1. Chapter 6: Form
1.1. Formalist approach/ Formalism
1.1.1. This approach concentrated on visual design as the source of aesthetic value. It identified principles of composition such as unity, balance/symmetry, and recurring shapes that should apply regardless of what is being presented.
1.1.2. William Fagg of the British Museum was a notable advocate of formalism whose search for "meaning in African art" was an exercise in connoisseurship, "having regard both to universal values in art and to specific tribal values". His method was explicitly subjective: "what is required is instantaneous intuitive recognition (to be followed up as necessary by analytical methods) of the qualities, including the authenticity, of the work". The objective was to identify "the finest works" of a style, these being best at "communicating the ineffable, that is the truths, values, feelings, etc." of a particular ethnic group or "tribe". This property of art he regarded as far more important than the "subject matter" or symbolic content of the sculpture. (Burt, 86).
1.2. Split representation
1.2.1. A concept focused on by Levi- Strauss which showed a dualistic relationship between an object and design. He thought it could be used to identify social structure
1.2.1.1. He referred to examples of this as masking cultures
1.2.2. "Levi-Strauss focused on the "split representation" of creatures in Northwest Coast artefacts, which Boas had analyzed as two profiles joined at the head. He noted that Leonhard Adams had commented independently, in terms very similar to Boas's, on the designs of ancient Chinese bronze vessels. He made a comparison with women's face painting from his own research with the Caduveo people of southern Brazil, in which symmetry was complicated by inverting designs from one side of the face to the other, so that diagonal opposites corresponded"
1.3. Cognitive approach
1.3.1. Approach used by Joan Vastokas which explained that visual art depended upon understanding a cultural tradition in its own terms and that art was a vital component of the systems that comprised the culture.
1.3.2. "In ritual performances, the interior of the house was referred to as the middle world, the roof as the upper world, the ground below as the underworld, and the walls as the edges of the world. A pole mounted on the central axis of the house, toward the back, linked the three worlds in the cannibal-spirit ritual performances, representing the shamanistic travel between them. At the same time, the central axis from front to back of the house linked the sea out in front of the house, the inhabited shore area, and the forest behind the house, in a horizontal three-part structure complementing the vertical one. The central point of axes, where the horizontal and vertical lines crossed, was the point of power and prestige, the residence of the highest-ranking person of the village or in the house, and the focus of ritual sanctity in performance, as with the cannibal pole. The shape of the world was square, like the house and other artefacts of a people who worked with planks of wood."(Burt, 95)
2. Chapter 8: Performance
2.1. Costume
2.1.1. People often use this to enhance their bodies artistically to communicate who or what they are. The attire helps them and community members to perform their societal roles.
2.1.2. "The big events of Piro society were girls' coming of age ceremonies, when neighboring communities were invited to celebrate a girls' emergence from a year of seclusion. On this occasion, grandmothers painted flowing designs on the bodies of girls whose reproductive lives were beginning with the flow of menstrual blood, for celebrations made enjoyable by the flowing of manioc beer produced by their mothers. The ceremonies thus demonstrated what it meant to be a "real Piro woman", whose life culminated in the mastery of painted designs. When this skill, so central to a woman's identity, was applied to beautify the newly initiated girls, it also represented some basic truths about womanhood through the concepts of flow, which for the Piro explain human physiology, society, and design." (Burt, 112)
2.2. Parades
2.2.1. Used by a group for social purposes. The displays can show the solidarity, coordination, strength, and wealth of the peoples that are performing them.
2.2.2. "Clans sought to impress their audience with a display of strength, to deters others from attacking them, as a group or as individuals. They tried to create an intimidating impression that would be taken to reflect the moral caliber of the group in their relationnships with each other and with outsiders. Bad feeling within the clan could affect the group's well-being in general and compromise their attempts to put on a good public show in various unpredictable ways, ...This would lead to public criticism and might invite aggression from others who perceived them as weak" (Burt, 117)
3. Chapter 7: Meaning
3.1. Denotative and Connotative
3.1.1. Concepts used to describe signs. They could either denote something for what it is or use it to symbolize something else within the cultural system.
