Art as Microcosm (2004)

[Victor Pross]

Case in point: whatever word was used---art or craft or aesthetics---the phenomena of “art” was being dealt with by these ancient philosophers. But there is not a bevy of philosophers thereafter defining “art” or contributing to the field to the extent Ayn Rand did. It was Rand who provided the philosophical foundations of esthetics.

-Victor

This is an astounding statement. She made a few observations and provided a definition.

--Brant

--Brant

Brant, there you are again: looking at a bark of wood on the tree and missing the forest.

You know the background: Ayn Rand set out with the goal to be becoming a writer and projecting a view of the ideal man. As she strived toward this goal, she found that the necessary tools did not exist. There was no consistent philosophical system to provide a basis for an efficacious, goal-oriented hero capable of successfully achieving his values in the real world. She discovered that 19th century art—particularly Romantic literature—as profound as it was, had been undercut by explicit philosophical views which were in conflict with the implicit projection of a “great soul-man.” She found that the Romanticists themselves were unable to identify what made Romanticism so profound.

Ayn Rand could not proceed from this basis to create her ideal art, nor could she start at the top of the philosophical hierarchy with a new theory of esthetics. To proceed, she had to go all the way back to the base of the hierarchy, re-examine all of the contradictions and missing links. She had to discover new fundamental principles and develop a whole systematic view of the universe, man, knowledge and a code of morality. Her esthetic theories are not divorced from the rest of her philosophy. It was an astounding accomplishment.

-Victor

Edited February 19, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

For example, you took the “institutional definition” of art (that you said does not exist except as a Victor Pross construct, and Ellen corrected you on that) and called this “cognitive.” (!!) So the question came to my mind: do YOU know what they mean?

Victor,

On the contrary, your definition of "institutional" has nothing to do with my definition of "cognitive," yet you keep repeating that I use the "institutional" version. (Ellen merely explained what the institutional version was and that it existed. She did not affirm that this was what I meant.)

These words were defined oodles of posts ago and they are very different, yet you keep repeating the fallacy that this is the definition that I use. This is not the only time you have done that, either. So here is your first logical fallacy.

How serious am I to take this level of discussion?

Michael

[Victor Pross]

For example, you took the “institutional definition” of art (that you said does not exist except as a Victor Pross construct, and Ellen corrected you on that) and called this “cognitive.” (!!) So the question came to my mind: do YOU know what they mean?

Victor,

On the contrary, your definition of "institutional" has nothing to do with my definition of "cognitive," yet you keep repeating that I use the "institutional" version. (Ellen merely explained what the institutional version was and that it existed. She did not affirm that this was what I meant.)

These words were defined oodles of posts ago and they are very different, yet you keep repeating the fallacy that this is the definition that I use. This is not the only time you have done that, either. So here is your first logical fallacy.

How serious am I to take this level of discussion?

Michael

Michael,

Sure, she did not affirm it—directly and point-blank. But so what? I’m not citing Ellen as a final authority on this. Yes, I asserted that you employed the “institutional definition” and I backed it up with argument and demonstration. It’s posted…for all to see...no need to repeat it. Yes, it is a moot point...but perhaps it’s not a good thing to belabor. By the way, that you disagree with me here—yet again—does not shake my world.

You may take this conversation very seriously. Come on, I’m not really saying anything so outrageous…not really. I am apart of that common-sense public at odds with postmodernist academia and its treaties in unintelligible vocabularies--and yepper, there is a whole coterie behind me on this. So there is no point in Lone-wolfing me here. :turned:

-Victor

Edited February 19, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Yes, I asserted that you employed the “institutional definition” and I backed it up with argument and demonstration.

Victor,

You certainly did not "back it up with argument and demonstration." You ignored my definition. Period. Then you claimed that I was using another one—one that I never used—ever—and you keep repeating that claim.

That is what I object to. The blank-out. (Sorry. but there is no other word for it.)

And that is not the only case.

Michael

[Victor Pross]

Michael,

"I disagree with the attempt to hijack the word, 'art,' for all contexts, impose only one meaning on it and prohibit the rest of mankind from using the other meanings that have developed over the centuries."

Focusing the attention back to this again, it almost seems as if you are suggesting that there is a philosophical Basket Robbins with a variety of flavors in tasty definitions—anyone one of them being just as legitimate as the other, and also whatever the accompanying theory following a given thinker’s definition. It’s all good. Hey, you don’t like the chocolate definition of art—here, try vanilla. They are all so yummy!

Michael, playing along in the fantasy that there are tons of various and diverse definitions of 'art' sprinkled through out history---who would have figured you an “egalitarian of the arts”? This is so generous! Oh, it is just so open-minded of you!

(I'm playing around).

-Victor

Edited February 20, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Ellen Stuttle]

On the contrary, your [Victor's] definition of "institutional" has nothing to do with my definition of "cognitive," yet you keep repeating that I use the "institutional" version. (Ellen merely explained what the institutional version was and that it existed. She did not affirm that this was what I meant.)

