tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26613089539264674192024-02-21T10:17:47.165+04:00Introduction to the History of ArtPart 1: From Prehistoric Art to Early Renaissance
copyright (C) Marcelo Guimaraes Lima, PhDMarcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-23020181184717329072011-01-25T10:00:00.001+04:002011-01-25T11:09:00.834+04:00Neolithic Art: Çatalhöyük<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM5Jth1zE_d8d4uDuCXlFaeb5qIJcwNhwXdsZt2DR03KhaDcHWM7ejlyVvv8H-NN-8vCOhTn4_KTwdFwfQ4JvMfuMp_2BJ_-mePcRzwJYC6GkfPjAOSAx4E5OWFoxMRE6zAPmQReBHUPnl/s1600/goddesscatalhoyuk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://vimeo.com/18037996"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif-Jlaj9pNEX_KgLHKLHAzcr-89BK5xvC4vEjskjiU_1M_XYflNCD3ELG8-YKQBoaoDNrlD8cqExOdVIehJAuKtv0un8RRXsvktxiUyEot3GkDMOZQ8dTP6Jrdo8isEyxlYW3mC5qvTgtw/s400/catalhuyukvideow.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">Introductory <a href="http://vimeo.com/18037996">video </a>displayed in the <a href="http://vimeo.com/18037996">visitor centre at Çatalhöyük </a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM5Jth1zE_d8d4uDuCXlFaeb5qIJcwNhwXdsZt2DR03KhaDcHWM7ejlyVvv8H-NN-8vCOhTn4_KTwdFwfQ4JvMfuMp_2BJ_-mePcRzwJYC6GkfPjAOSAx4E5OWFoxMRE6zAPmQReBHUPnl/s1600/goddesscatalhoyuk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM5Jth1zE_d8d4uDuCXlFaeb5qIJcwNhwXdsZt2DR03KhaDcHWM7ejlyVvv8H-NN-8vCOhTn4_KTwdFwfQ4JvMfuMp_2BJ_-mePcRzwJYC6GkfPjAOSAx4E5OWFoxMRE6zAPmQReBHUPnl/s320/goddesscatalhoyuk.jpg" width="233" /></a> <br />
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</div></div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-47777526609106043782011-01-24T23:16:00.007+04:002011-01-28T22:24:02.624+04:00Sumerian Art: The Stele of the Vultures<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">"Partially reconstructed from numerous fragments found among the remains of the Sumerian city of Girsu, this victory stele, known as the "Stele of the Vultures," is the oldest known historiographic document. A long Sumerian inscription narrates the recurrent conflict between the neighboring city-states of Lagash and Umma, and records the victory won by Eannatum, king of Lagash, who ruled around 2450 BC.The triumph of this ruler, placed under divine protection since his birth, is illustrated with a wealth of detail in the remarkable relief carving that adorns both sides of the stele. The so-called "historical" side shows Eannatum marching at the head of his troops, who advance in a tight phalanx, trampling over the dead bodies of the enemy. The lower registers show the victory parade, led by the ruler in his chariot, and then the funeral ceremonies that ended the military engagement. The other, "mythological" side is dominated by the majestic figure of Ningirsu, the protector god of the city-state of Lagash, who has the enemy troops entrapped in a gigantic net and strikes them with his mace. One side narrates the actions of men and the other the intervention of the god, in a thematic division that has symbolic importance: human determination and divine protection come together to ensure victory."</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEKW9S7fGzX8ZyWBTMyAMJDCdPnKAFFqBBWWhcZ7rov36aI2dhRTaSXpc8RVGsgrsLNFs31sqX_6pRYD3N1er5sBcFovQ-0q5EnCE0qIgeQJ2qJ1OIf-YqMEtDyEJvaPbIMjjOuSBE8Of-/s1600/stelevolturedes1and2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> </a></div><div style="text-align: left;">Source: <b><a href="http://www.louvre.fr/llv/activite/detail_parcours.jsp?CURRENT_LLV_PARCOURS%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673226913&CURRENT_LLV_CHEMINEMENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673226721&CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673226721&bmLocale=en">LOUVRE</a></b></div><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWRJN1k0OKzYDXfS9SfOM3mzOPl-PfA9i1o4YmLBTWJOjp2mDm8fhJgZuCsSI1w0hOlQ6SHj47QBs5iTe6Lb0kEIE9BDfP9tD0lE8wUqaGANNr-f0eMR7IDKtcYdSxdd1TMjVvc4vRpS4t/s1600/seleofvulturestwo.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWRJN1k0OKzYDXfS9SfOM3mzOPl-PfA9i1o4YmLBTWJOjp2mDm8fhJgZuCsSI1w0hOlQ6SHj47QBs5iTe6Lb0kEIE9BDfP9tD0lE8wUqaGANNr-f0eMR7IDKtcYdSxdd1TMjVvc4vRpS4t/s400/seleofvulturestwo.png" width="400" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEKW9S7fGzX8ZyWBTMyAMJDCdPnKAFFqBBWWhcZ7rov36aI2dhRTaSXpc8RVGsgrsLNFs31sqX_6pRYD3N1er5sBcFovQ-0q5EnCE0qIgeQJ2qJ1OIf-YqMEtDyEJvaPbIMjjOuSBE8Of-/s1600/stelevolturedes1and2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
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<b>Stele of The Vultures</b><br />