3.1.1.1. Idea introduced by Roland Barthes
3.1.2. "Barthes used the example of commercial advertising, in which images of commodities are contrived to represent appealing social values"(Burt, 98)
3.2. Heraldry
3.2.1. A tradition used in Europe in which crests are used to represent history or prerogatives of high-status people or families. Also referred to as "coats of arms".
3.2.2. "Aristocratic rank is distinguished by the type of helm and, for peers of the realm or lords, by additional motifs including a particular style of "coronet" beneath the helm, and creaures holding the shield at each side as "supporters", standing on a base or "compartment". ... The arms of several families can be combined in certain ways to signify marriage and shared inheritance, allowing the shield to become a graphic geneology, and seniority of inheritance from the forst to the ninth son can be distinguished by superimposed motifs. Other emblems may be added to "augment" the arms as signs of distinctions earned, or displayed seperately as "badges"." (Burt, 99)
4. Chapter 9: Archeology
4.1. Moche Iconography
4.1.1. Often depicted Sacrificial ceremonies and were drawn on pots. Figures were either shown wearing elaborate costumes or were tied by rope to signify they were the captives/ sacrifices.
4.1.2. "Once captured, some or all of the opponent's clothing was removed, a rope was placed around his neck, and his hands were sometimes tied behind his back. The victor then held the rope tied to the prisoner's neck and marched him off the field of battle. The prisoners were taken to a place where they were formally arraigned. One scene shows them being brought into a ceremonial precinct, defined by large pyramids with temple structures at their summits. Following arraignment, there was a ceremony in which the prisoners were sacrificed. Their throats were cut, and their blood was consumed in tall goblets." (Burt, 131)
4.2. Moche Culture
4.2.1. Believed that suffering appeased the gods. In order to placate their deities, they performed the sacrificial scenes shown on their pots and buried the sacrifices in the Temple of the Moon.
4.2.2. "...the Sacrifice Ceremony has been interpreted as an ancient precedent for Inca and more recent Andean ceremonies, following the same calendar, with the two halves of the community holding a battle for captives, later dancing with a snake-headed rope, sacrificing the captives, and sending their remains off in boats over the sea. This would have anticipated the beginningof the mountain rains, which signaled the renewal of good relationss with ancestors and deities, manifesting the ongoing circulation of water and life-force. The large number of sacrificed men in the Temple of the Moon suggests a desparate attempt to deal with an interruption to the seasonal cycle by a severe El Nino by propitiating the spirit forces responsible." (Burt, 134)
4.3. Nasca Iconography
4.3.1. Less conclusive than Moche iconography as it does not appear to form scenes. Depicted humans, animals, deities, severed heads, plants, objects, and geometric designs.
4.3.2. "The researchers decided that the meanings of the Nasca motifs could best be understood through relationships within a total iconographic system, and one focus was on which motifs commonly ocurred together. By looking at how certain motifs combined or substituted for one another in different images, it should be possible to work out symbolic relations between them. Hence, strong relations emerged between severed heads and crop plants; males and the colo red; females and the color yellow; oval eyes and live creatures; U-shaped eyes and the dead, and so on." (Burt, 137)
5. Chapter 5: Prehistoric Art
5.1. Matriarchal Society
5.1.1. Some societies theorize that original social orders were run by women. This idea stems from the fact that mother-goddess's which honors female reproduction are apparent in many societies.
5.1.2. "Close examination of the geometry of Stonehenge and other monuments demonstrate that they were designed to focus on the eve of the longest night of the year, rather than the dawn of the longest day as commonly supposed, and in correlation with significant phases of the moon in the nineteen-year calendar cycle. Theorists proposed that this represented an emerging contradiction between an old moon-focused cosmology and a new sun-focused one, involving a transformation in male-female cultural roles. The reasoning, based on research into foraging people's such as the San of southern Africa and Inuit of North America, is that the lunar calendar governed men's hunting routines and women's menstrual cycles under an ancient form of community organization dominated of groups of related women." (Burt, 76)
5.2. Origins Based on Books
5.2.1. When Europeans first began to build a chronology of the world, they were entirely dependent on documentary records. This included books like the Bible.