Right. "Ellen merely explained what the institutional version was [and] did not affirm that this was what [MSK] meant." Quite useless to try to tell Victor what anyone really said, but, MSK, Ellen acknowledges that you understood what Ellen explained.

Ellen

___

[Victor Pross]

Michael,

On the Art and Sub-Objectivity thread, you offered a this definition of art:

"…an object or performance made by and for human beings solely for the purpose of contemplation."

I said:

"Though it had the merit of brevity, it contains the absurd notion that something—anything—becomes art by having the status “conferred” upon it. More over, the term “object” is rather open-ended. What objects? Cell phones and joy buzzers? And you do not help matters when you say ‘It is clear to me that ‘art’ can be defined cognitively to include all art’ when a rational definition of ‘art’ is still wanting."

You summed up your position here:

“Art (painting for the time being so as to stay simple and consistent with the previous posts) is exhibited in special display spaces like galleries, museums, halls, etc. People go there to contemplate it. So long as people produce it and consume it like that, it is cognitively ‘art.’”

Then I went on to say:

"Your approach is riddled with all the pitfalls that are characteristic in modern philosophy—especially in epistemology. Your definition [and explanations] of art preserve the same fundamentally circular thrust: virtually anything is art if a reputed artist or other purported expert says its art--if that is the intention, then cognitively—it is art. Therefore, 'art' does not have an identity."

This is the "institutional definition" of art, and as such, it fails.

Listen, I once went to exhibit in New York which ran several weeks and it exemplified the “cutting edge” in 20th century so-called art: the ‘artist’—who was himself the centerpiece of the ‘artwork’—stripped naked, donned a collar and chain, and scurried around on all fours barking at the gallery patrons. Why am I telling you this?

Again, I repeat your words:

“Art…is exhibited in special display spaces like galleries, museums, halls, etc. People go there to contemplate it. So long as people produce it and consume it like that, it is cognitively ‘art.’”

So the barking fool is art! And so everything can be art if it is “exhibited in special display spaces like galleries, museums, halls, etc" and so long as "people produce it and consume it like that, it is cognitively ‘art.'"

Hello? Can you say “institutional definition”? And PLUS it's "cognitive."

Anyway, much later on in that thread, Ellen did chime in with the gentle suggestion that your claim does hint at the “institutional definition.” Really! You then found yourself on the defense with the both of us. No, you didn’t freak out—and there is also no point here to launch into a “Sez you” game. Simply type in “institution definition” (where Ellen is concerned) in the search and the relevant posts can be found.

TA-DAAA!

-Victor

Edited February 19, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Victor,

As I said, words can have more than one definition (and I started with cognitive/normative).

You obviously disagree (despite protests to the contrary) and make a number of logical fallacies doing so, starting with the constant use of the cognitive definition in the place of the normative one and vice-versa, then making all kinds of bombastic rhetorical statements and illustrating with an anecdote or two that do not really have much bearing on the initial issue. As I pointed out, you also wrongly attribute a definition to me that I never used. (The cognitive definition of the human activity of art is the broader concept and includes all definitions, since they all start there, yet you claim that I call this "institutional.")

So there is no sense in further discussion. We disagree on a fundamental point (the word "art" has more than one definition, being that there is "institutional" in your discourse, but you claim that is not art anyway).

I bow out.

I will discuss art with others but not with you (once again, despite agreeing with some of your opinions). We all have limits on how much we tolerate our words being constantly misrepresented.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Case in point: whatever word was used---art or craft or aesthetics---the phenomena of “art” was being dealt with by these ancient philosophers. But there is not a bevy of philosophers thereafter defining “art” or contributing to the field to the extent Ayn Rand did. It was Rand who provided the philosophical foundations of esthetics.

-Victor

This is an astounding statement. She made a few observations and provided a definition.

--Brant

--Brant

Brant, there you are again: looking at a bark of wood on the tree and missing the forest.

You know the background: Ayn Rand set out with the goal to be becoming a writer and projecting a view of the ideal man. As she strived toward this goal, she found that the necessary tools did not exist. There was no consistent philosophical system to provide a basis for an efficacious, goal-oriented hero capable of successfully achieving his values in the real world. She discovered that 19th century art—particularly Romantic literature—as profound as it was, had been undercut by explicit philosophical views which were in conflict with the implicit projection of a “great soul-man.” She found that the Romanticists themselves were unable to identify what made Romanticism so profound.

Ayn Rand could not proceed from this basis to create her ideal art, nor could she start at the top of the philosophical hierarchy with a new theory of esthetics. To proceed, she had to go all the way back to the base of the hierarchy, re-examine all of the contradictions and missing links. She had to discover new fundamental principles and develop a whole systematic view of the universe, man, knowledge and a code of morality. Her esthetic theories are not divorced from the rest of her philosophy. It was an astounding accomplishment.

-Victor

Oh, Rand was all of a piece, that's for sure, but you are talking about Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, not the philosophy of anyone else. Her aesthetics are mostly trapped therein.

She did not live in the world out there; she lived in her self-created world, understandable in a great artist.

When her friends and associates couldn't take it any more they left or were kicked out for a variety of reasons, including her not wanting to take it any more from them. Consider John Hospers.

