The roots of what Terence McKenna envisioned as the “Archaic Revival”  (1992) are most probably in the modernist artistic and literary movements known as Primitivism. 

​

Primitivism is an interconnected art style and philosophical doctrine that believes primitive humans and their unsophisticated behaviors were more noble and innocent than modern, civilized people. It began in the late 1800s and some experts consider Primitivism a “found sensibility and cultural attitude” more than an art style unto itself. Primitivist ideals can be combined with other art styles. Primitivism as an art style comes from a mix of artwork from ancient cultures and the native art styles found in contemporary tribal societies (although mostly from a Western lens). The style can be found in the traditional arts, in music, in philosophical ideals, and in literature. Many of the dominant voices in the Primitivist art style were European artists who wanted to make their idealized version of what they considered “uncivilized art.” These perceived “uncivilized” cultures were romanticized by Western artists and seen as more pure and/or noble. The artistic movements of Fauvism and Cubism are thought to have arisen as a direct result of Primitivism. Paul Gauguin was one of the most influential names in the Primitivist movement. Pablo Picasso is likely the largest name connected to the Primitivist art style. Picasso is identified as the first practitioner of Primitivism, which directly led to the style he would be most known for: Cubism. Henri Matisse led the development of Fauvism from a foundation of Primitivism. African art styles played a major influence in this period of Matisse’s work.

​

In the arts of the Western World, Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that means to recreate the experience of the primitive time, place, and person, either by emulation or by recreation. In European art, the aesthetics of Primitivism included techniques, motifs, and styles copied from the arts of Asian, African, and Australasian peoples perceived as primitive in relation to the urban civilization of western Europe. Moreover, the term Primitivism also identifies the techniques, motifs, and styles of painting that predominated representational painting before the emergence of the Avant-garde; and also identifies the styles of Naïve art and of folk art produced by amateur artists, such as Henri Rousseau, who painted for personal pleasure. The paintings of Paul Gauguin and of Pablo Picasso, and the music of Igor Stravinsky usually are cited as notable examples of Primitivism in art.

​

Historians most often use the term “Primitivism” to refer to the attempt to reconstruct a religious tradition’s original theology, structure, or beliefs. Primitivists believe that the earliest expressions of the faith are the most efficacious, powerful, and valid, and hence they attempt to recapture them in as complete a form as it is possible for them to imagine. Thus, they frequently dissent from established religious traditions, believing that those constructed under the primitive impulse achieve superior purity. In Western philosophy, Primitivism proposes that the people of a primitive society possess a Morality and an ethics that are superior to the urban value system of civilized people; thus, in art and in philosophy, Primitivism is nostalgia for a non-existent golden age in the Garden of Eden.

​

Primitivism, which has taken many forms over the centuries (among its two basic styles: artistic and cultural), may be seen, beginning around the late nineteenth century, as the beginnings of a cultural critique aimed at “modernity,” which sought to overturn the value-laden hierarchy of civilized and modern over savage and primitive,  a preliminary stage to the eventual breakdown of the distinction itself.

Some dissenting Americans of that time advocated “Primitivism,” which they understood as “uncorrupted,” because they believed it had the potential to “energize and renew” American civilization. They believed deeply that white American civilization was bankrupt and that renewal would come from “primitive people,” they had the childlike energies and insights that would reinvigorate white American society. Thus, for example, during the Harlem Renaissance, the African-American writers Zora Neal Hurston and Langston Hughes were intent upon anthropologically discovering the “primitive,” in black culture through stories and songs. In this sense “Primitivism” was a search for spiritual illumination through the art of primitive peoples. (Yet, it should be pointed out that for all this noble and well-intentioned search “Primitivism” was not without its pitfalls, and thus this endeavor was been controversial in African-American history.)

​

The Gypsy Scholar sees the concept of the “Archaic Revival” as hearkening back to the Romantic period (18th & 19th centuries), with what has been termed “The Romantic Quest for Origins.” For the Romantic poets, writers, and artists, this was basically a quest to recover the ancient past (whether through lost poetic texts, forgotten traditions, or ancient ruins).