The Case for Aesthetics inrock Art Research By Thomas Heyd With help by John Clegg
Aesthetics and Rock Art: The Book This presentation is meant as an introduction to aesthetics and rock art. The archaeologist John Clegg and I have edited two books on the subject: - Aesthetics and Rock Art III Symposium (British Archaeological Reports, 2008) and - Aesthetics and Rock Art (Ashgate, 2005, now out of print). A further session on the topic is planned for the SIARB/IFRAO Congress in La Paz, Bolivia, in 2012. 2
I. What is Rock Art? 3
Rock art is the name conventionally given to marks, made by human beings on rock, often perceived as pictures or representations. Rock art is found all over the world, among a great many cultures and in many time periods, beginning in prehistory and ranging into the present. 4
Graffiti: problematic engravings Indígenous/Native engraving from Lincoln County, Nevada, with Contemporary inscriptions http://documentary works.org/stories/ rockart/wrnnames W.jpg 5
Paintings, stencils, and drawings, made by adding material to the surface: pictographs engravings or petroglyphs: made by removing material from the surface stone arrangements: geoglyphs modified stalagmites: speleothems. 6
II. Neglect of rock art In the 19 th century art was considered as an important component of social life. Prehistoric marks on rock were treated as art. Hardly any papers have appeared that directly discuss the aesthetics or the art status of rock art, not even with a contestatory aim. But, there are good prima facie reasons for pursuing the aesthetic consideration of these marks on rock despite the prevailing trends. 7
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IIIa. Practical Difficulties for research Even the conventional use of the term art with regard to prehistoric marks on rock may lead to a reproduction of our own cultural preconceptions. For example: inappropriate division of research objects into artworks vs. useful products of prehistoric craft, such as stone tools. Silvia Tomásková concludes that archaeology will be better off not thinking of representations or pictures on rock as art. 9
IIIb. Difficulties: Theoretical Does the ascription of art status to phenomena remote from our own cultural environment make any sense? Isn t it crude ethnocentrism??!! Cueva La Pileta, http:// www.elestrecho.com/artesur/pileta.htm 10
How do we decide whether certain particular marks on rock might have been intended as art? rather than, for example, as a form of writing? Cueva La Pileta, http:// www.elestrecho.com /arte-sur/pileta.htm 11
Are they epiphenomena (unintended side effects) of other activities? We don t know the intentions of the makers of many marks on rock nor how they were appreciated. 12
IV. Aesthetics and Possible Solutions to the Difficulties Aesthetics in its most general sense is the study of attentiveness to our perceptual world given that our perceptual world is constituted by sensory as well as imaginative and cognitive contents and given that those contents become of interest for and in themselves even if appreciation of the qualities as such is part of the apprehension of a religious, political or advertising message 13
The motto might be: without high aesthetic quality no power in the image See H. Morphy, on bir yun or brilliance, in Yolngu art 14
Consequently: aesthetics concerns itself with the study of the conditions of the person who attends as well as with the contents of our perceptual world in terms of objects of aesthetic attention, be they soundscapes, visual arrays, taste patterns, imaginative spaces, or textures, AND, be they natural or artifactual. 15
Notably, it is a kind of attentiveness that is directed at the qualities of objects, spaces, places, or events for their own sake. It contrasts with attention to contents of perception as mere instruments to reach other objectives: to find a hospital by identifying a white building, or the Italian restaurant by the smell of the pizza, and so on. 16
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V. Solutions to the difficulties for research Does aesthetics necessarily have to do with beauty as understood in the European tradition? One answer: our perceptual worlds, and the qualities that we appreciate as valuable, have a genetic (evolutionary) basis aesthetic appreciation will differ from society to society but anthropology shows that aesthetic appreciation is not a purely European invention by any means. 18
Is art radically different from artesany or craft? Is art alone to be appreciated aesthetically? We do not only aesthetically appreciate artworks. We also appreciate nature aesthetically as when we value the sight of deeply green ancient forests, the smell of decaying leaves in the fall, or the sound of trees creaking in the wind as well as artworks 19
Hence we may accept that art and craft are not to be distinguished in terms of whether they can be appreciated aesthetically. So, how are aesthetics and art related?