Your attitude towards Rand perfectly illustrates the seductive power of both her and her philosophy, which like a snowball rolling down a hill gets bigger and bigger (and faster).

One can reasonably say her whole philosophy flowed out of her aesthetics, which validates neither the philosophy nor the aesthetics. One can also say it flows out of axioms into ethics and politics with aesthetics stuck in there somewhere. Also the ethics can be a starting point causing reasoning to the axiomatic base and in the other direction to the politics and anything else she deemed worthy of comment. If she said it then that's Objectivism, I suppose, including all sanctioned work. All this reasonableness seems mostly reason with not so much content, but a lot of deduction.

And then there's Nietzsche. I think he had the most to do, along with the Russian revolution degeneration into communism, with what she became with Victor Hugo thrown in for good measure, not to mention her great brains.

--Brant

Edited February 19, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[James Shay]

Michael,

Oy. Must you begin your post mischaracterizing my position and blaming me for some “controversy”?

(Heavy sigh)

To state it for the record: I am aware that words can have more than one definition, but what I am against is the subjectivity of concepts and the categorizing of works that are not art as art—and this is what you find happening in the modern art world: ("That cat is a rock!")

I think Jeff is able to read my own words and come to a conclusion without your aid.

You say that I think “defining a precise meaning for a concept and including it as a specific category under a broader concept somehow diminishes the value of it” and that I wish to “impose the restricted meaning on all others.”

Yes, back to the esthetic dictator argument. Again, I am against the “anything can be art” school of subjectivism.

Let me simply speak for myself, and I’ll use the art of painting as my case in point.

One common notion [typical of 20th century Modernism] is the curious idea that art cannot be defined—that it should not be "limited" by definitions, and that anything that "expands the definition of art" is good. With this approach, toilet installations got tossed into the pot—along with the pot! Everything can be art! It is all subjective!

My standpoint is directly opposing to this view, and here I agree with Rand when she stated that “definitions are the guardians of rationality.”

THIS is the problem we face: the hosility to definitions---to rationality. That is the modernist and postmodernist movement.

From the beginning, the defining characteristic of modernism in painting was to acquire a polar-opposite, the very antithesis of what “academic art” embodies—such as skill and technique and then, subsequently, the rejection of all parameters of fine painting. Thus all subject-matter was abolished (substituted was the dribbling of paint on canvas) that has graduated to the post-modern "art for art’s sake” where excrement has become a medium.

So take everything that a representational painting encompasses, strip away all of the defining components... and you will have modernism in painting.

The proponents of abstract painting purpose was to strip away twenty-five thousand years of rational principles--of intelligibility and objectivity for raw emotion. For them, the material world of perceptible objects in three-dimensional space had no connection to the world of “pure spirit” and must therefore be eliminated.

An art work—in this case, painting, has a specific nature like anything else in the universe (metaphysical or man-made). It is a mistake to simply take the materials, the art supplies of painting, (namely the canvas and paints, etc) and slap it down where you would be unable to distinguish it from Bessie the ape’s work or a child’s play. Presenting such a thing as art and labeling it as art, shouting out “this is art!” …does not make it art. This is subjectivism. And I don’t mean one’s response to the work, but rather—it is the subjectivity of concepts.

This is what I am arguing against.

-Victor

Victor, In your mention above of abstract painting I do not understand your reference to 25,000 years of rational principles. I also think you meant "purpose", not "proponants". Are you referring to those principles in art and philosophy that you think began in the art of Gravettian Era, which extended from 27,000 to 22,000 years ago? How and in what art are they manifest?

In referring to rational principles, do you mean those of the modern and imaginative mind, which is suppposed to have arisen approximately 45,000 years ago? If you are referring to the beginnings of modern painting, you must go back 32,000 years ago to Chauvet Cave for any significant work. At least, until something older is found.

If I were you, I would not hasten to appropriate this art. For example, all of the significant painted caves, as well as many of the engravings on bone and other objects, contain a lot of your nemesis, abstract art In Lascaux approximately 20% of the work is abstract. Among these abstractions are Mondrian-like grids. I refer you to an excellent recent book, The Cave Painters, by Gregory Curtis. Check it out for further explanations of the abstract work within Lascaux.

I love a lot of this painting, as many artists do. If I correctly understand the spirit of your remark, perhaps you do, as well. Both Picasso and Balthus have spoken with tremendous admiration about the extraoridnary art of the caves the Dordogne Valley. Are referring to this, or to Altamira? Or what?

When you make vague, unsubstantiated, sometimes quite inaccurate, off-the-cuff remarks, and when you misidentify a Fra Angelico Annunciation as being by Raphael, I distrust what you assert so stridently in your posts.

With regard to definitions, when you admiringly refer to Aristotle, remember that in The Nichomachean Ethics he admonishes us to remember that "the same exactness must not be expected in all departments of philosophy" and that "it is the mark of an educated mind to expect that amount of exactness which the nature of the particular subject admits."

