Primitivism in the Works of Carl Einstein, Carl Sternheim and

The question of the rediscovery of so-called primitive art, in particular the art of Central Africa and Polynesia, is both a broader and a narrower topic than it might at first sight appear. Broader, in that the enthusiasm for primitive art is but one aspect of a widespread rejection of scientific positivism, of rational modes which were associated in the climate of cultural pessimism from around 1900 onwards with technological advance and rampant materialism; narrower, in that comparatively little was written about primitive art, except in the most general of terms, and the adoption of motifs from primitive art often plays only a small part in the repertoire of writers and painters. This article will not attempt a history of primitivism. Its aim is two-fold: to explore some of the wider implications of primitivism in the work of three writers of the Expressionist generation; and to draw attention to some striking parallels in their work, parallels which criticism has hitherto ignored. ’ I Primitivism, in the broadest sense, conditioned the aesthetic