Primitive art is an original depiction. It is not "correct" in relation to what appears exactly in real events like Da Vinci's work or the author of “What is Art" describes, but correctly tells a story of what once was a real event. Ellen Dissanayake mentions how “many societies have no word for “art” at all. How can they display what they do not recognize?” (Dissanayake 35). This quote reminded me of the classic tale of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Does context make an image more real if there are words to correct such events? Before I read the first chapter of The Anthropology of Art by Robert Layton, I was stuck on Dissanayake’s perception of art being a material or simply an expression created by something sacred such as a feeling. Would an old map, unbeknowist to what the real world looked like be considered "primitive" art?
Both authors go into depth about the ambiguity of the word and form of art and yet neither of their own definitions of “Primitive” art matter because every society has their own sense of aesthetics. This attitude is more prominent to me in the readings and discussion than the definition itself. The lack of words for “primitive” art is what makes it problematic because from an etic standpoint, art simply is. From an emic perspective looking in, one needs to account for their internal bias as well as the society they live in. Layton summarizes Durkheim’s book, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, that individuality is a key part of nature involving their awareness of society. The “importance of symbols in thought and communication” (Layton 35) derives from a societal language, trend, religion, and the information that we gather around us every day. Like a dry sponge, people take in these symbols rapidly only to be mixed up, wrung out, and expelled in a new original idea. How people use these symbols depend on the individual. In my first introductory college course in drawing, he made us draw simple things like an eye and many of us drew the symbolic almond eye. He then made us draw only what we saw, turning the image upside-down, and directing us to blur our vision momentarily to gather color segments. I was surprised by the difference. The act of “Primitive” art being an expression of rational or dignified fine art is unimportant. In relation to today’s “beautiful crime” or graffiti art, there is the same speculation of what is distinguishable. In the class video on Friday, one street artist stood out to me when he said something along the lines of a thousand different versions of the type letter “S” but the more styles you read and open your eyes to, the more susceptible you are to the vast beauty that is around. William Blake once wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell that "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."
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