Jim

[Victor Pross]

Jim,

I followed your post with great interest and found myself very pleased and wanting to answer you. Then you lost me. That I have made an error in identifying a painting all of sudden makes me suspect as to having anything of value that I can say on the subject of art is ridiculous. You could have simply asked your questions and sought clarification, but you didn’t have to toss that in. I’m sorry.

-Victor

Edited February 19, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Jonathan]

You [ES] wrote [in post #152],

I agree with the spirit of it but not with the letter of it, since I think what she's requiring isn't necessarily possible even in regard to literature let alone non-verbal art forms.

I have serious reservations about the idea that one necessarily can identify "a theme" even in regard to literature, and with the idea that going about trying to identify "a theme" -- especially going about trying to do that as a base line -- is a good way to approach "aesthetic judgment" (meaning judgment of how well done an artwork is).

I think it depends on what one means by "a theme." I'd use the term to mean something like "the meaning or feeling that I get out of a work of art as a unit, whole, or sum of the parts." I think it's reasonable to expect that a work of art should be evaluated as a whole. If there's a better term than "a theme" to state that the whole should be evaluated, I'm fine with that.

As a "better term," how about: "the whole should be evaluated"?

Okay, that's fine with me.

I think that if what one means by "theme" is what you say, then it isn't what she meant. Instead, you're stretching her meaning to cover your knowledge and thereby losing what the lady herself was saying.

Consider a couple examples from literature. Do you think "the role of the mind in human life" (which I believe is what she said the "theme" was) does the job as a basis for judging the whole which is Atlas Shrugged? Does having that sentence in your mind help you in judging Atlas as a work of art?

And here's an example which you might be the only other person on this list besides me who's read, but I think it's an example which will well convey my point to you: What of Dhalgren? Can you even think of a one-sentence "theme" by which to judge the whole of that work? (And, quick, you only get a few minutes to "name that theme.")___

If a "theme" is an on-the-spot synopsis which has been condensed to as few words as possible, then, no, I don't think that identifying such a "theme" is necessary to evaluating a work of art. I think that a sum is what is evaluated, not a summary -- I think that one evaluates the thematic whole itself (the full meaning or feeling), not a condensed, emotionless substitute or brief description of the whole.

J

Edited February 19, 2007 by Jonathan

[Victor Pross]

Case in point: whatever word was used---art or craft or aesthetics---the phenomena of “art” was being dealt with by these ancient philosophers. But there is not a bevy of philosophers thereafter defining “art” or contributing to the field to the extent Ayn Rand did. It was Rand who provided the philosophical foundations of esthetics.

-Victor

This is an astounding statement. She made a few observations and provided a definition.

--Brant

--Brant

Brant, there you are again: looking at a bark of wood on the tree and missing the forest.

You know the background: Ayn Rand set out with the goal to be becoming a writer and projecting a view of the ideal man. As she strived toward this goal, she found that the necessary tools did not exist. There was no consistent philosophical system to provide a basis for an efficacious, goal-oriented hero capable of successfully achieving his values in the real world. She discovered that 19th century art—particularly Romantic literature—as profound as it was, had been undercut by explicit philosophical views which were in conflict with the implicit projection of a “great soul-man.” She found that the Romanticists themselves were unable to identify what made Romanticism so profound.

Ayn Rand could not proceed from this basis to create her ideal art, nor could she start at the top of the philosophical hierarchy with a new theory of esthetics. To proceed, she had to go all the way back to the base of the hierarchy, re-examine all of the contradictions and missing links. She had to discover new fundamental principles and develop a whole systematic view of the universe, man, knowledge and a code of morality. Her esthetic theories are not divorced from the rest of her philosophy. It was an astounding accomplishment.

-Victor

Oh, Rand was all of a piece, that's for sure, but you are talking about Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, not the philosophy of anyone else. Her aesthetics are mostly trapped therein.

She did not live in the world out there; she lived in her self-created world, understandable in a great artist.

When her friends and associates couldn't take it any more they left or were kicked out for a variety of reasons, including her not wanting to take it any more from them. Consider John Hospers.

Your attitude towards Rand perfectly illustrates the seductive power of both her and her philosophy, which like a snowball rolling down a hill gets bigger and bigger (and faster).

One can reasonably say her whole philosophy flowed out of her aesthetics, which validates neither the philosophy nor the aesthetics. One can also say it flows out of axioms into ethics and politics with aesthetics stuck in there somewhere. Also the ethics can be a starting point causing reasoning to the axiomatic base and in the other direction to the politics and anything else she deemed worthy of comment. If she said it then that's Objectivism, I suppose, including all sanctioned work. All this reasonableness seems mostly reason with not so much content, but a lot of deduction.

And then there's Nietzsche. I think he had the most to do, along with the Russian revolution degeneration into communism, with what she became with Victor Hugo thrown in for good measure, not to mention her great brains.

--Brant

Oh yes, I have been seduced by Rand’s seductive power, that old sorcerer of reason, huh? (Insert spooky music here) LOL. Brant, this part of your post alone made me laugh, but the rest struck me as intellectual apoplexy and so I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I'm sorry, maybe you could try again.

