This publication deals with Africa and the theme of the primitive. This theme offers three fundamental issues: the search for the 'first principle' as a rational response to the necessity of living; the expression of the irrational as connected to the dimension of the supersensible; the symbolic archetype of the 'mother' and the genealogy from which the contemporary cult for the vernacular derives. 'Primitivism' is the tool that the West has given itself to confront this theme. It seems to haunt European culture from the outside but it is equally the revelation in art of the image of a primitive interior. Going 'elsewhere' is therefore not a question of moving our physical limes nor is it exclusively the exploration of archaic myths. Rather, it means circumnavigating the antipodes up until returning to the origins of thought and the relationship between mankind and the ways of living, thus those ways through which our knowledge may face contemporary times but be aware of its own genealogy.

本书涉及非洲和原始人主题。这个主题提供了三个基本问题：寻找“首要原则”作为对生活需要的理性回应；非理性的表达与超感官的维度相联系；当代对方言的崇拜源于“母亲”的象征性原型和谱系。“原始主义”是西方用来面对这一主题的工具。它似乎从外部困扰着欧洲文化，但同样在艺术中揭示了原始内部的形象。因此，去“他方”并不是移动位置的问题，也不只是探索古老的神话。相反，它意味着环游原始世界，直到回到思想的起源和人类与生活方式之间的关系，让我们身处当代，追溯认知的源头。