The mystery of primitive art: Restauratio Magna

Abstract

The article examines the concept of primitive art within the framework of the “current” (techenie) associated with Mikhail Lifshitz and György Lukács, who are considered founders of Marxist aesthetics. They strongly criticized “Soviet” art history and Soviet philosophy, viewing them as a caricature of Marxism. The fierce polemics of the Lifshitz–Lukács current against “vulgar Marxism” and the leadership of the Union of Soviet Writers (A.A. Fadeyev, V.V. Ermilov, et al.) led to the effective exclusion of Lifshitz, Lukács, and other members of the group from the literary and public life of the USSR for many years. Lukács’s works, published abroad, were not accessible to Soviet readers until the mid-1980s, while Lifshitz’s primary philosophical ideas, including his ontognoseology and the Restauratio Magna programme, were only known after his death and the publication of several volumes from his extensive estate. One of the first posthumous publications was Lifshitz’s book Poetic Justice (1993), which set forth a conception of primitive art that stood in polemical opposition to the prevailing views of both Soviet and foreign art history. This article provides an analytical review of the “current's” ideas on primitive art and art in general as a form of “evocation” — a practice of reviving the ideal principle of being: the “Great restoration” (Restauratio Magna) of man and a transfigured nature.