-Victor

Edited February 20, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Ellen Stuttle]

For example, all of the significant painted caves, as well as many of the engravings on bone and other objects, contain a lot of your nemesis, abstract art In Lascaux approximately 20% of the work is abstract. Among these abstractions are Mondrian-like grids. I refer you to an excellent recent book, The Cave Painters, by Gregory Curtis. Check it out for further explanations of the abstract work within Lascaux.

Jim,

I think you (and some others reading this thread) would be interested in a passage from a book in progress titled Evolution and Archetype: The Biology of Jung by John Ryan Haule. The author says that the material on his site is "free for reading and downloading," but of course, since this material is in draft stage, it's not to be cited for publication.

The stages of trance. Jean Clottes believes the cave paintings reflect altered states of consciousness cultivated by shamans the world over. "At all times and in all places, people have entered ecstasies or frenzied altered states of consciousness and experienced hallucinations. Indeed, the potential to shift, voluntarily or involuntarily, between different states of consciousness is a function of the universal human nervous system" (Clottes & Lewis-Williams, 1998: 12). [....] Entering into the caves promoted altered states, since social isolation, sensory deprivation, and extended exposure to cold temperatures naturally induce altered states of consciousness (Ibid., 29). When we are in an altered state, all of our senses "hallucinate" (Ibid., 14).

          The essence of Clottes' shamanic interpretation of the cave paintings is that three stages of trance have been documented, and visions characteristic of all three are to be found painted on the walls of the caves. The stages are well established and have been used elsewhere to analyze shamanic visions (e.g., Reichel-Dolmatoff, 1971, 1975).

          In the first and lightest stage of trance, one sees ABSTRACT GEOMETRIC FORMS [my emphasis]: grids, rainbows, parallel lines, star bursts, zigzags, dots, and the like. They are brightly colored, flicker, change size and shape, and merge with one another. With the eyes open, one sees them projected on the walls. Reichel-Dolmatoff reports that the South American Indians of today who achieve these effects with drugs (yage or ayahuasca) intensively discuss the geometric forms and interpret them in line with a mythology that centers on the Milky Way. We might well suspect that our Ice Age ancestors also made them a matter of community discussion and interpretation. Whatever they may have thought of these geometric "phosphenes," however, they painted them on the walls of their caves. What Leroi-Gourhan interpreted as gender symbols, appear much more likely to be literal representations of the sights people saw when they entered trance.

          In the second stage, the changing phosphorescent forms seem to coalesce into recognizable everyday objects: teacups, snakes, etc. The second stage flows right into the third, as the phosphenes organize themselves into a vortex or tunnel lined with the geometric forms, which then draws the individual through into a bizarre world of deep trance. People, animals, monsters, and landscape are vividly real, or perhaps intensely dreamlike. Entranced individuals may find they can fly or that they become the animals they see or even the geometric forms: "The fretwork is I" (Clottes & Lewis-Williams, 16f).

We emphasize that these three stages are universal and wired into the human nervous system, though the meanings given to the geometrics of Stage One, the objects into which they are illusioned in Stage Two, and the hallucinations of Stage Three are all culture-specific; at least in some measure, people hallucinate what they expect to hallucinate. A San shaman [from South Africa] may see an eland antelope; an Inuit will see a polar bear or a seal. But allowing for such cultural diversity, we can be fairly sure that the three stages of altered consciousness provide a framework for an understanding of shamanic experiences (Ibid., 19).

The meaning of the painted caves. Jean Clottes' collaborator in The Shamans of Prehistory: Trance and Magic in the Painted Caves (1998), David Lewis-Williams, is an expert on the rock art of the San Bushmen of southern Africa, which bears many similarities with that of the Ice Age caves. For example, when an eland is killed, the act of killing, the death of the eland, and the place where it dies are all "filled with power" and may occasion a commemorative dance by the tribal shaman. Furthermore, the blood of the eland may be mixed with the paint to be used in the rock art, in order to fill the paintings themselves with potency (Ibid., 33). Finally, when realistic elands are painted, they may be given "small, easily missed features, such as red lines on their faces, that imply that they are actually transformed shamans" (Ibid., 34). This does not prove anything about the cave art, but it does suggest that many of those "points" and "slash marks" that gave rise to the [now discarded] "hunting-magic" theory might have been intended to indicate that the animals so decorated represent shamans who had been transformed into animals in their trances.

          The San believe that behind the painted rock wall lurks a spirit world; and they try to establish a link with that world, not only in their altered states of consciousness but also by means of their blood-powered paint. Just like the Ice Age people in the caves, they blow paint over the backs of their hands while pressing their palms against the rock wall. In this way, they leave the red outline of a hand trying to reach through the rock to the mystic realm. Clottes and Lewis-Williams believe it is the actual covering of the hand and adjacent rock surface with paint (usually red, sometimes black) that is the important feature of the rite. For this appears to "seal" their hands into the walls. "The hands thus reached into the spiritual realm behind the membrane of rock" (Ibid., 95) Furthermore, the way they have painted many of the animals on the cave walls makes some of the horses and lions seem to be squeezing out through the cracks in the rock, sliding out of the invisible world behind the wall and displaying themselves to rapt initiates (Ibid., 33).

