o the influence of primitive artwork, as they exhibit many of the same aesthetic attributes and are still able depict human emotion in a raw and powerful manner.In addition, the subject matter of the Fauvists was deeply influenced by primitive artwork. In this regard, Matisse is an outstanding example. The nude woman bathers in his Three Bathers (1907), Women by the Sea (1908) and Le Luxe II (1908) parallel the theme of the female bath evident in African and Oceanic art (Goldwater 90). In the three paintings, Matisse renders these figures in the traditional simplified form of the primitive, but, at the same time, updates and westernizes them. Modern elements, such as the sailboats in the background of Women by the Sea and the recognizable hairstyles of some of the women, work to further juxtapose the modern with the primitive. The subject of the dance is also dealt with in Matisse's artwork. For centuries, the dance has been tied to ritualistic practices of primitive cultures (Goldwater 50). Matisse depicts the natural power of the dance in Dance (1908), where five nude women are joined hand in hand in a seemingly instinctual ritual. The fact that the figures are nude and devoid of any modern clothing or accoutrements further emphasizes the influence of the primitive. In all of these works, Matisse glorifies the union of the figure with nature and the contrast of its lack of action with its apparent emotional savagery, typical of primitive works (Goldwater 90).The German Expressionist members of Die Brcke also knew of primitive painting and sculpture. The creations of the indigenous people of Africa and Oceania were "discovered" by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in the Dresden ethnological musuem in 1904, which he recounts in his history of the group, the Chronik der Brcke (Lloyd 24). While Gauguin knew of the artwork of the Oceania and the Fauvists were familiar with the figures and masks from Africa, the Germans found both Africa an...
