The influence of primitive cultures on expressionism

At the begining of the XXth century, African art forms and the primitive cultures of Oceania had a extraordinary and profound influence on European intelligentsia. This influence was especially visible on German Expressionism and fauvism, a contemporary movement to the former. The compositions highlighted within the plastic logic of the cubists and the reception power of the plastic forms to the African sculpture achieved recognition. This plastic freedom, born out of results of the cubist synthetic and analytic, had a deep influence on the European artists against the primitive art.The modern Neo-Primitive of German Expressionism, Die Brücke expressionists diverted their artistic expressions into benefiting from the archeological and ethnological heritage of the cultures of Primitive Africa, Polynesia, Public Art and Oceania. Thus, this orientation existed as detached from the german military policy, and protested against it. It was also rejected by the idealist phlosophy which deified the war Germany actively participated in. However, under these political conditions, the expressionist artists combined `the modern? with `the primitive? and `the civilized? with `the wild? getting into the spiritual world of the primitive man who exemplifed the communal life where the colonist and militarist ideal of the West and Greek-Rome principle were rejected. Thus, expressionist works shaked the colonist hegemony that lied beneath the scorn for the primitive cultures? productions and the judgements like `uncultivatedness? they held against the primitive art and life. Thanks to expressionists, the contributions of the aesthetic objects of primitive cultures contributed to the modern art of XXth century could only gain meaning and importance with the emergence of the ties between the past primitive art and modern European works of art.