The origin of "Art".

[geordief]

It is a hopeless task (in my eyes) to attempt any rigorous definition of what "art" is.

 

Perhaps ,to digress it could almost be defined in that way -as something "undefinable"

 

But is it a hopeless task to speculate as to what may have given rise originally to what we might now recognize as an artistic action?

 

This is ,perhaps necessarily a thought experiment but if we go back ,in our mind's eye to the dawn of life to the period where organisms and later our closer evolutionary relatives were starting to communicate with each other can we imagine what these primal communications might have been like?

 

I suggest as far fetched as this might seem ,it could be worthwhile owing to the extremely important place "art" holds in our present society.

 

So this is my attempt to flesh out this speculation a bit.

 

Let us imagine the leader in a human tribe has validated his "might is right" prerogative and had his way with one of the desirable females and further suppose that this female had previously been having relations with another less important male member of the tribe .

 

This male member has been "robbed" of a "possession" (and perhaps a comfort) and there is a new situation in which his self image has perhaps been degraded.

 

Now this male member must share this new situation with his associates in the tribe(all relationships in the tribe are connected) and I am postulating that he may use "art" as a way to express this.

 

He can ,for example make gestures (ie communicate to associates) that extol the leader or he can make gestures that refer to his now cast down state.

 

These gestures are separate from the simple acceptance of reality which he must follow one way or another.

 

Suppose he extols the leader. He can , I imagine kiss his feet (or maybe elsewhere) symbolically and the way he does this can be done in a very free way.

 

If he does this summarily,perfunctorily this is (perhaps ) less effective than doing it with a flourish.

 

Can I speculate that this hypothetical "flourish" would count as genuinely "artistic" and so have I "unearthed" a realistic (if fictional" example of early art?

 

If ,we go the other way and our male member wishes to gain allies in his perceived struggle against his unjust leader he can communicate with his associates in a way so as to express his discomfort with the situation (moaning , keening sounds that might be the beginnings of the blues )

 

Is there anything at all in this idea of mine? Perhaps it has been already thought of ,I don't know.

Edited January 16, 2016 by geordief

[Ophiolite]

To take your example of feet kissing, this seems no different from the many forms of submissions seen in many, most, all (?) mammals. As such I see no relationship to art.

[Acme]

Were the First Artists Mostly Women?

Three-quarters of handprints in ancient cave art were left by women, study finds.

 

Archaeologist Dean Snow of Pennsylvania State University analyzed hand stencils found in eight cave sites in France and Spain. By comparing the relative lengths of certain fingers, Snow determined that three-quarters of the handprints were female.

 

"There has been a male bias in the literature for a long time," said Snow, whose research was supported by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. "People have made a lot of unwarranted assumptions about who made these things, and why."

...

[Gees]

Geordief;

 

 

It is a hopeless task (in my eyes) to attempt any rigorous definition of what "art" is.

 

Perhaps ,to digress it could almost be defined in that way -as something "undefinable"

 

But is it a hopeless task to speculate as to what may have given rise originally to what we might now recognize as an artistic action?

 

My understanding of art is that it is an interpretation and expression of feeling and emotion, so it could be said that art gives feeling and emotion form and substance. Since emotion is pretty "undefinable", this idea would also follow with your thinking.

 

If you read your post again, with this idea in mind, I think that you will find that your examples all fit within the parameters of expressing some kind of feeling or emotion. But I had never even considered "artistic action" and find the idea intriguing.

 

Art had to start somewhere. We can all use our actions to display our feelings, whether it is a jump for joy, grovelling, shouting or singing out, or even moaning. But these actions are all short lived. It is possible, maybe probable, that in viewing these actions, other people emulated the action when they had a similar feeling in order to convey that feeling, which over time could evolve into art.

 

Jumping, hopping, and groveling could very well evolve into dance; shouting, grunting, moaning, or even changing the tone of a voice could evolve into singing. If you add rhythm, then the dance could evolve into something that is remembered and repeatable, just as adding words could make a song evolve into something repeatable.

 

I wonder if drawing started out as people trying to coordinate an attack, give direction, or draw a picture of something. Did people long ago notice foot prints in the earth and start thinking about immortality? Or did sculpture start as an attempt to copy something? Who knows?

 

Thank you for thinking of and sharing this idea, but I have no clue as to why it is in speculations. Art is more a philosophy topic than it is a science topic.

 

Gee

 

Acme: Interesting link. Women are often summarily excluded when considering historic "facts"; which of course, has little to do with the facts.

 

[geordief]

Thanks,all.

 

I have bitten off more than I can chew and so need to bow out/extricate myself but perhaps I have learned that it is not necessary to pin down this subject in a scientific way to understand a valuable amount.

 

(I think my own aim in trying to find the "evolutionary " origin of this aspect of our lives may have been ,perhaps disingenuously as much to understand the process as its emergence)

 

@Gee: maybe emotions are also connected to memory? Isn't that indicated in the opening line of Proust's famous work ?-the smell of the biscuit that brought him back in time. And also book reading is supposedly more efficient than digital reading on account of its tactile nature.

Edited January 17, 2016 by geordief