The Arts

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Chapter 25

• The Arts

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Chapter Preview

• What Is Art?
• Why Do Anthropologists Study Art?
• What Are the Functions of the Arts?

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Art

• Most all societies throughout the ages have used
  the expression of art- the creative use of the
  human imagination to interpret, express, and
  enjoy life.
• Western cultures typically feel that art is
  purely for aesthetic purposes and serve no other
  function.
• Do you think this is true?

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Anthropological Study of Art

• Anthropologists are certainly concerned with the
  study of art as a reflection of a culture.
• To better understand the art a particular culture
  or genre might produce they examine the
  aesthetic, narrative, and interpretive aspects of
  the work.
• Usually art can be broken down into several
  categories
• Visual, Verbal, and Musical.

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Visual Art

• Visual art may be representational (imitating
  closely the forms of nature) or abstract (drawing
  from natural forms but representing only their
  basic patterns or arrangements).
• In some of the Indian art of North Americas
  northwest coast, animal figures may be so highly
  exaggerated it is difficult for an outsider to
  identify.
• Believed to generally be symbolic in nature and
  not purely decorative.

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Rock Art

• Paintings, engravings, and carvings on the walls
  of caves and rocky shelters or outcrops is a
  hallmark of early modern human populations.
• This art is generally representative of animals
  of the time and hunts of those things.
• A variety of color methods were used.
• The first true expression of artistic behavior in
  the human species.
• Thought to be made while in trance.

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Iconic Images

• These images depicted in rock art are thought the
  be culturally specific people, animals, and
  monsters that might be seen in the deepest stages
  of trance. Also known as iconic images.
• Trances might have been drug induced.

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Verbal Arts

• Verbal arts include narrative, drama, poetry,
  incantations, proverbs, riddles, and word games.
• Oral traditions denote a cultures unwritten
  stories, beliefs, and customs.
• Folklore is a term coined by 19th-century
  scholars studying the unwritten stories and other
  artistic traditions of rural peoples to
  distinguish between folk art and the fine art
  of the literate elite.

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Categories of Narratives

• Myths
• Sacred narratives that explains the fundamentals
  of human existence-where we and everything in our
  world came from, why we are here, and where we
  are going.
• Legends
• A story told about a memorable event or figure
  handed down by tradition and told as true but
  without historical evidence.

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Categories of Narratives

• Epic
• Long dramatic oral narrative recounting the
  celebrated deeds of a historic or legendary hero,
  often sung in poetry.
• Tales
• A creative narrative that is recognized as
  fiction for entertainment but may also draw a
  moral (motif) or teach a practical lesson.
• Motif
• A story situation in a tale

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Musical Art

• Beginning in the 19th century with the collection
  of folksongs is the study of ethnomusicology or
  the study of a societys music in terms of its
  cultural setting.
• Ethnomusicologists like to differentiate between
  music and musical.
• To be musical there must be a repetition of
  sounds most often one thinks of European music.

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Musical Art

• Tonality refers to scale systems and their
  modifications. Although these vary cross
  culturally as so one group may find a sound
  musical and the other annoying.
• There may be some natural influence in the scale
  development of certain geographical regions.
  Some birds pitch their songs to the same scale as
  Western music.

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Functions of Art

• The function of art can be observed in several
  ways. First it can serve as a mechanism for one
  to display their social status, spiritual
  identity, and political power.
• It can also be used to transmit cultural and
  ancestral ties through verbal art.

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Functions of Music

• The function of music is also one of self
  expression, it can be used to pass time-purely
  entertainment purposes.
• May also be used as an identifier- a more natural
  role for music similar to the animal kingdom.
• The most obvious being the social function of
  song which contains verbal text and can transmit
  messages.

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Function of Music

• One of the most recent and powerful ways in which
  music can be utilized by particular minority or
  ethnic groups who might have previously been
  under heard.
• They can use song/music to express their plight
  to those in the larger majority. Allowing them
  to give a message and receive attention they
  might otherwise have not had.

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Suggested Activity-Verbal Art

• Have students gather into groups and think of any
  myths, legends, epics, or tales that are central
  to their culture.
• Discuss what the functions are of these stories,
  why are they continually passed down, do they
  know the origin of the story, and do they believe
  them as true?