The Arts

What Is Art?

Art is the creative use of the human imagination to aesthetically interpret, express, and engage life, modifying experienced reality in the process.

Most societies past and present have used art to give meaningful expression to almost every part of their culture, including ideas about religion, kinship, and ethnic identity.

Views About Art

American View– Nonessential

Communicate– Feelings– Make statements– Share values

Marcel Duchamp, The Fountain, 1917.

Art and Anthropology

Why study art?– Cultural insight

• Religion

• Social Structure

• Lifeways

• Subsistence

• Resources

What Are the Functions of Art?

Myths offer basic explanations about the world and set cultural standards for right behavior.

Verbal arts transmit and preserve a culture’s customs and values.

Any art form may contribute to the cohesiveness or solidarity of that society.

Social Functions of Art

Individuality – express individual tastes

Social Identity – identify with specific group

Social Status – can show wealth, expressed through cars, clothing, etc.

Art

The creative use of the human imagination to interpret, express, and enjoy life.

From the uniquely human ability to use symbols to give shape and significance to the physical world for more than just a utilitarian purpose.

Art for Arts Sake

Art for Ritual– Not to be seen by all

• Tutankhamen

– Not to be saved for posterity• Navajo

• Johann Sebastian Bach

Types of Art

Verbal arts– Folklore

Music– Verbal

– Nonverbal

Pictorial Arts– Painting

– Sculpture

Verbal arts

Stories within a culture reflecting a history, gender relationships, proper or improper behavior, or religious beliefs.

Examples: Narratives, dramas, poetry, incantations, proverbs, compliments, and insults.

art

Verbal Arts - Myth

Religious

A myth provides rationale for religious beliefs and practices.

Creation myths

Verbal Arts – Legend

Stories told as true

Common elements– No known author

– Multiple versions

– Detail

– Insight to society

Verbal Arts - Tale

Common elements– Secular

– Nonhistorical

– Entertainment

– May be moralistic

Motif– Story situation

Verbal Arts – Poetry and Epics

Poetry - Allows for inappropriate subjects to be talked about

– Epics - Long oral narratives, sometimes in poetry or rhythmic prose, recounting the glorious events in the life of a real or legendary person.

Music

Ethnomusicology – Study of music in a specific culture.

Anthropology studies how a culture defines music.

art

Music

Verbal and nonverbalAbstract emotionDefine – Indigenous terms– Musical lingo

• Melody, rhythm, form

Components– Repetition– Tonality

Functions of Music

Group identification

Self-identification

Political commentary

Social commentary

Social function– Entertainment

– Work

– Oral tradition

Pictorial Arts

A type of symbolic expression that can be realistic or abstract.

Aesthetic approach - Looks at technique and form.

Narrative approach - Looks at what is depicted.

Interpretive approach – Looks at symbols and beliefs that are depicted in art, a knowledge of these must first be understood.

art

Pictorial Art

Various mediums– Drawing, painting,

sketching, etc…

– Walls, rock, fibers, wood, animal hide, plants, clay, etc…

Symbolic expression

Rock Art

Pictographs– Painting

Petroglyph– Pecking

Anthropomorphic

Animals

Abstract

Ritualistic

Non-Representational

Meaning

Entoptic phenomena– Trance phase 1

– Nervous system

– Geometric patterns

Construal– Trance phase 2

– Brain makes sense of image

Representational

Naturalistic

Western art

Abstracted– Style

– Technique

– Ability

Art and Iconography

Symbols

Colors

Meaning to culture

Hard to decipher

Sculpture

Many forms– Relief

– In the round

Media– Marble

– Mixed