5.2.2. "As part of this study of God's work, antiquitarians researched the historical truths recorded in the Bible and other texts inherited from Greece and Rome. These sources, with dates inscribed on monuments and recovered artefacts including coins, were the only means of establishing a chronology for ancient remains."(Burt, 69)
5.3. NAGPRA
5.3.1. This act gives Native Americans the right to protect ancient sites from archeologists and the like digging up these sites for research purposes.
5.3.2. "To archeologists, the idea of consulting with potential specimens must seem annoying. For Native Americans, it's yet another version of the country's oldest and deadliest game: Cowboys and Indians."(2000:213, 255)
6. Chapter 10: The Work of Art
6.1. Nilotic Sudan: Cultural Activity has an Aesthetic Aspect
6.1.1. Nilotic herding peoples used their cattle as a canvas and developed an aesthetic appreciation for them. Showed that all cultural activities could be made into art.
6.1.2. "However, he demonstrated how the herders, rather than simply discovering aesthetic qualities in their cattle, actually created them, by shaping the animals' appearance, by developing complex criteria for judging it, and by attributing meanings to it that had much broader significances in their view of society and the world. Selecting well-marked bull calves, they castrated them to produce fat oxen, fed them up and groomed them, cut their horns to shape the way they curved, and added valuable decorative tassels. They associated aesthetic values with moral ones and, besides their cattle, they decorated their own bodies, utensils, and homesteads with designs that represented cattle, symbolized their qualities, or demonstrated the aesthetic principles of cattle design."(Burt, 143)
6.2. Art in Cosmology
6.2.1. Artefacts could be used in order to make a groups cosmological beliefs visible, significant, and comprehensible to others (even to those within the same society).
6.2.2. "In these houses, bags holding the relics of dead ancestors, whose blessing ensured prosperity and good fortune, hung from the top of the wall, above carefully arranged rows of pig jawbones and skulls, cassowary pelvises and other small animal jawbones, all from meals eaten by men in communion with their ancestors. The nature and arrangement of these relics varies among local communities, but seemed to reflect the Ok cosmology in several ways. There was the division of the house as a whole into two sides, for farming and nurturing, hunting and killing, with separate hearths for cooking domestic and wild pigs. There was the arrangement of relics according to ecological zones, of upland wild animals, the middle settled area of domestic pigs, and the lowland forest of wild pigs and cassowaries. There was the use of relics to represent the relationships between the men, their ancestors who governed their fortunes, and the land that provided their livelihood" (Burt, 145)
6.3. Agency
6.3.1. Term used by Alfred Gell which proposed that art has the power to act in society. Meaning, they could act as social agents.
6.3.2. "Campbell described how the carved canoe boards were said to work not only because of their formal appearance but also because of the wisdom, knowledge, and precision that specialist carvers brougt to the making of them. People responded emotionally by appreciating them as valid expressions of important social values entailed in the voyages for which the canoes were made: the kula exchange." (Burt, 150)
7. Chapter 1: The Origins of Art
7.1. Divine Providence
7.1.1. As Europeans reaped the benefits of "discovering" new nations, their empire continued to expand. Their territory became so big that they believed they had divine favor.
7.1.1.1. "Europeans were becoming convinced that they had surpassed the achievements of antiquity and were now in the forefront of human development, ready to take charge of the world, intellectually as well as politically."(Burt, 11)
7.1.2. The Sun Never Sets on the European Empire
7.2. British Museum and Ethnography
7.2.1. "The British Museum long ago ceased to be the universal museum of the Enlightenment ideal, with the loss of natural history, fine art, and books to other institutions. It is now said to be a museum of "world cultures", and as such it maintains Britain's claim to represent the world once dominated by its empire through the artefacts it acquired in those times." (Burt, 19)
7.2.2. The British Museum was used to show off European wealth, superiority, and ideals. It showcased more classical works over those of different cultures. These non-Greek works were labeled as ethnographic.
