1. Performance
1.1. Studies of art take into account artifacts role in society.
1.1.1. social activities require artistic effect
1.1.2. 1960s anthropologist began to study masks, costume, masquerades, and artistic creation.
1.1.3. Provides a perspective outside of Western understanding.
1.2. Costume and Display of Art
1.2.1. People in all societies use dress to describe or communicate something
1.3. Amazonia
1.3.1. Designs of Piro of Amazonia. Often this form of showing off can be gendered.
1.3.1.1. Piro women paint linear designs on pots, men’s robes, bags, and skirts often with dozen or so basic line forms.
1.3.2. Rite of Passage of Piro women where the community is invited to celebrate a girl’s year of seclusion.
1.3.2.1. Manioc beer made by mother and used in celebration.
1.3.2.2. Grandmother paint flowing designs with menstrual blood
1.4. Solomon Islands
1.4.1. Body ornaments of Malaita island in Solomon Islands are used to present themselves as youths and maidens, husband, and wives, men of possession, priests, warriors, heirs to ancestral ghosts
1.5. China
1.5.1. Clothing customs strictly enforced as part of the states control to identify status
1.5.1.1. Hats with specific knobs on them are used to identify class and status
1.5.1.1.1. Rubys-official of first to third ranks
1.5.1.1.2. Sapphires-fourth rank
1.5.1.1.3. Crystals- fifth to sixth
1.5.1.1.4. Gold -seventh and eighth ranks
1.5.1.1.5. Ninth rank had no jewel
1.6. Papua New Guinea Highlands
1.6.1. Costumes and performance are symbolic, shown through feathered headdress, painted face, oiled bodies and shell ornaments of differenct color
1.6.1.1. Bright displays-friendship and fertility
1.6.1.2. Dark displays-aggression and strength
1.6.2. Annual festivals and feats are held to honor friendship by an exchange of goods and food
1.6.2.1. Body adornment and dance would be used to display moral state of the group to others
1.6.2.1.1. Red and black held significance
1.6.2.1.2. Colors of face paints: glossy, glowing, and fiery, Full, dry, flaky all have different meaning
1.7. Britain
1.7.1. British Military use parades of their armed forces to display power, tradition and solidarity
1.7.1.1. Bearing the Retreat
1.7.1.2. Edinburgh Tattoo
1.7.1.3. Trooping the Colour
1.7.1.4. Honoring the Monarchs Birthday
1.8. Power of Impersonation
1.8.1. Costumes make people into artifacts. Transform the wearer into other beings.
1.8.2. Impersonation from the Elema people of Papua New Guinea
1.8.2.1. Communities are centered around sanction houses that face the beach
1.8.2.1.1. These houses are a sacred place where ritualistic masks are hand made inside
1.8.2.1.2. Sanctum houses can take 10-20 years to construct as part of the ritual
1.9. Performance by Proxy
1.9.1. Shadows puppets are silhouettes on a cloth screen intricately cut and painted
1.9.1.1. Portrayals of gods, kings, and heroes, giants, and demons
1.9.1.2. Usually performed at reliqious holidays, births, circumcisions and wedding by community leaders
2. Archaeology
2.1. Historically archaeology and Western perspectives have had a condescending view on nonEuropean cultures.
2.1.1. Anthropologist can make analogous connections, but it can be challenging.
2.1.1.1. Assumptions are made about cultures and art that make it challenging to correctly identify
2.2. Methodology in Peru
2.2.1. For centuries, the strategy to analyze Peruvian art was through the discipline of art-history until archaeologists Started to identify and value iconography of Mesoamerica and of the Andes
2.2.1.1. Moche and Nazca cradle of complex culture
2.2.1.1.1. Developing Meaning of Nazca Pottery, Images on ceramics codes in pictorial language explains sacred relationship between man and nature. Explains cosmological ideas and social process
2.2.1.2. Sacred Geography-animated landscape of mountains and water deities that utilize themes of agriculture and warfare using animals and figures in ceremonial performances.
2.3. Identification through time and place
2.3.1. Periods or Phases-Changes in styles in successive layers of cultural remains placed in chronological order
2.3.2. Horizon-a period shared over many localities
2.4. Moche Iconography
2.4.1. Pottery and Mythology
2.4.1.1. Scenes-certain human and other figures and objects as motif that recurred in certain combinations
2.4.2. Shows images of Sacrificial Ceremony
2.4.2.1. such cerimonies have been replicated since the 16th century and beyond.
