The Steps of Society

For this week's free write, I'll be thinking out loud about the ideas expressed in the Anthropology of Art, Chapter 2: Art and Social Life. In this chapter it discussed the rejected idea of comprehensive progress files complexity of political relations. Sahlins concept of the domestic mode of production, and puts forward the fact that the majority gatherer societies expend less energy on subsidence behavior than the average “modernized” society, with the lower levels of society I expected to produce the subsidence for the top, such as the example of French farming before World War II where 20% of the population produces subsidence for the rest.

 How does this relate to the arts?

Arts “realize and sustain their current political systems by consciously-operated procedures”. This regardless of whether level the society is thought to be at. However the relationship between how the art supports the political structures of that society changes. To help express the relationship that I gathered from reading this chapter is the diagram above. In a hunter-gatherer societies, arts embedded in average workers ritual activities, with the political head taking important role in that ritual. Arts are closely tied in to religion, and the population socially aware that they support the political standing of the participants. The society's economic ability to allow its society to participate in art, and it is expected that the majority of the population participate in ritualistic arts.

In our modern idea of nation-state’s, the arts are separated from ritual and religion and become arts with a capital A. These Arts are only for those the economic ability to patronize them. The arts are not a grounding piece the majority of society, but the ability to interact with acts goes to show the privileged status of the participant. Painting, drawing, dancing- in order to be considered Art had to be produced by one who had the time to develop that behavior. Arts are for the upper class, not the average population. It is from this upper class that the politician of modernized nation-states are expected to come from. An appreciation of arts in politician supports the idea that they have the education a.k.a. proper breeding, that are necessary for one to be in power. The historical idea arts being an upper-class activity have even been used to reverse in American politics, such as the political campaign of Teddy Roosevelt in which he allied himself with the average man, downplaying his exposure to the arts and highlighting his husbandry, a subsidence activity.

Waiting for Harry

The film Waiting for Harry is anthropologist LES Hyett’s documentation of an aborigine funeral. They take us through the process of re-entombing the bones of Harry's uncle, following the proper burial rituals of that culture. When most noteworthy points of the film was the clear commitment that Henry had to documenting the funeral and the culturally important record for the tribe. Twice during this 52 min. documentary, he is shown speaking to the tribe but the film was for them, not just for whites or anthropologists or the film crew. They are aware of the films longevity and ability to document just not just the moment, but the words and thoughts of those in it. If funeral is not a short ritual. The process of re-entombing took longer than 3 weeks to complete. To authenticate the funeral it was necessary for many “important” people to be present, Harry being the most important of these important people. It is necessary for Harry to prove the symbols drawn on the coffin, for him to approve the painting of the bones, and for him to be present at the actual funeral. There are several very distinctive traits of ritual, and through that art, which we seen the film. The place in which the coffin is prepared is built particularly for that purpose, and is seen as a special man's place where women don't go. Religion, reflection, and art are seen to be the epitome of behavior., and generally reserved for men. Only at one time in the film did we observe a women creating an object, but perhaps this creation is the to them as a craft, not an art, if there is no metaphorical meaning to the object as there is with the painting of the coffin and the metaphorical animals portrayed. The songs connected to the meaning of the dances and other the artistic behaviors, giving the events multiple layers. The use of body paint was seen repetitively in the film and I wonder about the meaning of the red orcher that was used on the bones compared to the weight he that was used by the living dancers. To drawn symbols on the coffin were explained to us but the meaning of the colors used, if there were any.  Music was heard throughout the film.  Perhaps because the movie was made for the tribe themselves, they didn't feel it was necessary to elaborate on the “common knowledge” metaphors and meaning.

The Second Side of the Equation

What’s what?

What do you see? I'ts not really there...... 

The there are two parts to the Behaviorof Art. The 1st part is the creation, and infusion of meaning into the piece thatthe artist is creating. The 2nd part of the behavior of art is done by theviewer; the process of making sense of the pieces message, or figuring out ifthere if there even is a message.  Ashumans, our brain is designed to create order from disorder; exactly what ittries to do when confronted with arts. Our brain follows logical patternstrying to fill in the perceived “missing pieces”, like how we fll in the misingletters in words, subtracttt unnessisary letters, fix imprcper spellings andput them into thier proper order when reading qiuckly.  Surrealist take advantage of the mentaltendency of ours to express their message, however, it is a double-edged swordwhen it comes to interpreting often faded prehistory art.  Like any functioning dyslexic, we mustbe constantly asking, is what we are seeing really what is there. Is ourpersonal past and expectations colouring in the cave walls?  Are our cultural metaphors invadingreality?

