See also: [(art) concepts]
[Presence]
Relics
Tribal relics
An important distinction *must* (should?) be made between the
art-ness of a thing and the thing-ness of the thing. As our
dear friend, Robert Plant Armstong puts it so elloquently
as quoted in"THe Powers of Presence: Consciousness, Myth,
and Affecting", by Robert Plant Armstrong, LCCN NB 1098.A753,
ISBN 0.8122.7804.6 (Univ. Penn Press, 1981, Philadelphia??).
[P.7] (THe Powers of Invocation; THe Powers of Virutosity)
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A "work of art", in our Western sense, is an object or even
caused to be "a work of art" by vitue of the fact that it
abides in an estate of perceptible, moral, psychological
quality - of excellence. [ie, virtuosity] The Mona Lisa,
for example, is caused to be a "great" and "powerful" work
of art because of the excellence of its conception and
execution, and not at all because it is a representation of
a particular historical personage. [it *is*, but that's not the
point here. Indeed...]
Yet there are cultures, for example, those in Black Africa, where the
work is caused to be what it is -- to own its power -- precisely [emph mine]
becasue of its "who-ness" or "what-ness", and not at all because of
the excellence of its execution, moality, or expression. This a
point [that] traditional anthropologists and traditional aestheticians
seem to miss -- attempting instead to find "principles" of "beauty" or
"harmony" or "vitue" or "rhythm" or "symmetry", whose exercise in
excellence is presumed to be the cause of the thing's or event's
becoming a "work of art"[.] Thus, transfrerring to an alien culture
the un-examined preferences of their own [western culture]. An ancestor
figure amonth the Dogon of Mali [Dogon mask, sur-mounted by an
ancestor figure -- the one with the full figure of the ancestor stands
with the left hand slightly forward and turned down at the wrist] is
what it is precisely because it enacts ancestors, and not because it
may do so in a fashion [that] we Westerners might deem of surpassing
excellence or "beauty' [Note 01]
[and then again...]
[P.49]
Notes
(this section only)
[1] This is *not* to say that artists like Modigliani, Van Gogh, etc did
not see this inner beauty. I think that was not so much a mis-understandin
on their part of the "what-ness" of the works (there was that to be sure),
but rather that they saw that all of the supposed *conventions* of what
beauty was supposed to be (especially in terms "acceptable" by the salon
and of course THE ACADEMY.
Also, this being the romantic period (and artists are nothing if not
hopelessly lost dreamers and romantics), so to "connect" with that
innocent state of "primitivism" would indeed be a strong force and
emotion; and, it still is.
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[2]
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[3]
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[9]
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The Usual Suspects