Chapter 14: The Anthropological Study of Art – Flashcards

- musical - visual - verbal - movement (dance) ...

- The creative use of the human imagination to aesthetically interpret, express, and engage life modifying experienced reality in the process

parts of a culture including: - ideas about religion -kinship -ethnic identity

Made to: - guarentee the eternal life of the king and protect him from evil forces that might enter his body and gain control over it

- Set the appropriate rythem for the performance of specific shipboard tasks -- e.g. hoisting or reefing sails - Coordinated tasks and relieved boredom on the ship

-ideas -values -things that have meaning to an entire community

- a symbolic representation of form and expression of feeling

- ideas about different worldviews - religious beliefs - political ideas - social values - kingship structures - economic relations - historical memory

- cataloguing - photographing - recording - describing

1. aesthetic approach - analyzing how things are depicted (what type of paints used, various color pigments, tools ect.) 2. narrative approach- investigating what is depicted 3. interpretive approach- looking at the art being studied in the light of contemporary ethnographic research among similar and different communities

- some sort of visual image - painting, drawing, sketch, etching in bone, engraing in rock, ect.

- Representational: imitating closely the forms of nature - Abstract: drawing form natureal forms but only representing their most basic patterns or arrangements

- a collective understanding of symbols in a community e.g. symbols related to kingship: - kingship can be symbolically expressed in stylized motifs and colorful designs etched or painted on human skin, animal skins ect. - To ousiders these designs appear strange - Designs actually illustrate social realtions of marriage and decend/ genoelogical patterns

1. used for an overt punitive fashion (as in the tatooing of slaves and prisoners) 2. mark clan or cult membership 3. mark religious or tribal affiliation 4. social status 5. maritial position 5. memorial (as in U.S. Marines in Iraq using tatoos to give permanence to their fallen friends

- signs Can also communcate through: - color - style - manner of execution - location on the body

- Rock art- paintings and engravings made on the faces of rock outcops and on interior walls of rock shelters - From at least 27,000 years ago - Created by Bushmen in Southern Africa

- humans and animals in highly sophisticated ways - sometimes in static poses but often in highly animated scene

- believed they possessed great supernatural powers, especially the eland (African antelope)

- trance dancing with shamans transforming into birds - this image = experienced on altered states of conciousness experienced in trance

- Culturally specific people, animals, and monsters seen in the deepest stage of trance

1. -Nervous system generates images of luminous, pulsating, revolving constantly shifting geometric patterns (entoptic phenomena) -similar to images seen during a headache (zig-zags, dots, nested curves in a spiral pattern) 2. -Brain tries to make sense of abstract form - cultural influences come into play and the patterns they construct will reflect this 3.- People feel as if they are at one with their images - passing into a rotating tunnel or vortex - iconic images of animals/ humans, monsters appear merging with entopic forms of early stages) (Bushman will see eland, a massive antelope they believe carries supernatural powers for making rain, so they will try to capture them in their trance - Also includes sensations of being stretched and elongated - Can also have the sensation of being transformed into some sort of animal

- Narratives - Dramas - Poetry - Incantations - proverbs - riddles - word games - naming procedures - compliments and insults... when theses take structured and special forms

- Due to the industrial revolution - Triggered a series of radical changes in the national cultural fabric of state societies - Folklore communities were under pressures of modernization + had to conform

- Term coined by 19th century scholars - created to distinguish between the unwritten stories and other artistic traditions of "folk art" and "fine art" of the elite

- Myths - Legends - Tales

- Sacred narrative 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

- To provide a rational for religious beliefs and practises - sets cultural standards for proper behaviour - Expresses part of a people's traditional worldview

The unknown is simplified and explained in terms of the known

- Story about a memorable event or figure handed down by tradition and told as true but without historical evidence

Have pseudo-historical narratives that: - account for the deeds of heroes - the movement of peoples' - the establishment of local customs - -- Serve to entertain as well as to instruct -- or to inspire or bolster pride in a family, community, or nation

They seize upon and even exaggerate past events while ignoring or giving scant attention to others - this = because a culture's hopes and expectations are projected onto the record of the past

- Long, dramatic narrative recounting the celebrated deeds of a historic or legendary hero- often sung or recited in poetic language

- in nonliterate societies

- Creative narrative that is recognized as fiction for entertainment but may also draw a moral or teach a practical lesson - usually have a moral

- A story situation in a tale

1. They cannot be attributed to any known author 2. Always exist in multiple versions 3. Tell us something about the cultures in which they are found

- Ethnomusicology The study of a society's music in terms of its cultural setting - Primarily studies European music

- Music to one person might sound like noise to another - = a form of communication that includes a nonverbal auditory component - Information transmitted = more emotional rather than concrete ideas - Experienced in a variety of different ways by different listeners

1. a function of tonality (involve both tonality and rhythm) 2. an organizing concept involving stress, tempo, and measured repetition

- In music, scale systems and their modifications

- Offers insights into a culture's worldview - Gives clues about everything from gender and kinship relations to religious beliefs, political ideas, historical memory ect.

- Displays social status - spiritual identity - and political power

- Powerful identifier, Jay-Z Eminem, American artists that are sponsored in music festivals by ethnic groups that gather to reaffirm and celebrate their ethnic identities - Can also show proof of native ownership through recordings of songs

- In the texts songs contain A groups values, beliefs, and concerns are expressed - = expressed with an increased formalism resulting from adherence to the systematic rules or conventions of pitch, rhythm , timbre and musical genre - So music plays an important role in the cultural preservation and revitalization efforts of indigenous peoples around the world whose traditions were repressed or nearly exterminated through colonialism