Back to Our Roots? - Frame and Canvas as Art
Lobby Dosser
turned up a real gem. The book is "Stone Voices: The Search For
Scotland" by Neal Ascherson. He has this to say about rock art:
[
When archaeologists and anthropologists first became interested in rock
art, they treated it as art on rock. In other words, the approached it
much as they approached a painting in the Louvre or a fresco in an
Italian church. They looked at what was painted or engraved, at the forms
composed of pigment or delineated by pecking with stone tools. They also
saw the rock, but what of it? The rock was just the equivalent of El
Greco's canvas or Leonardo's white plaster wall. What mattered was 'the
art' which the canvas or wall supported.
Only now do scientists begin to see their mistake. The 'art in a frame'
is in fact an eccentric, very recent way of appreciating and marketing
visual culture. It embodies the Western habit of chopping things up into
separate segments in order to study them more closely. But for most human
beings over most of time, the distinction between art and frame has meant
little or nothing. Why should the pigment carefully applied to the rock
face be inherently more magical or intriguing than the cracks, stains and
crevices of the rock itself? It was in Australia, through talking to
Aboriginals still involved with the spirituality and usefulness of
decorated rock shelters, that it dawned on archaeologists that by
separating the art from the rock they were missing the point.
They are a single context. ....
]
So what about our roots? Consider the place of the tree in human culture.
We likely lived in them for a time, have used them for tools, shelter,
food, fuel, venerated them, and some of us annualy drag one into the
living room. Every time you apply chisel to wood, you are pecking on
rock.
BTW, I commend Ascherson's book to anyone interested in Scotland. So far
I have learned a number of things about my native land that I did not
know, seen things I did know in a new way, and even learned something
about myself. Overturning the 'frame - canvas' applecart was a real
bonus!
LD
Arch
the suggestion about the book. I don't know "why", but I do know
"because" isn't a satisfactory answer to you question. :)
Slainte!
Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter
Chuck
<lobby.dos...@verizon.net> wrote:
>Only now do scientists begin to see their mistake. The 'art in a frame'
>is in fact an eccentric, very recent way of appreciating and marketing
>visual culture. It embodies the Western habit of chopping things up into
>separate segments in order to study them more closely. But for most human
>beings over most of time, the distinction between art and frame has meant
>little or nothing.
Then there is the case of Inuit ("Eskimo" to the great unwashed)
art... those beautiful carvings of animals and spirit figures done in
walrus ivory, whale teeth and the like, and much prized by explorers,
Indian agents, missionaries and sundry bearers of "progress." Early
contacts were aghast that the carvings were treated so carelessly and
puzzled over why these "art works" weren't given bases to sit upon.
They didn't bother to ask, I guess. In any case, it wasn't "art" at
all, and they were never meant to sit anywhere. The carvings had
spiritual signficance but the significance wasn't in the finished
carving. It was in the _act_ of carving. Once finished, like sand
paintings, the spiritual act was completed and the piece had no more
"value" than the echoes of a hymn sung or the "amen" at the end of a
prayer.
Maybe it's not so far from our roots to say a prayer before we take
that "last cut."
--
Chuck *#:^)
chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
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Lobby Dosser
> Maybe it's not so far from our roots to say a prayer before we take
> that "last cut."
>
>
I typically do that Before the First cut!
Darrell Feltmate
--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS Canada
www.aroundthewoods.com
Lobby Dosser
> I always thought that the cutting "is" the prayer.
>
Perhaps you're closer to our roots. :o)
Tom Nie
wonders.
TomNie
Chuck
Heh...indeed, as many of us do. I usually toss in an extra before
that "final cut," though.