7.2.2.1. Also helped reinforce the idea that civilizations went through a cycle of ages.
7.3. Connoseurship of Art
7.3.1. During this time, scholars tried to develop standards which would help people distinguish whether an art piece was worthy enough to be called fine art.
7.3.1.1. Since they viewed Greek art as the pinnacle of beauty, this made the standards biased in favor of classical pieces.
7.3.2. "Experts refined the skills to assess the artistic and hence the commercial value of paintings. In 1719, the English painter Jonathan Richardson published criteria 'Shewing how to judge I. Of the Goodness of a Picture, II. Of the Hand of the Master; and III. Whether 'tis an Original, or a Copy'. He set out principles of contenet, composition, and style, and wrote of 'the science of connoseuiship', concerning the quality, authenticity, and the value of artefacts treated as art." (Burt, 11)
8. Chapter 4: Primitive Art
8.1. Diffusionism
8.1.1. Europeans believed that "primitive societies" lacked the mental capacity of changing their art forms. Thus, any changes made meant they adopted it from a higher society.
8.1.2. "Craig's study of shield designs from the Sepik area of Papua New Guinea (2005) confirmed other research to show that people may adopt new designs and motiffs while retaining the underlying techniques and especially the structures of their local style, such as particular principles of symmetry" (Burt, 65)
8.2. Primitive Man
8.2.1. A derogatory term which Europeans gave to impoverished people in order to maintain their superiority. Primitive societies were viewed as windows to their own past.
8.2.2. "The native peoples of Africa, the Americas, the Pacific Islands, and other regions far from the great civilizations of Europe and Asia might be called 'savages' if they lacked the political organization to put up strong concerted opposition to their colonizers, or 'barbarians' if they had only petty chiefdoms rather than kingdoms or empires." (Burt, 53)
9. Chapter 11: The Art World
9.1. Hierarchies of Art
9.1.1. Art historians in the 1970's and mid 1980's began to produce critical analyses of the social and economic contexts which added to the hierarchies of art. Known hierarchies include class and gender.
9.1.2. "The most obvious of these hierarchies distinguishes artefacts credited with the expression of aesthetic and symbolic values as true art or "fine art" from less artefacts designated as applied or 'decorative' art, 'design', or 'craft'. The hierarchy is one of artistic and commercial value that affects the status and income of art collectors and curators, artists and designers, craftworkers, dealers, and shopkeepers, who all depend on the art and collection sectors of Western societies. It is supported by an institutionalnsystem of education and patronage, collection and exhibition, dealing and brokering, and publication of images and commentaries." (Burt, 162)
9.2. Art as Collectibles
9.2.1. Western society views artefacts from cultures as well as artists as something to be collected. They could be displayed for public or private enjoyment.
9.2.2. "In Collecting in a Consumer Society, Russel Belk (1995) has shown how the artefacts treated as art gain value from the practice of collecting, as a pervasive feature of the Western culture of material consumption." (Burt, 167)
9.3. Art Brokers
9.3.1. They are the dealers of the art world. They help provide distinctions between "good" art and "bad" art and manage relationships between the art world and the public.
9.3.2. "In order to aspire to be considered 'museum quality' an artwork has to be advocated, debated, and endorsed by a network of experts within both public and private sectors. This comprises artists, curators, academics, art teachers, critics, collectors and dealers, all of whom make up a constantly shifting series of sub-groups with a number of key institutions at their core. To enable this process to function, it is crucial that these groups present a finely tuned interplay between both public and private sectors. If a sufficient number of these individuals hold the same views and combine to support the same artist then this concensus amounts to an endorsement. It is this dynamic which both characterises and drives the contemporary visual arts world, and within it, the market." (Burt, 169)
10. Chapter 3: Oriental Art
10.1. Europe vs. Orient
10.1.1. Binaries between the East and West were created so that Europe could define themselves in a favorable image. They classified themselves by what they believed they were not.
10.1.2. "The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences.... Unlike the Americans, the French and the British... have a long tradition of what I shall be calling Orientalism, a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient's special place in European Western experience."(1978: I)
10.2. Oriental art
10.2.1. Although Europeans may not have understood the art from Asia, India, and China, they saw a lot of their own values of art within them to recognize that some could be considered fine art. Because of this recognition, they categorized it as Oriental art.