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</div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-82439373663636727692011-01-24T00:59:00.012+04:002011-01-24T15:43:56.753+04:00The Ziggurat<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhubaEapedaTpVXeRnV53qA3kBCxRahzx_2D0psbpgpwgb_4nca6E850yQvTOyvFQYt9qr8D0qrePSmNUMgiau6kaIik50XdrqvbIb0oaUQJ2TXK-88ZzpnockXLrCiLoXVZ-BZvTS-GXf3/s1600/zigguratUr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhubaEapedaTpVXeRnV53qA3kBCxRahzx_2D0psbpgpwgb_4nca6E850yQvTOyvFQYt9qr8D0qrePSmNUMgiau6kaIik50XdrqvbIb0oaUQJ2TXK-88ZzpnockXLrCiLoXVZ-BZvTS-GXf3/s400/zigguratUr.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ziggurat of Ur (ca 2100 BCE), Tell Muqqayar, Iraq</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">source: Wikipedia</span><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></b><br />
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</span></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The question of the origins and function of the ziggurat is still a matter of controversy among the specialists. Whether the raised structure served the practical aim of protection against floods, or whether the platforms served primarily as a place for the deities with a shrine, that is, a place to house the god or goddess, located on the top and, therefore, it served as a way of contact and communication with the celestial gods, is a matter of debates. What seems to be certain is that its form, after a more or less extended period of development, was consolidated in Ur, and disseminated afterwards in the Mesopotamian area across time and across cultures.<br />
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The idea that the form of the ziggurat evolved from the ritual destruction and reconstruction of existing structures which served as foundations for new constructions that were, in this manner, systematically and progressively raised higher and higher, has been proposed (based also on examples from Neolithic practices, Meso-American cultures and also Egypt) and rejected by researchers. As well as different interpretations of its symbolic meaning. <br />
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The ziggurat is a kind of artificial mountain emerging in the Mesopotamian flatlands. It was part of an architectural complex that may have included also, among other structures, temples and other public buildings, different civic and commercial spaces, etc. Access to the ziggurat was probably restricted and controlled as a space for the performance of specific rituals under the direction of priests. <br />
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In its architectural form, size, technological aspects, labor force organization and employment, the ziggurat embodied and expressed the unified and unifying power of new social-historical structures. It expressed the profound identity of worldly and sacred powers, the unity of religion and politics which characterized the ideology proper to the initial forms of the State that emerged as functional specialization, and related social stratification processes and structures developed and were consolidated in the city-states of Mesopotamia: from more or less humble beginnings to its culmination and diffusion in the pioneer civilization of the Sumerians. <br />
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The Sumerians, as we know, established the early cultural matrix, including writing and literature, architecture and the arts, religion, political forms and ideologies, etc pointing the way to many of the essential future developments in the region. The ziggurat and White Temple at Uruk (ca. 3200-3000 BCE) and the partially reconstructed large ziggurat of Ur ( ca 2100 BCE) are two examples of the accomplishments of the Sumerians in architecture.<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">A famous ziggurat in the Ancient World was the monumental </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: small;">Etemenanki ("temple of the foundation of heaven and earth") dedicated to the god Marduk in Babylon in the 6th century BCE, the period of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty. It is associated with the biblical narrative of the Tower of Babel</span><br />
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Marcelo Guimaraes Lima<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Reconstruction of Ur-Nammu's ziggurat, <br />
