Spiritual humility, unlike humility in action, cannot be cultivated, it is the wisdom we associate with sages, and children."

CR.Jan95.