2.4.2.1.1. December lunar cycle, warriors from two halves of capital of Cusco engage in ceremonial battle and sacrifice.
2.4.2.1.2. February lunar cycle, burned remains of sacrificial victims and tossed portion of
2.4.3. 1940s excavating burials with costumes found on ceremonial pots. 1980s identified burials of important leaders wearing masks.
2.4.3.1. Timelines help idenify and interpret the rate of sacrafice and ceremony
2.5. Nazca Iconography
2.5.1. Nazca pottery contained motif with complex designs with humans, animals, insects, deities, severed heads and geometric designs.
2.5.1.1. Researchers looked not at one image but the entire artifact to find a connotation of the iconography
3. The Work Of Art
3.1. Identifying the hierarchy and history of cultural products
3.1.1. Provides deeper meaning to areas like Religion beyond christiianity and gods, or economics beyond capitalism and markets
3.2. Difficulties for westerners
3.2.1. hard to interpret in anthropology
3.2.2. intersects politics, economics, and religion
3.3. Clive Bell (1913) believed art based on “significant form”
3.3.1. Form of an artifact
3.3.2. ideas linked to the form
3.4. Raymond Firth (1992) believed all human cultures create patterns
3.4.1. Pattern is the regularity that people perceive that enable them to predict and understand world of experience.
3.5. NIlotic Sudan
3.5.1. Art is seen in the display of their cattle
3.5.1.1. Cattle are the pride joy and food used in society and ritual
3.5.1.1.1. Marriage Gifts
3.5.1.1.2. Indemnity Payments
3.5.1.1.3. Sacrafices
3.5.1.2. Moral and aesthetic values related to cattle based on color and patterns as well as hied, fatness and shape of the horns
3.5.1.2.1. alterations to the cattle can be made to exadurate certain qualities
3.5.2. Art is perceived as an aspect of culture
3.5.2.1. Art is a Western construct and tradition that forms things and meaning of things together.
3.5.2.2. Ethnocentricity of the concept of art
3.5.2.3. Nilotic herders demonstrate the art in everyday activates that are in all they do
3.6. Papua New Guinea Highlands
3.6.1. Mountain Ok Sanctum Houses were founded by females and ancestors but then changed role to be male dominate
3.6.1.1. Houses dispay bones of animals from meals they had and arranged in a specific order
3.6.1.1.1. this order is based on that of the ecological zones of papau new guinea
3.7. Power of Art
3.7.1. Technological enchantment - Enchantment of cultural significances by the employment of forms and patterns that had certain psychological effects.
3.7.1.1. artifacts could act as social agents holding power within the metaphor
3.8. Trobtiand Islands
3.8.1. Magical power of woodcarvers crafting yam houses and canoes
3.8.2. Kula Exchange
3.8.2.1. Men visited neighboring islands to exchange shell bead necklace for cone shell arm-rings
3.8.2.2. Circuit of exchange linking the islands together
3.8.2.3. Canoes have spacial meaning
3.8.2.3.1. White –newness and purity
3.8.2.3.2. Red-sexuality and attraction
3.8.2.3.3. Black-age, death, and sorcery
4. Form
4.1. Formalism- identify principles of composition, such as organic unity among elements, balanced sense of symmetry, and recurring shapes.
4.1.1. Form
4.1.2. Color
4.1.3. Texture
4.1.4. Texture
4.2. Clive Bell
4.2.1. Significant form- one quality common to all works of visual art.
4.2.1.1. Excludes historical, cultural, or personal context in analysis
4.2.1.2. Mastery of technique and form hold more importance
4.3. Primitive Art Movement
4.3.1. William Fagg
4.3.1.1. Connoisseur of "primitive" art who strove to identify the finest works of art based on Truths, Values and Feeling
4.3.2. Franz Boas
4.3.2.1. Went against Euro and Ethnocentric perspective of art
4.3.2.1.1. Artistic work is to be based on cultural relativism, Developing technique, Mastery of technique, Perfection of form, Expressionistic element which are all common in "primitive art"