based on the 1939 reconstruction by Woolley (vol. V, fig. 1.4)</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">source: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ziggurat_of_Ur">Wikipedia </a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf-6WM2hBTXftKL7G3cK_lLgCtqFOKfk85mEZaunIN67jjSjUneuHg16O56k_peTJ8snZYaNGf5phvkq3MzroJjC2HlYqzkfu50fOHX8Ig0zNMCqd78o30oAgrGrClek4nvtfWaG1ooirk/s1600/uruk_whitetempleW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf-6WM2hBTXftKL7G3cK_lLgCtqFOKfk85mEZaunIN67jjSjUneuHg16O56k_peTJ8snZYaNGf5phvkq3MzroJjC2HlYqzkfu50fOHX8Ig0zNMCqd78o30oAgrGrClek4nvtfWaG1ooirk/s400/uruk_whitetempleW.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ruins of White Temple at Uruk, Iraq</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">source: <a href="http://people.wku.edu/darlene.applegate/oldworld/webnotes/3neareast/civ.html#warka">http://people.wku.edu/darlene.applegate/oldworld/webnotes/3neareast/civ.html#warka </a></span><br />
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</style> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Reconstruction of Etemenanki, based on <br />
Hansjörg Schmid, <i>Der Tempelturm Etemenanki in Babylon</i> (1995 Mainz</span>)</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">source: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etemenanki">Wikipedia </a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></b></div></div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-44095107078073668752011-01-18T12:14:00.009+04:002011-01-18T18:30:07.945+04:00Sumerian Art: The Warka Vase<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO_SqUtGUNxpKY821Vkt8ZtGxN56h-WubESDTWmsdRnaeEmgIB_TG8rKg3-NOnhzGMQuBHa5jkEwlwpK0RenxWRrG6wgjlGcIzK03NpM2wlOqjwkCBbcfQzPPMaomrYYrKF6oQ2-ZVjw4k/s1600/Warka+vase2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
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<div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrORcloBwKOGEW70-nIG_parBVS-BkrckgaCWNqCcuSXvaNVdmQbENhcsng65l__wWWcAYFvtOcDzq3osl8dQ3GMUoTwaKd9vwTQffZOganQ2gUqiP_s9hEwtxlVWCFtMBIWK9DCrfRbdA/s1600/warkavase1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrORcloBwKOGEW70-nIG_parBVS-BkrckgaCWNqCcuSXvaNVdmQbENhcsng65l__wWWcAYFvtOcDzq3osl8dQ3GMUoTwaKd9vwTQffZOganQ2gUqiP_s9hEwtxlVWCFtMBIWK9DCrfRbdA/s400/warkavase1.jpg" width="187" /></a> </div><div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: center;">provenience: Uruk</div><div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: center;"><o:p></o:p>dimension(s) (in cm):</div><div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: center;">height: ca. 105; upper diam.: 36</div><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: center;">material: stone (alabaster)</div><div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: center;">date: (ca. 3000 BC)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrORcloBwKOGEW70-nIG_parBVS-BkrckgaCWNqCcuSXvaNVdmQbENhcsng65l__wWWcAYFvtOcDzq3osl8dQ3GMUoTwaKd9vwTQffZOganQ2gUqiP_s9hEwtxlVWCFtMBIWK9DCrfRbdA/s1600/warkavase1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText">description:</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: justify;">vase, relief decoration in four registers, showing (bottom to top) rows of plants, sheep (make and female), nude males carrying baskets or jars, and a cultic scene, in which the ruler of city of Uruk delivers provisions to the temple of the goddess Inanna, represented here by two reed bundle standarts--symbols of the goddess--and a woman, probably her priestess ); rim broken; repair piece inserted in antiquity (holes drilled for repair)</div><div></div><br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoPlainText">status: stolen in April 2003, returned to museum in June 2003.</div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoPlainText">source:<a href="http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/IRAQ/dbfiles/objects/14.htm">http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/IRAQ/dbfiles/objects/14.htm</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhni4TY6ULDHmPobV-Spa2EbcTvXOBVmJ0-6pCP_JYBOPBxScXr90b4jvHBE0LHB7SZwUNPoc4vNb0WutQaJsCnKRVlAso2L9raHgT9bPW_IYIoktakH_ivWhAP-OiLv5d24THCKews9ee1/s1600/warkavaselooting3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhni4TY6ULDHmPobV-Spa2EbcTvXOBVmJ0-6pCP_JYBOPBxScXr90b4jvHBE0LHB7SZwUNPoc4vNb0WutQaJsCnKRVlAso2L9raHgT9bPW_IYIoktakH_ivWhAP-OiLv5d24THCKews9ee1/s400/warkavaselooting3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">image source: <a href="http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/04/040408.looting.shtml">http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/04/040408.looting.shtml</a></span></div><br />