            Ritual,metaphor, and art, are all deeply intertwined with each other. The culturalcontext in which it pieces created how the effects the interpretations that onedraws from a piece of art. Because we'll likely never know the culturallyconstructed mindset of the artists that created prehistoric art, such as cavepaintings, and possible interpretations are limited. Objective interpretationsof cave paintings allows us to go only so far in understanding their meaning.We can count 200 horses, 73 Buffalo, and 6 Wildcats, but what do the numbersmean? Ecological reconstruction allows us see whether or not cave paintings areaccurate representations of the flora and fauna of that time. If the concentrationof the subject matter does not match up with the ecological reconstruction,then we can conclude that the artist were representing something other than thereality, implying a cultural bias, a connection to what was represented; sometype of Tran idea. So, we through that they had abstract thoughts, whichactually makes it harder for us modern people to try to figure out what theywere trying to express!  

Prof. Robertson posed to thequestion to us ”should we study prehistoric art? Should we try as hard as we doto understand it?”   We willnever have concrete answers; our interpretations will always be subjective.However, such a preponderance of the past instances of such a defining part ofour nature reveals something of ourselves. Almost anything is possible, 

Assorted Reading...

I came about this article as I prepared for my presentation on Realism in Art. It ties perfectly into the class...
www.perey-anthropology.net/world_music/escom_1.htm

Cave painting takes paint...
In African Cave, Signs of an Ancient Paint Factory

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Exit though the gift shop

I feel focusing on where or not exit thorough the gift shop is a real documentary is to overlook the message of the film. It is a social commentary (ok, so likely to be a Bankey piece of art). Its focuses is not defining art and our relation to it.

He relates to it but he feel it when he is creating, he goes for what he feels will people will like, the audience supplied al the meaning to the pieces interpretation 

42 Equals.....

42 equals:

            The “Expression and satisfaction of the longing for transcendence is, for humans “the meaning of life””; to be independent while coming together.

            To this I agree, but how long do we allow it to?

As the last free write ended up developing a tangential idea from The Cave Painters this weeks free write will cover the importance of feeling, chapter 6 of What is Art for?

Earlier in the class we had proposed that the purpose of art is transmission and communication of ideas that are difficulty to express in another manners; that Art works as social glue. Traits that are deemed Universal, as art is, must be tied into an early, universally shared experience.  As such our ability to appreciate art as a mean of empathy is developed as a child.

Bawlby contends that the propensity to attachment is an indelible part of human nature and that it leads us latter in life to try to find unity and a meting of the minds.

Agreeing to this point, disagreement arises with the assortment that there is also an inherent appetitive need for the infant and juvenile to form a close exclusive bond with its mother or mother figure. Bawlby assumes that “ that selection would have favored the survival of young children who have a positive attachment to one protective figure.”

Contrast this with the work of Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. Her work puts forth that the mother is less important then the fact that the child gets enough care to feel safe.  In most of our ancestry this care and safety was provided the mother and other clan members. Using the term Allomothers for these caregivers, complete care during childhood can be seen in traits as social “compliance,” respect for others, and self-control; traits that build upon art as a behavior.  The study Hrdy used  “showed no detectable ill effects from day care only when infants had a secure relationship with parents to begin with (which I take to mean that babies felt wanted) and only when the day care was of high quality.” This is not the reality of our only 12 weeks of parental leave society and shift quality daycare.

So if a child feels safe in relation to all the people caring for him or her, then they are able to develop the necessary traits to appreciate art.  If modern life requirements do not allow this feeling of safety, the child will become detached from their caregivers, and people as a whole.

But detached children don’t always become “lonely, socially deprived adults” as Bowlby explains them during his description of the symptoms of loss. “Being extremely self-centered or selfish, being oblivious to others or lacking in conscience are probably quite adaptive traits for an individual who is short on support from other group members.” These traits sound also carry the ring of the modern values of a capitalistic worker; these so-called negative traits can make detached children finically and socially successful.

Since the success of the person no longer is dependent on the ability to bond, this trait will no longer be selected for.

Defining the evolution of art as humanities long attempt at transcendental expression and communication, the ability to empathies and bond is key. If Hrdy is correct, could our commercial world lead to the lost art as we know it?

Article Mothers and Others by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy:

http://naturalhistorymag.com/picks-from-the-past/11440/mothers-and-others