10.2.2. "Despite insisting on the inferiority of Asian culture, Europeans did extend their category of art to include certain kinds of Asian artefacts and to debate why others should be excluded. Even this exclusion represented an extension of the category, as is clear from the distinctions made by the art historians between fine art, of which Asians produced rather little, and decorative art, produced by artisans rather than artists, which they were judged to be rather better at. This did not necessarily earn European esteem"(Burt, 40)
10.3. Islamic Art
10.3.1. This characterization was made as an attempt to complete an art history linking antiquity with medieval Europe. Mostly a Western term as Muslims don't recognize this category.
10.3.2. "Unlike the religious focus of 'Christian art' or 'Buddhist art', 'Islamic art' includes artefacts for non- Muslim purposes, by and for non-Muslims. Unlike the most valued Western art, it is mostly 'decorative' as distinct from 'fine art'"(Burt, 42)
11. Chapter 2: Classical Art
11.1. Greek obsession
11.1.1. Europeans viewed Greek art as the pinnacle of beauty and used it as a standard to measure the "goodness" of art/relics from other cultures.
11.1.1.1. Hellenomania: the fetishism of Greek art
11.1.2. "From the very first, the Assyrian sculptures were compared unfavorably with those of Ancient Greece, in terms that illustrate European obsession with Classical art" (Burt, 26)
11.2. Biblical Antiquity
11.2.1. Europeans sought out art from both Egypt and Mesopotamia as those areas both have biblical ties and were home to known opponents of the Hebrews and Greeks.
11.2.1.1. Artefacts from these areas were viewed by art historians because they wanted to see how they influenced Greek art, not because of interest or appreciation.
11.2.2. "With the lower and middle classes gaining political influence and demanding greater access to public collections, both national museums put their Assyrian acquisitions on display as soon as possible, in 1847. The trustees and curators of the British Museum disdained the artistic quality of the sculpture and resented competition for space with their Classical collections, but were obliged by popular interest to provide galleries for them in 1853, as part of the rebuilding of the museum."(Burt, 28)
12. Chapter 15: The Global and the Local
12.1. Globalization's Effects on Artists
12.1.1. As the world continues to globalize, artistic culture is also affected. While this effect could provide opportunity for some artists/culture, it could hinder another.
12.1.2. "There is no doubt that artisans live a precarious, fractured and marginalised existence. It has estimated by the United Nations that, in India for example, over the past 30 years the numbers of artisans have declined by at least 30%, with many artisans joining the ranks of casual wage laborers and the informal economy. Mass produced, standardized and cheap factory items have replaced many of the various goods onced produced by artisans. Moreover, essential raw materials like skins and hides, certain types of wood, metals, shells and other craft materials have either become too expensive for the artisans to purchase, or else have been diverted to mass production." (Burt, 223)
12.2. The Irony of Museums
12.2.1. Despite the fact that museums claim the responsibility of preserving world culture, they seldom allow themselves to return artefacts to their country of origin when asked.
12.2.2. "In the process of conquest and colonization, Europeans collected artefacts that are now among the world's most treasured museum possessions. However, as the heirs or representatives of former owners have gained political influence, some have contested the morality or legality of such acquisitions and made claims on them as their patrimony or heritage." (Burt, 225)
13. Chapter 12: The Exotic Primitive
13.1. Primitive Art is Actually Art
13.1.1. Since Western civilization saw some societies as primitive, they also thought their artefacts weren't good enough to be considered art. They referred to them instead as "curios".
13.1.2. "Having provoked an attack on their diplomatic mission seeking trade concessions from the king of Benin, in 1897 the British invaded and looted from the royal palace vast quantities of artefacts of a quality and style quite new to the Europeans of the time. Within the year, these were being exhibited in the British Museum and other museums, where they attracted the attention of the popular press as well as scholars. The general reaction was incredulity that such sophisticated artefacts, particularly the lost-wax brass castings, should be found in Black Africa, where local culture was regarded as crude and uncivilized." (Burt, 174)
13.2. Adopting Primitive Art
13.2.1. During the 1900's European painters began to look toward African art for inspiration because they were tired of the traditional styles (like naturalism) inherited from the Renaissance. They also felt that African art had more freedom.