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“The Warka Vase or the Uruk Vase is a carved alabaster stone vessel found in the temple complex of the Sumerian goddess Inanna in the ruins of the ancient city of Uruk, located in the modern Al Muthanna Governorate, in southern Iraq. Like the Narmer Palette from Egypt, it is one of the earliest surviving works of narrative relief sculpture, dated to c. 3,200–3000 BC. The vase was discovered as a collection of fragments by German Assyriologists in their sixth excavation season at Uruk in 1933/1934. It is named after the modern village of Warka - known as Uruk to the ancient Sumerians.” </div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText">source:<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warka_Vase"> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warka_Vase</a></div><div class="MsoPlainText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoPlainText" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO_SqUtGUNxpKY821Vkt8ZtGxN56h-WubESDTWmsdRnaeEmgIB_TG8rKg3-NOnhzGMQuBHa5jkEwlwpK0RenxWRrG6wgjlGcIzK03NpM2wlOqjwkCBbcfQzPPMaomrYYrKF6oQ2-ZVjw4k/s1600/Warka+vase2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO_SqUtGUNxpKY821Vkt8ZtGxN56h-WubESDTWmsdRnaeEmgIB_TG8rKg3-NOnhzGMQuBHa5jkEwlwpK0RenxWRrG6wgjlGcIzK03NpM2wlOqjwkCBbcfQzPPMaomrYYrKF6oQ2-ZVjw4k/s400/Warka+vase2.jpg" width="400" /> </a><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">image source: <a href="http://www.nyu.edu/classes/wright/Fall03/paper1images.html%20">http://www.nyu.edu/classes/wright/Fall03/paper1images.html </a></span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">image source: <a href="http://www.lessing-photo.com/dispimg.asp?i=08020557+&cr=1&cl=1%20">http://www.lessing-photo.com/dispimg.asp?i=08020557+&cr=1&cl=1 </a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</style> </div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm; text-align: justify;">The Warka Vase is one of the earliest examples of narrative art in Mesopotamia. In this regard it is compared to the relatively contemporary Narmer Palette of Egypt, a “founding” document of Egyptian Art. </div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm; text-align: justify;">The subject matter of the Warka Vase is the presentation of offerings to the goddess Inanna, a ritual enactment that may be associated with the idea of the Sacred Marriage, that is, the union of a God or a Goddess and a mortal, usually the ruler or a member of the ruling family; or the enactment of a marriage between the Gods assuming the forms of mortals, for instance, the royal couple, who may both represent and become in actuality, for a given function or period, the divinities they symbolize. </div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm; text-align: justify;">Modern studies of the Warka Vase have pointed out its nature as a “self-referential” or “performative” object, that is, the vase depicts a ritual of which it is itself an element, and depicts itself as such, as present in the ritual performance: a kind of meta-object in a meta-representation. </div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm; text-align: justify;">A formal affinity with the Narmer palette can be seen in the organization of the spatial elements and the visual narrative in bands or tiers. In the upper row, a pair of vases of the same form as the Warka Vase is depicted. Evidence suggests that the Warka Vase was itself one of a pair. Although of a fragmentary or inconclusive nature, the evidence for a pairing or duplication of the Warka Vase goes along with the many repetition of visual elements, forms and motifs in the vase: of animals and plants, of nude male figures carrying offers, etc. These repetitions point out to a symbolic and formal strategy of continuous multiplication or reproduction. The cylindrical form of the vase suggests an affinity to cylinder seals of general usage in Mesopotamia. In fact, some of the motifs of the Warka Vase, and the pair of vases of the same type, appear in later seals. </div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm; text-align: justify;">In Mesopotamian Art, nudity is generally presented as an expression of frailty and destitution, for instance, in the representation of enemies killed in battle, defeated and imprisoned or enslaved. In the Warka Vase, the nude figures are presented in a different context, and therefore with a different meaning and different expression. Here we may observe that the display of the naked human body in a religious context “anticipates”, so to speak, the role of the nude in Greek Art.