          There can be no question that the cave art was carefully planned: from the succession of chambers they chose to decorate, to the lay-out of each individual wall, to the way they incorporated the nodules and cracks of the wall into their compositions (Ibid., 86). Clottes and Lewis-Williams believe that the large embellished chambers were designed to function as "vestibules" that would prepare the minds of the vision questers who visited the underground world. Visitors had to make their way through several such galleries on their way to small, deeper, undecorated chambers, where they were to invoke their own visions in solitude and in a state of sensory deprivation (Ibid., 110). "The embellished vestibules stocked their minds . . . [and] worked toward conformity of visions and so the consolidation of power" (Ibid., 106).

          The evidence seems very strong that what is depicted on those walls is some sort of transformation of Nature as it is found above ground under the sun and stars. There are no sun and stars below. It really seems to be an hallucinatory world, a set of visions that point to a cosmos larger than that of the empirical world.

The best explanation is that the caves were believed to be passages leading into the lost tier of the shamanic cosmos. People who crawled and walked through those passages were completely surrounded by the underworld: Everything -- walls, ceilings, floors, stalagmites, stalactites, bosses, nodules -- was therefore potentially significant. In the many shamanic societies, shamans visit the underworld in their hallucinations; during the Upper Paleolithic they did so in their hallucinations but also literally by exploring the passages, tunnels, and chambers of the caves (Ibid., 99).

Ellen

___

Edited February 20, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Victor Pross]

The Cave Painters:

I was reading a few reviews of the Cave Painter, it is stated that Gregory Curtis takes the reader through the major theories—that the art was part of fertility or hunting rituals, or used for religious or shamanistic purposes, or was clan mythology—examining the ways in which ethnography, archaeology, and religion have influenced the thinking about the cave paintings over time.

”The Cave Painters”, one reviewer states “is permeated with the mystery at the core of this art created so many thousands of years ago by human beings who had developed, perhaps for the first time, both the ability for abstract thought and a profound and beautiful way to express it.” [Emphasis mine].

More interesting, is this observation by Bill Marvel: “Whoever painted them had a master's eye not only for line and form and the anatomy of the animals, but for sophisticated techniques that we associate with the Renaissance, such as shading and perspective.”

Speaking of the author of the book, Marvel rights this: “Curtis follows every twist and turn as the paintings are catalogued, mapped, analyzed, dated. In a final chapter he offers his interpretation, arguing that, taken together, the paintings represent ‘classical’ style, the kind produced only by a stable, reasonably prosperous culture.”

As I have argued, human beings have always been spiritual beings by definition, and I use the world “spiritual” in a secular sense. This being so, it has always found some mode of expression, and one such mode is: art. Some thirty to forty thousand years ago human beings began making images in caves, as discovered in Southern France, and in other widely scattered areas of the world…It is not being said that Early man had the concept "art"--but rather that human beings engaged in these activities and that they served the same primary psychological function as they have ever since: that of integrating and objectifying their experiences in an emotionally meaningful way.

Abstract art, my ass. :turned:

Regarding the Lascaux paintings, they were created by Paleolithic humans and most of the paintings depict animals found in landscapes--such as horses, bison, mammoth, ibex, aurochs, deer, and felines. “Their vitality”, writes one historian “is achieved by the broad, rhythmic outlines around areas of soft color.”

Jim writes: “… all of the significant painted caves, as well as many of the engravings on bone and other objects, contain a lot of your nemesis, [meaning my distain for abstract ‘art.’] abstract art In Lascaux approximately 20% of the work is abstract."

Abstract art? The 20% was pottery with designs—designs, Jim, not "abstract art."

**

Edited February 20, 2007 by Victor Pross

[James Shay]

The Cave Painters:

I was reading a few reviews of the Cave Painter, it is stated that Gregory Curtis takes the reader through the major theories—that the art was part of fertility or hunting rituals, or used for religious or shamanistic purposes, or was clan mythology—examining the ways in which ethnography, archaeology, and religion have influenced the thinking about the cave paintings over time.

”The Cave Painters”, one reviewer states “is permeated with the mystery at the core of this art created so many thousands of years ago by human beings who had developed, perhaps for the first time, both the ability for abstract thought and a profound and beautiful way to express it.” [Emphasis mine].

More interesting, is this observation by Bill Marvel: “Whoever painted them had a master's eye not only for line and form and the anatomy of the animals, but for sophisticated techniques that we associate with the Renaissance, such as shading and perspective.”

Speaking of the author of the book, Marvel rights this: “Curtis follows every twist and turn as the paintings are catalogued, mapped, analyzed, dated. In a final chapter he offers his interpretation, arguing that, taken together, the paintings represent ‘classical’ style, the kind produced only by a stable, reasonably prosperous culture.”

As I have argued, human beings have always been spiritual beings by definition, and I use the world “spiritual” in a secular sense. This being so, it has always found some mode of expression, and one such mode is: art. Some thirty to forty thousand years ago human beings began making images in caves, as discovered in Southern France, and in other widely scattered areas of the world…It is not being said that Early man had the concept "art"--but rather that human beings engaged in these activities and that they served the same primary psychological function as they have ever since: that of integrating and objectifying their experiences in an emotionally meaningful way.

