ART IS…Episode 2

So, now I ask WHY ART AND WHAT IS IT FOR?

ART IS…Episode 2. Art does a lot!  Last time I talked a bit about the practical applications in our daily lives: clothes, entertainment, manufacturing…

But there is more.  We can all easily accept the artist as designer of our human made goods and designers and producers of our entertainment.

“SO, WHY ART?”
I suppose one could snarkily say Why not? ART IS…Episode 2

ART IS…Episode 2. Art has been a feature of humankind since time immemorial.  We painted on walls, decorated every possible surface and implement once we figured out thingness. This tendency to mark everything is ubiquitous. It’s not just the rich or the leisured who have done this.

“BUT WHY?”

I have some theories.  I’m no archaeologist or scientist…but I think at first it was just discovery!

As humans began to discover that their bodies were differentiated from the environment, they began “testing it out.” Like our toddlers they banged on things, bent things, chewed on things, looked intently at things. They began to discover that things could be used for survival.

You could cover yourself with leaves and skins to protect yourself from rain, snow, sleet and hail.  I can imagine them eventually noticing different ways to put things together for protection and then noticing, with pleasure, the visual differences.

Eventually choices could be made for esthetic reasons:  Think about the first mud pots that fell in the fire and got real hard. Once those pots were being made more permanent intentionally, marks began to be added to the pots that have no survival value.  How to make marks was discovered, provided pleasure and, perhaps signified the maker or the owner.

The first baskets were very plain.  Eventually it was noticed that different basket-making plants had different colors that could be combined intentionally in cool patterns.

It was in playing around with materials at hand that survival-related discoveries were made and then beauty began to enter the equation.

“BUT WHAT’S THE SURVIVAL VALUE OF CAVE PAINTINGS AND PETROGLYPHS?”

I suspect that there was survival value, curiosity and pleasure there too.

Imagine living in a wild environment full of predators and prey with little protection from the weather?  I suspect that as a group we would try to control what was happening around us. Right?

Humans are always trying to make sense of things.  We make up stories to explain what we observe, to give meaning to it, to gain some sense of mastery. Sometimes those stories are very accurate: Mud pots dropped in a hot fire sometimes become so hard they are permanent.

Sometimes the stories are about dragons and feathered serpents: supernatural explanations of natural forces that become the operating myth of a community.  All these stories and those in between help us, at least for a time, feel safe in an unsafe environment.

So, can’t you just imagine the cave paintings and petroglyphs showing hunting, birth and simply hand prints having instructive or protective value? How to be successful in the hunt?  How to survive the violent mystery of childbirth? Prepare in every way possible, including prayer/ritual.  And those hand prints?  Oh My!

At the very least that is one of the original artist/shamans declaring

the power of art across the millennia, shouting

“I AM!”

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