</div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm; text-align: justify;">Container and contained, form and content, subject matter and representational strategies, product and processes, unite in the Warka Vase to underline its expressive and communicative dimension and the symbolic meaning of reproduction, fertility and abundance as gifts of the Goddess in return for the performance of ritual exchanges that ensure the reproduction of life and of society . In the Mesopotamian rituals, the intervention of the divinity is mediated by the ruler. Reproduction of life is always the reproduction of the social order.</div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm; text-align: justify;">Marcelo Guimaraes Lima</div><div style="margin: 0.1pt 0cm; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div></div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-8984097453005747072011-01-11T12:49:00.003+04:002011-01-18T00:06:04.900+04:00Art and Civilization<div style="text-align: justify;">The emergence of civilization is frequently defined or characterized in terms of an increase in the complexity of the structure and the functioning of human society by comparison to earlier phases. The development of the productive capacities of mankind may be said to be both, that is, dialectically, cause and consequence of changes affecting ways of life, social structure, material culture, technology, knowledge and ideology that separates primitive humanity from the early civilizations. <br />
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And yet we may observe that humanity advances by transforming the heritage of the past, it builds upon past accomplishments and in doing so transforms itself and transforms also the sense and meaning of its own past. In this sense, the past may be both support and obstacle to the development of human capacities and of social and cultural forms and processes. And in this sense also, the past lives on producing its effects either as active or as unconscious memory. <br />
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In the arts of the early civilizations, in Mesopotamia and Egypt, for instance, we will see the heritage of ancestral forms being more or less slowly transformed, developed and adapted to a new context, to fulfill new as well as analogous functions.<br />
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In the transition from Prehistoric Culture to Early Civilization we see the progressive establishment of the Arts as a specialized form of activity, the birth of an Art Industry, the development of a class of specialized art workers or craftsmen. The social division of work and the establishment of social class structure is the condition for the new cultural, social and political forms that will constitute the environment in which the Arts will flourish and develop. <br />
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An environment that the Arts will also contribute to create by providing the material consciousness, so to speak, that is, by supplying the concrete embodiment of the experiences, aspirations and ideas of the new times, serving to clarify, to fix or stabilize the forms in which are expressed the consciousness of the present, and by this helping to mold and establish the self-understanding of a new time.</div><br />
Marcelo Guimaraes LimaMarcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-59675834416926344052009-05-09T18:07:00.002+04:002009-05-10T14:12:41.072+04:00What is art?<div style="text-align: justify;">“What is..?” is the “quintessential” philosophical question. A question that in its form, promises to deliver to us the “essence” of things, the unmistakable and definite “identity” of a thing. A “thing”, that is, philosophically speaking: every possible thing, everything that there “is”, meaning: everything we can inquire about, everything we can name or speak of, even if only in the primitive form of an original question: “What is…?”<br /><br />“What is art?” To start with, we can change the tense of the sentence. And this simple procedure can help us frame the question. The problem of art is also the problem of the “question of art”, of its structure, purpose and functions. To change the question: “What was art?” can help us understand the essentially historical nature of our object. Things and processes, activities and products we name “art” today, were not named as such in the past, that is, not experienced, made, used, etc. as such: as “art”, but as something other. Therefore we can say that these same things, experiences, etc have undergone a kind of historical “mutation” and became something else, something they were not before, or not seen as, before.