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Structure, Signification, and Culture

Different Logics of Representation and their Archeological Implications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Randall White

Extract

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In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the field of Paleolithic art was a source of intellectual ferment and innovative interpretation. This was in direct contrast to the first forty years immediately following the recognition of graphic representations in Upper Paleolithic contexts. In this early period, all “art,” from nineteenth-century impressionist landscapes to the Pleistocene painted bison of Altamira, was misguidedly viewed as “art for art's sake.” The only explanation required was the pursuit of aesthetic pleasure and all that was needed was sufficient time to pursue artistic activities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 45 , Issue 180 , December 1997 , pp. 97 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

Notes

1. Lartet, E. et H. Christy, "Sur des figures d'animaux gravées ou sculptées et autres produits d'art et d'industrie rapportables aux temps primordiaux de la période humaine," Revue archéologique 9 (1864): 233-267.

2. In this paper I try to avoid the term "art" wherever possible, as I take "art" and all that it entails to be a particular and privileged context for symbolic representation that is characteristic of the so-called Western tradition. For me, it has no social scientific or analytical value that allows it to be usefully applied cross-culturally.

3. See Breuil in Breuil, H. and H. Obermaier, The Cave of Altamira at Santillana del Mar, Spain (Madrid:, 1935), pp. 145-225 and 236-243.

4. Indeed, it was commonly accepted that some European Upper Paleolithic peoples, like those at Grimaldi, Italy (Bisson and White 1997), were physically African, representing movements out of Africa by early populations of Homo sapiens. By the 1930s attempts were made to see historical connections between Paleolithic Europe and the Eskimo world. There was such a strong desire to see such connections that, in her "A comparison of Eskimo and Palaeolithic art" (American Journal of Archaeology 36(4): 477-511 and 37(1):7 7- 107), after being clearly frustrated that her analysis showed no evidence for historical connections, she left open the possibility anyway, hoping for more supportive evidence in the future!

5. Reinach, S., "L'art et la magie. A propos des peintures et des gravures de l'Age du Renne," L'Anthropologie. 14 (1903): 257-266.

6. Bégouen, H., "The magic origin of prehistoric art," Antiquity (1929), p. 7.

7. Ibid., p. 8.

8. Ibid., p. 17.

9. These always remain unnamed, but Bégouen is almost certainly referring to Marcelling Boule who steadfastly argued the "art-for-art's-sake" position into the 1930s in Les Hommes Fossiles. 2nd ed.

10. Bégouen, (see note 6 above), p. 18.

11. Reinach, (see note 5 above): 257-266.

12. Luquet, G.-H. L'art et la religion des hommes fossiles (Paris: 1929); The Art and Religion of Fossil Man (New Haven, 1930).

13. Ucko, P. and A. Rosenfeld, Palaeolithic Cave Art (London: 1967).

14. Luquet, (see note 12 above), pp. 200-201.

15. See Breuil, H., Quatre cents siècles d'art pariétal (Montignac: 1952).

16. Leroi-Gourhan, La préhistoire de l'art occidental (Paris: 1965).

17. Leroi-Gourhan, Le geste et la parole (Paris: 1966).

18. Again, Luquet was a notable exception to this trend.

19. For example, Vogelherd in Germany and Dolni Vestonice in Moravia.

20. For example, the Kostienki sites in the Don Valley.

21. However, it can be argued that he did take this approach to painted/ engraved caves, treating them as highly structured, purposeful constructs.

22. Vialou, D., L'art des grottes en Ariège magdalenienne. Gallia Préhistoire, XXe sup plement (Paris: 1986); Les cavernes de Niaux (Paris: 1995).

23. A notable exception is to be found in the work of Denis Vialou, who of all cur rent French cave researchers is the most theoretically oriented.

24. We need to keep in mind here that Leroi-Gourhan was working in a period before computers and digital calculators. Given that he was using only edge-punched sorting cards, his control of this enormous mass of data is quite remarkable.

25. See especially: Halverson, J., "Art for art's sake in the Paleolithic," Current Anthropology 28 (1987): 63-89; Lewis-Williams, D. and T. Dowson, "The signs of all times. Entoptic phenomena in Upper Palaeolithic art," Current Anthro pology 29 (1988): 201-245; Lewis Williams, D. and Clottes, J., Les chamanes de la préhistoire. Paris: (1996).

26. Luquet, G.-H., L'art primitif (Paris: 1926).

27. Ibid.; see also Luquet's L'art et la religion des hommes fossiles and The Art and Religion of Fossil Man.

28. Carpenter, E., Eskimo Realities (New York: 1973).

29. Ibid., p.59.

30. Ibid., p. 62.

31. Ibid., p. 63.

32. Ibid., p. 58

33. Ibid., p. 71.

34. Ibid.

35. Although this represents but a small minority of the total sampling of known images.

36. E. Carpenter, (see note 28 above), pp. 192-197.

37. Clottes, J., Garner, M et G. Maury, "Magdalenian bison in the caves of the Ariège," Rock Art Research. 11, 1 (1994): 58-70.

38. N. Munn, Walbiri Iconography (Chicago: 1979).