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Abstract:

The article develops the comprehensive study of primitivist tendencies in the culture of the 20^th century, in particular in the field of surrealism, proposed by A.F. Kofman. We consider primitivism as one of the most important features of surrealist creativity, and as an example we took the organically interconnected theories, and literary and artistic practices of André Breton (1896– 1966): on the one hand, manifestos and treatises, poetry, and prose, on the other — his activity of identifying and creating “surrealist objects” and “poem objects”. The article traces the evolution of Breton’s attitude to the visual arts of his time (especially to avant-garde movements and the work of self-taught artists), and the influence of visual arts on his theories. Particular attention is paid to spontaneous and “naïve” principles in art, as well as the creativity of primitive peoples, the insane, children, etc. Breton’s passion for creating “poem objects” occurs in parallel with his search for what he called a “new myth”; as a result, in 1942 he develops an entire system of myth-making in the “Prolegonema to a Third Surrealist Manifesto or Not” and the brochure “On the Survival of Certain Myths and on Some Other Myths in Growth or Formation”. Breton and his comrades in surrealism create a specific way of thinking, reminiscent of practices analyzed, for example, by L. Lévy-Bruhl and С. Lévi- Strauss: they could be designated as “intellectual bricolage”, and the philosophy of surrealism — as “mythological thinking”.