We pay aesthetic attention to artworks because they are things designed to be fit to be an object of aesthetic attention artists made the effort to produce an object fit in that way (Paul Ziff, 1997). Picasso painting 21
But: anything can be an object of aesthetic attention If we can frame it so that we may attend to the way it appears in our perceptual world (Ziff, 1997). 22
So the difference between art and craft is that artworks are made with the intention to create something with determinate aesthetic values while artesany/craftworks may be the result of a more or less mechanical process but we can think of the difference along a continuum of gradations: all made things/artefacts can be more or less artistic. 23
Can only specially trained persons aesthetically appreciate? This is an important question In any case, the functionality of objects is no reason for exclusion from aesthetic appreciation Amygdale: " two-faced tools " Zoomorphic acheulean amygdale, length cm. 12, thickness cm. 6, height cm. 5. It represents the head of a bird with a long beak (according to Pietro Gaietto). Zoomorphic acheulean amygdale (with the eye not existing in the amygdale, but it indicates the point in which it must be imagined in order to better understand the head of the represented bird.) http://www.paleolithicartmagazine.org/pagina64.html 24
V. Solution to the theoretical difficulties Is rock art art as understood in modern Europe? This concern is only valid if we are biased toward a historically constrained, ethnocentric perspective. If we apply Ziff s succinct definition that art is the result of the intention to create something fit for aesthetic appreciation then the artworld expands. 25
We may not know whether a certain set of marks on rock were intended to be fit for aesthetic attention, or whether they are byproducts of other activities. But this circumstance should not stop us from attending to their aesthetic values. 26
Summary so far For aesthetic appreciation, we need not ignore context nor focus on some universal or transcendental quality. It is inappropriate to limit the term art to those phenomena that resemble those of any single culture (specially that of the writer!). 27
We need not know the intentions of the makers of rock art in order to usefully approach rock art from an aesthetic point of view. 28
VI. Reasons to pursue rock art aesthetics First, if there are aesthetically salient features (elegance in line quality, in composition, and so on) 29
or if a manifestation seems to require an appreciation of aesthetic Values in the process of its creation then we can suppose aesthetic perspectives in the makers analogous to those we call aesthetic. Rock of the Sorcerer (Chauvet) 30
Second, rock art presents an opportunity for art historians and philosophical aesthetics: Aesthetics at the limits of time and space 31
Third, even the attempt to do justice to the aesthetic values present in some object created or appreciated by another human being can be a rich form of participation in the complex experiences of another person s life. THE END. The sorcerer (Trois Frères) 32
Credits Photos and drawings by J. Clottes, J. Clegg, J. Coles, T. Heyd, R. Morales, M. Ogawa and J. Young, and taken from internet, as indicated. 33
References Baumgarten, Alexander G. (1961; originally published 1750-1758), Aesthetica, Hildesheim. Clegg, John (2000), Theory and common practise in rock art, International Prehistoric Art Conference Proceedings. Sher, J.A (ed.) Kemerovo: Siberian Association of Prehistoric art Researchers. 2: 5-16. --- (2001), Rock art studies: theory, in Theoretical Perspectives in Rock Art Research. K. Helskog (ed) Oslo: The Institute for Comparitive Research in Human Culture: 40-67. d Azevedo, Warren L. (ed., 1973/1989), The Traditional Artist in African Societies, Indiana University Press. Davis, Whitney (1993), Beginning the History of Art, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 51 (3), Summer, 327-50. 34
Halverson, John (1987), Art for Art s Sake in the Palaeolithic, Current Anthropology, 28 (1), February, 63-89, includes critical commentaries by various authors. Heyd, Thomas. (1998), Northern Plains Boulder Structures: Art and Foucauldian Heterotopias, in Éric Darier (ed.), Foucault and the Environment, Routledge, pp. 152-162. --- (1999), Rock Art Aesthetics: Trace on Rock, Mark of Spirit, Window on Land, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 57 (4), Fall, 451-58. --- (2001), Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories About Nature, British Journal of Aesthetics, 41, April. --- (2002a), Aesthetics and Aboriginal Australian Rock Art, Cultural and Regional Aesthetics, International Institute for Applied Aesthetics, February, www.lpt.fi/io/regional.html 35
Heyd, Thomas (2002b), Authentic Display of Rock Art: The Case of Fugoppe Cave, in Ogawa, Masaru (ed.), Fugoppe doukutsu ganmen-kokuga no sougou-teki kenky (in Japanese: Integrated Research of Petroglyphs from Fugoppe Cave, Japan), Naruto University, Japan. --- (2003), Rock Art Aesthetics and Cultural Appropriation, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 61 (1), 37-46. Kant, Immanuel (1952; originally published 1790), Critique of Judgment, trans. J.C. Meredith, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kristeller, Paul Oskar (1979), Renaissance Thought and its Sources, Columbia University Press. Lyons, Joseph (1967), Palaeolithic Aesthetics: The Psychology of Cave Art, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 26 (1), 107-14, 36
Mandoki, Katya (1994), Prosaica: Introducción a la Estética de lo Cotidiano, Mexico: Grijalbo. Mills, George (1973/1989), Art and the Anthropological Lens in d Azevedo, Warren L. (ed.), The Traditional Artist in African Societies, Indiana University Press, 379-416. Tomásková, Silvia, Places of Art: Art and Archaeology in Context in Conkey, Margaret W. et al. (eds., 1997), Beyond Art: Pleistocene Image and Symbol, San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences/University of California Press, pp. 265-87. Ziff Paul, (1997), Anything Viewed in Feagin, Susan and Patrick Maynard (eds.), Aesthetics, Oxford University Press, pp. 15-30. 37
Thomas Heyd, Philosophy University of Victoria Victoria, British Columbia V8W 3P4, Canada heydt@uvic.ca. Thomas Heyd and John Clegg (eds), Aesthetics and Rock Art, (London: Ashgate, 2005) 38
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