4.3.2.2. Males: Symbolic Art
4.3.2.2.1. Males use of curvilinear style to portray people and animals
4.3.2.3. Female: Formal Art
4.3.2.3.1. Females make use of linear style and nonrepresentational designs depicting plants and inanimate objects.
4.3.2.4. Ethnology-the analysis and comparison of ethnographic data across cultures.
4.3.3. BIll Holm
4.3.3.1. Realistic styles of art
4.3.3.2. Two-dimensional formline
4.3.3.2.1. Formline-continuous primary connected line pattern delineating main shape.
4.3.4. Claude Levi-Strauss
4.3.4.1. Structuralist-deep inherit universal patterns of human mind that culture is built on.
4.3.4.2. Famously crituqued diffusionism for poor methodology and weak evidance
4.3.4.3. Masking culture- where persons have their faces artificially transformed.
4.3.4.4. Ethnology of split representation: Two profiles joined at the head.
4.3.4.4.1. Person and impersonation, masking cultures reflect roles in socail hierarchy
4.3.5. Importance of eating:
4.3.5.1. Things must die to feed others
4.3.5.2. Rituals and ceremonies of sharing and eating to honor the seperation of two seasons: Secular spring and Sacred winter
4.3.5.2.1. Potlatch-giving festival to bestow titles inherited by ancestors and raise prestige using mask and ceremonial regalia.
4.3.6. Will
4.4. Structure of Northwest Coast Culture
4.4.1. eating is a metaphore with deeper meaning
4.4.1.1. Greed-unrestrained hunger
4.4.1.2. Immorality-human desires can create conflict and destruction.
4.4.1.3. Children-children constantly demand to be fed and can consume all of the family's food.
4.4.2. The Big House
4.4.2.1. Structure is a metaphore for their cosmology
4.4.2.2. Anatomy
4.4.2.2.1. Roof=upper world
4.4.2.2.2. Ground=underworld
4.4.2.2.3. Interior=middleworld
4.4.2.2.4. Walls=edges of the world.
4.4.2.2.5. Pole mounted on the central axis linked to three worlds: Realm of the cannibal, Shamanistic axis to other worlds, Sea-world
4.4.2.3. Winter ritual and the Cannibal Dance
4.4.2.3.1. Tsetseka-four-day ritual full of meaning and symbolic gestures in which a youth is initiated into the Cannibal Society
4.4.2.3.2. Transforms a young man into an adult
4.4.2.3.3. Durring winter the spirit world intersects with the living world
4.4.3. The Big House
5. Meaning
5.1. Artifacts convey messages within their cultural traditions.
5.2. Roland Barthes
5.2.1. Denotative- denoting the literal and explicit meaning.
5.2.2. Connotative- informed by the cultural and historical context
5.3. Codes exist in culture and society that govern the relationship amongst meaning
5.4. Heraldry- tradition of graphic emblems that represent the histories and prerogatives of high-status individuals, families, and corporate bodies in Europe.
5.4.1. Heraldry or coat of arms, were used by many to identify rank and genealogy
5.4.2. Established College of Arms to codify rules and grant & award symbols of achievement and status: Individuals, Trade gilds, Companies, City corporations
5.5. Explicit meaning from Benin, Nigeria
5.5.1. Benin artifacts was known to Europeans after royal palace was plundered in 1897 some others “purchased”
5.5.2. Significance of animals and imagery
5.5.2.1. Animals helped define view of the world and nature of human society such as: Story telling, History and Proverbs
5.5.2.2. Story give meaning to society and explain worldview. Creatures in Benin Artifacts symbolic of power and hierarchy of power over the realms they
5.5.2.3. Given dominion over the forest and its animals. Some creatures became domesticated such as Chicken, cow, and sheep which were regularly sacrificed. Some creatures were docile and easy to kill used as food such as antelope, pangolin, mudfish
5.6. Limits to Iconography
5.6.1. Haplin (1994) clarifies interpretive mistakes of Boas: oMeaning transforms with the passing of time. oNo standard set of iconographic conventions. oArtifacts are symbolic of the continuous and evolving experiences with non-human beings.
5.7. HIdden Meanings
5.7.1. Just words sometimes are not enough
5.7.1.1. Researchers analyze and make sense of what artifacts and art means.