Abstract art, my ass. :turned:

Regarding the Lascaux paintings, they were created by Paleolithic humans and most of the paintings depict animals found in landscapes--such as horses, bison, mammoth, ibex, aurochs, deer, and felines. “Their vitality”, writes one historian “is achieved by the broad, rhythmic outlines around areas of soft color.”

Jim writes: “… all of the significant painted caves, as well as many of the engravings on bone and other objects, contain a lot of your nemesis, [meaning my distain for abstract ‘art.’] abstract art In Lascaux approximately 20% of the work is abstract."

Abstract art? The 20% was pottery with designs—designs, Jim, not "abstract art."

**

Thanks, Ellen and Victor, for the provocative quotes and commentary about Paleolithic art. I love it and other rock art, and it is great to have it enter the discussion. I have a couple of comments.

Jean Clottes is a major figure in cave art studies, but his recent collaboration on the shamanistic theories has not been well received, because when you get down to it, NO ONE KNOWS why the rock art was done. He makes a somewhat irrational leap to suggest that the work is religious. Since its discovery, cave art has been attributed to many different causes, none of them proveable. Ellen, do you see the shamanistic connection? Clottes also suggests a correlation between the motivations for cave art and that of some other known rock art, such as aboriginal. Again, how does he know?

Victor, please check your art history and let me know where you get your reference to pottery during the time of Lascaux and Altamira. (I recommend really reading The Cave Painters, rather than quoting its reviews. I can also recommend a number of other books, if you like.) I believe there is no significant pottery. There are clay sculptures, but not vessels. It is conjectured that heating water was done by pouring water over heated rocks held in hide. I also see you know have revised your historical time frame to extend to 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, which I believe is more accurate than your original estimate of 25,000 years.

You also write, "Abstract art, my ass." Well, the 20% that is abstract art I refer to IS WELL DOCUMENTED as having been painted on the walls of Lascaux. It is not on some imaginary pottery that really doesn't exist. Curtis writes, "Certain rooms contain rectangular grids. Sometimes these are blank, but other times they are colored in and it looks like a section of a checkerboard or a color chart." Again, READ THE BOOK, rather than the reviews. What is painted, in this case, looks somewhat like 20th Century geometric abstraction. But, what did it mean and how was it perceived? No one knows.

Victor, check out how humans were portrayed within the caves.

I visited many wonderful mosques when living in Iran. They are filled with abstract art in the form of geometric shapes that are intrinsic to the buildings' conception, and are not applied decoration. The man I worked for, Nader Ardalan, wrote The Sense of Unity, in which he explained how the art was readable to the devout. I believe this would also be true to the cave painters and their society with regard to their abstract art.

Jim

[reason.on]

I've been swamped lately, and have not had the time to follow OL very closely...however, I'm thrilled to see that the cave paintings at Lascaux and Altamira have been brought up with regard to the issue of abstract art (among other apt observations) and the extraordinarily ignorant (and to my view, exceptionally arrogant, as well) assertions presented here "against" it.

Apart from the complete and total uselessness of arguments from "tradition", the historical "evidence" presented isn't' even close to being accurate...(nor, btw, is the baseless assertion that all abstract art is merely about paint itself).

I'd intended to make this particular reference earlier, but didn't have the time to flush out a good point. Many, many thanks to Jim Shay for doing just that (and ES for the excellent follow-up material).

I'm curious, could we also consider the Venus of Willendorf to be any early example of abstract art, or it is just a highly stylized figure?

[updated image ref]

RCR

Edited February 21, 2007 by R. Christian Ross

[Victor Pross]

Jim, maybe it is a matter of semantics. But when I say “abstract art” I do not refer to “rectangular grids” in the style of “checkerboards” or “color charts”—which, by definition, are meaningful shapes, even if the exact meaning of these designs are left to conjecture. When I refer to as “abstract painting” I mean the purposefully arbitrary splattering of paint that is utterly inscrutable. Sir, I invite you to check your art history and the various theories that are at the base of actual 20th century abstract painting. I certainly hope you won’t then conclude that primitive man was engaging in that type of primitivism. Hey, prehistoric man was well advanced it seems to the modernists and postmodernists to come it seems. :turned:

More in a bit.

Edited February 20, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen, do you see the shamanistic connection? Clottes also suggests a correlation between the motivations for cave art and that of some other known rock art, such as aboriginal. Again, how does he know?

I very strongly see the connection, yes. The whole sequence of images entering the caves and the way the images are described as looking -- and behaving even -- in oil light gives credence to the idea. (I speak of the images "behaving" because apparently angles of entrance and perspectives of lighting were taken account of, such that illusions of images moving occur with the progression into the caves using oil light.) The shamanic trance sequence has a documented progression which the images fit.

I don't think the thesis can be definitely proven, and I don't know how much certitude Clottes himself places on his thesis. I haven't read the book. But I find the thesis very plausible and in keeping with a great deal of current theory on the evolution of primate->hominid->human consciousness.

