“The ‘clumsiness’ of primitive art is the precondition of its eloquence. What it is saying could never be said with any ready-made skills. For what it is saying was never meant, according to the cultural class system, to be said…The primitive begins alone; he inherits no practice. He does not use the pictorial grammar of the tradition–hence he is ungrammatical. He has not learnt the technical skills which have evolved with the conventions–hence he is clumsy. He knows already that his own lived experience which is forcing him to make art has no place in that tradition.”
“The will of primitives derives from the faith in their own experience and a profound skepticism about society as they have found it. This is true even of such an amiable artist as Grandma Moses.” The ‘faith’ part applies to children; the skepticism perhaps not–but it applies to adults who like children’s art–liking it for the negative light it casts on the grammar and conventions of culture or professional society. And Berger associates those with class and power. (Berger, John. About Looking. New York: Pantheon, 1980., p. 68)