Collector's Visions

At the beginning of the twentieth century, at a time of turmoil when art was undergoing unprecedented upheaval, the West and especially France, began to turn its eyes towards distant cultures until then largely neglected. Artists were in the throes of questioning all canons and were seduced by the freshness they found in the art of these cultures. The outcome is what we know today as "Primitivism." But at the same time, through a sort of aesthetic empathy, art lovers, critics, poets and dealers developed a passion for the intrinsic beauty of these objects, which began to arrive in Europe in large numbers, brought home by colonial administrators, missionaries or officers on overseas postings. The extraordinary expressiveness and at the same time great harmoniousness of the best of these works enchanted them. Guillaume Apollinaire was not afraid to talk of "the very principles of great art" when discussing African art. This book acknowledges this art's role in world art and looks at the way beauty was perceived through the "eye" of great art lovers. Some of these are mentioned in this publication, which discusses the works they painstakingly amassed. Many of these works are now famous and indeed have come to be regarded as "icons."