Ellen

___

[Victor Pross]

Jim,

As a matter of convenience and contrast (in regards to 20th century “abstract art” and “primitive art”--here is the crux of my conclusions:

For 40,000 years, painting and sculpture—as works of art--are allied to the universality of human vision and touch, and these modes of human expression have always been in alignment with the human mode of cognition and physiology: Intelligible representation. Modernism and Postmodernism, on the other hand, is essentially an anti-art movement. It is “anti-art” because it has spun against--in nihilistic opposition--every principle of art man has developed from the days of cave dwellers! Because they purposely oppose objectivity, the modernists preach that there are to be no objective standards in art---such as comprehensible representations or clarity. By opposing definitions and standards as "restrictive," they sermonize that the artists must be "free" to "create" anything he desires. It is an out-and-out call for irrationalism. These falsehoods remain their chief means of destroying art and thereby make their deliberately nonrepresentational, incomprehensible "art" anti-art.

Until the day I die, I argue that for thousands of years the inimitable and vital function of art was (and is) to present, in concrete form, what is essentially an abstraction. The purpose of art is the objectification of values. To objectify values is to make them real by presenting them in concrete form. The case to be made for actual works of art is epistemological—not by an appeal to tradition as such. Abstract painters ignore the epistemological requirements of visual perception and representation. This, in short, is why ‘abstract painting’ is not art. (It isn’t much of anything really, but people do hang them on their walls as a matter of decoration). When I said that abstract painting is not art—that it is paint on a canvas, I didn’t mean it as hyperbole.

What we see is a dramatic episode in history. For the past one hundred years, the modernist and postmodernist horde had infiltrated the art world in all the fields: painting, dance, music, theatre, creative writing. The conflict is not between two opposing schools of thought: it is a clash between actual art and the forces of anti-art. As Shayne said in one post, the modernists are “parasites on actual art” and we have a group that wants the admiration, the status conferred to actual artists.

This is what I wanted to say for now. But I will address your more specific questions soon.

-Victor

Edit: Jim, in a single paragraph you urge: "Victor, check out how humans were portrayed within the caves." Why? Is there some point you wish to illustrate? Will I appreciate it as a caricature artist? What?

Edited February 20, 2007 by Victor Pross

[reason.on]

As a point of reference for anyone who hasn't been following the aesthetic discussions..I want to reference J's excerpts from Kandinsky (the father of modern abstract art).

Kandinsky's own words about his work and the purpose of art in general defeat any notion that all abstract art is intentionally about "art qua art" or "paint" itself. Even though there are many, many abstract artists (likely, most) who do not create their works in the manner so ignorantly and arrogantly attributed to them by "traditionalists", really, it only takes one and it is game over.

Further, any assertion or "theory" which claims to know with impunity what an artist is or isn't thinking (his intent) when he creates his work (much without any reference to the artist himself) is totally and hoplessly disassociated with reality, and not even worthy of consideration.

Kandinsky on art

RCR

[Victor Pross]

Christian,

I am very pleased that you have returned to reading my posts.

-Victor

Edited February 20, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Christian,

This image is not showing up. I can put it in our Photobucket account and replace the link, but I need to know where I can get a copy.

See if any of the images below are similar to what you posted (from Venus del Paleolític).

Michael

The Venus of Willendorf

Venus de Lespugue

[James Shay]

Ellen, do you see the shamanistic connection? Clottes also suggests a correlation between the motivations for cave art and that of some other known rock art, such as aboriginal. Again, how does he know?

I very strongly see the connection, yes. The whole sequence of images entering the caves and the way the images are described as looking -- and behaving even -- in oil light gives credence to the idea. (I speak of the images "behaving" because apparently angles of entrance and perspectives of lighting were taken account of, such that illusions of images moving occur with the progression into the caves using oil light.) The shamanic trance sequence has a documented progression which the images fit.

I don't think the thesis can be definitely proven, and I don't know how much certitude Clottes himself places on his thesis. I haven't read the book. But I find the thesis very plausible and in keeping with a great deal of current theory on the evolution of primate->hominid->human consciousness.

Ellen

___

Ellen, I would like to believe the shamanistic theory, because it makes particular sense when you look at various spatial sequences of how people apparently moved through the caves. It makes them more architectural for me, in the same sense as movement through a cathedral, mosque, or whatever. The gripe in the prehistory community is that the theory is based on ethnological comparisons, and those comparisons may very well not be valid.

But, it sure makes sense. When I went through the Lascaux replica the ordered progression seemed very sensible and orchestrated - especially, when one leaves the Hall of the Bulls through the keyhole opening, over which the stampeding herds seem to meet. At that point, it seems that the artists had definately built up a sense of tension meant to carry forward into the next chamber.

Jim

[reason.on]

Christian,

This image is not showing up. I can put it in our Photobucket account and replace the link, but I need to know where I can get a copy.

See if any of the images below are similar to what you posted (from Venus del Paleolític).

Michael

That's odd...I see my image fine.

The first one you posted is her...

RCR