Art as a Culture
Lascaux: Art as a Culture
Functions of Early Art
I feel like the cave artists were trying to show us what life was like during their time period. The animals in the portraits show movement of expression, as if the artists wanted to show us what they functioned and behaved like. I think that the reason there were more animals than people in the paintings were because there might have been more animals than humans during that time period. These artists might have found it easier to paint animals because there were no artists during that time period and if there were they probably didn't know what an artists was. Therefore painting humans was more difficult for them. The paintings can tell us about the life of animals in the early cave dwellers eyes. They show the shape and movement of many different animals, and we can compare them to animals today. The paintings also show early human culture and what the early humans looked like. These early humans faced many difficult tasks to be able to paint the figures in the caves. They had to paint in these steep and narrow caves that were most likely dark since there was no type of light source. It would be very difficult for them just to get into the caves and around them without being injured. One function of the art would be it would be used as a freetime activity, serving as their societies pastime. Another function of the art would be it served as history back in the early cave cultures. This allowed us to be able to view these paintings thousands of years later. One last function of the art is it was probably used as a source of communication between people. They could use this art as telling a story to another group of people.
Commonalities in Function
The functions in the art of the early humans compared to modern art shows important similarities. One similarity would be that the art provides a leisure for the culture. Someone could use art to fulfill a hobby or express oneself. Modern and early art is used to tell stories and communications. In both early and modern art, the art serves as a function of preserving the history for future generations. The art would be able to be seen for many generations and show them what culture was like for the artists and what had influenced him to create it.
My Favorite Art
This artwork is from a Norwegian band that is known for being one of the first bands to create album covers with this type of artwork. These type of artistic paintings are a form of expression to the music in the album and how they talk about fairytales and legends. The Norwegian metal culture was heavily influenced by this band because it was one of the earliest bands with this style music and it had opened the eyes to many people in listening to different types of music. The art has benefited the society in norway a lot because it had encouraged people to start their own bands with similar ideas and it's a way these people are expressing themselves by writing the lyrics to their songs. Some detrimental effects would be people that listen to this music are looked at differently and think that they cause harm to society. The black metal culture is looked at negatively a lot in different countries especially in norway.
Section 1: "I feel like the cave artists were trying to show us what life was like during their time period. "
ReplyDelete:-) Take a step back and rethink that sentence. Why would archaic Homo sapiens from 15,000 years ago have bothered providing us with this information. This was a time-consuming and dangerous activity. In order to make this worth that risk, they would have needed to experience a benefit from it themselves in some way, not provide a benefit to humans thousands of years later.
So rethink this: What message were these early humans trying to communicate?
"...there might have been more animals than humans during that time period."
But it isn't just an issue of numbers. There are humans in the images, but they are only depicted as rudimentary stick figures, while the animals are detailed and in color. For whatever reason, it is the animals that are important here, not the people, to this population. Why do you think that is?
"The paintings also show early human culture and what the early humans looked like."
Not really. They definitely don't tell us what these early humans looks like (see my "stick figure" comment above). So what does these paintings tell us about this culture? For example, they really only tells us about creatures seen when hunting, correct? There are no berries, no mushrooms, no birds, no fish and no eggs, things that would be part of the "gathering" process. So who is painting this pictures, men or women? Does that tell us anything about the gender roles of this culture?
Good on the difficulties. Consider an additional difficulty in that they would have had to create their pigments and the tools to make the paintings.
Re: Functions... These caves were very difficult to access and even dangerous. This argues against the "freetime activity" argument. I agree with the "history" function, but does that mean it can only benefit humans thousands of years later? Couldn't it also benefit this population from year to year through seasonal migrations? Yes on communication and story-telling. How about for teaching and instruction?
Section 2: Yes on "history" but again let's recognize this can be a benefit to the population itself, not just populations thousands of years later. Beyond that, art can communicate information and ideas or record events for future populations. It can generate anger or support or passion. It can inspire others to act or bolster a person's courage. It can teach and inform and make people aware of important issues or concerns. One great example of this is photography, which is used to communicate and inform people of events, positive or negative, and can be used to inspire people to act or warn of impending horrific events. Think a bit more deeply on this. How many of these functions can also be applied to these cave paintings?
Section 3: The image is interesting, but I'm not sure if you are focusing on the music or the artwork here for your chosen type of art form? Both are viable, but it would have helped to focus on just one and expand. Good introduction regardless.
Does this art form (either) have its own culture? Do they have their own vocabulary/terminology? Do they have specialized tools? Do they have a shared set of behaviors and practices? A shared social network? This would help answer the second question.
"Some detrimental effects would be people that listen to this music are looked at differently and think that they cause harm to society."
That's interesting. To clarify, you aren't arguing that those who listen to this music DO harm society, just that people think they do? Is that a detriment of the music? Or is it due to a lack of education of the music?