13.2.2. "They made a virtue of prevailing European primitivist ideas to convince themselves that the small colonized societies that produced such artefacts represented humanity unconstrained by the stale and repressive conventions of civilization- natural, instinctual, and primal." (Burt, 177)
13.3. Authentic Primitive Art
13.3.1. A criterion developed by Western civilization to discern whether a primitive piece is authentic or fake. It denies the culture's perspective while creating a prejudice of what should be made.
13.3.2. "As authentic primitive art, exotic artefacts became commodities to be bought and sold on the lucrative international market through which wealthy countries stocked their public and private collections. The irony was that the people who produced authentic primitive art, almost by definition, did not regard it as art at all, although they might value it as highly as religious symbols, relics, heirlooms, and the other things that made it authentic to collectors." (Burt, 181)
14. Chapter 14: Artistic Colonialism
14.1. Images of Appropriation
14.1.1. In order to reinforce the idea of Western superiority, the West utilized imaging, such as painting and photography, to create stereotyped images of their opponents. Portrayed them as savages or primitive.
14.1.2. "In the process of replacing indigenous peoples, colonial settlers also asserted claims to their land and culture symbolically through new styles of artefacts. Nicholas Thomas (1999) has explained how the settlers of Australia and New Zealand portrayed the landscape as their own paintings of pristine wilderness and domesticated rural settlements, in which the indigenous people usually appeared- if at all- as part of the natural scene or as incidental bystanders left over from the past. By the end of the nineteenth century, as Australian Aboriginals were indeed disappearing from the settled areas, paintings were portraying their European successors as native to a distinctive landscape of their own." (Burt, 209)
14.2. Art Goes Global
14.2.1. Since Western society was a dominating power in the art world, they took it upon themselves to try to influence the art styles of other societies. This resulted in countries adopting their ideas by force or voluntarily.
14.2.2. "In order to adapt appropriate kinds of shoga to the increasingly popular styles of Western art, the new category bijutsu or 'beautiful technique' was developed. As part of this effort to engage with Western power and culture, new concepts were devised in the 1890's to distinguish fine arts (bijutsu), decorative arts (kojei), and decoration (soshoku), on lines currently being debated by Western art critics." (Burt, 218)
15. Chapter 13: Marketing Exotic Art
15.1. Adapting Artefacts to the Exotic Art Market
15.1.1. As societies began to trade with Europeans, they slowly started to change the appearance of their artefacts so that they appealed to the European tourists/market.
15.1.2. "Like others in the region, these people once decorated artefacts of all kinds with creatures of the forests and seas, often with human and other special characteristics. These were emblematic of their clan histories and sources of spiritual power invoked by shamans and by ritual performances, in which they appeared as masked figures....the Haida developed a new export market in 'curios' and began to carve argillite, a fine local shale, into the kind of objects that appealed to Europeans. First they specialized in tobacco pipes- more and more ornamented and impossible to smoke- then, from the 1840's, also human figures, often of Europeans, and models of European objects, from ships and houses, to dishes and cutlery, with European decorative motifs." (Burt, 190)
15.2. Arts of the Fourth World
15.2.1. Term used by Nelson Graburn to describe the artefacts of a colonized minority group in countries that are considered First, Second, or Third World.
15.2.2. "In 1999, Graburn distinguished all these from 'traditional' or 'purebred' arts, as 'hybrid' between indigenous and colonial cultures. He also made the important point that ' the artist dependent on the cross- cultural market are rarely socialized into the symbolic and aesthetic system of the consumers who support them'. This put them at a disadvantage in negotiating the artistic categories that affected the commercial value of their products by continuing to distinguish 'tourists' or 'souvenir' goods and 'craft' from the prestigious and profitable 'fine arts'". (Burt, 194)