<br /><br />We can also change the verbal tense in the other direction: “What will be art?”, or “What will art become?”. Between the past and the future, we are given the intuition of the essentially mobile, mutant, dynamic character of that “thing” called art, the object of our question. Accordingly, the present is “reduced” to a place of passage between the past and the future. The present (as in “present tense” form of our question” “What is…?”) understanding of art is the provisory or the provisional framing of a concept and a practice transitional, mobile, mutant in nature. What art is nowadays has certainly relations with its former self, and with its future forms, its “becoming”. What kind of relations? Here lays the problem to be investigated. It points out, in crucial ways, to the limits of our own understanding.<br /><br />Therefore, we do not start with a general, abstract definition that would encompass past, present and, yes, future; but we examine the historical construction of our subject from the empirical materials, objects and ideologies, that dialectically confront each other at different times and places.<br /><br />The history of art is therefore the history of the very tensions generated and sublimated in the construction of “art”. It pertains not simply to abstract “concepts”, but also, concretely, to forms of activity, forms of production and of communication. In short: to ways of life, and their concomitant forms of self understanding and (self) misunderstanding.<br /></div><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Marcelo Guimaraes Lima</span>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-46497049080190305442008-05-28T17:15:00.005+04:002008-05-28T17:25:58.492+04:00On images made "not to be seen"<div style="text-align: justify;">Examples of more or less laboriously made images “not to be seen” are, for instance, prehistoric cave art and Egyptian funerary art. Paintings in the deep recesses of caves were made under fire lamps, in dark places and preserved throughout the centuries precisely for their physical remoteness, undisturbed natural conditions and absence of light.<br /><br />Egyptian artworks in tombs under the Pyramids, or in the comparatively more modest <span style="font-style: italic;">mastabas</span>, were sealed from profane sight and dedicated to the gods, made for the gods’ eye. The image was supposed to be contemplated by otherworldly beings.<br /><br />The cave, as well as the tomb, was a site of contact and passage to another reality. And so was the image. Indeed, the image was the locus of a presence, as the pre-historic image-maker understood. It was at the same time a communication channel to the supernatural or the divine, and the embodiment itself of the numinous.<br /><br />The image is a communication vessel, a passage to another world and also the irruption of <span style="font-style: italic;">otherness</span> within this world, the world of common experience. The surrealists understood it as the shamans of pre-historical times did.<br /><br />As does modern psychology and neuro-psychology: the image is a communication vessel of the mind with itself, a mediator between strata or regions of mental activities and structures.<br /><br />As Leonardo understood in practice: the image is in itself a form of knowledge.<br /><br />Marcelo G. Lima<br /><br /><br /></div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-1226952192116947862008-01-27T20:24:00.001+04:002008-01-28T17:54:24.199+04:00<div align="center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxq2LHtQEmClw6E-X9iam_JmNOZxBk-aZBxjmEXRjAzAXrD7KEPcMD_QGEFg9J8oW94YlBIhJ8Iq__9niVqTwE47aaenPQRFpwlIOyk3TAdyjj2BbmeUsj4vA0RvNJLzFs6GQi27yUAPDP/s1600-h/Bisonturning.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxq2LHtQEmClw6E-X9iam_JmNOZxBk-aZBxjmEXRjAzAXrD7KEPcMD_QGEFg9J8oW94YlBIhJ8Iq__9niVqTwE47aaenPQRFpwlIOyk3TAdyjj2BbmeUsj4vA0RvNJLzFs6GQi27yUAPDP/s400/Bisonturning.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5160524277036711170" /><br/><br/></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxq2LHtQEmClw6E-X9iam_JmNOZxBk-aZBxjmEXRjAzAXrD7KEPcMD_QGEFg9J8oW94YlBIhJ8Iq__9niVqTwE47aaenPQRFpwlIOyk3TAdyjj2BbmeUsj4vA0RvNJLzFs6GQi27yUAPDP/s1600-h/Bisonturning.jpg"><br/></a></span></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Bison, 15000 BCE<br/>Musée national de Préhistoire<br/> Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, Aquitaine, France<br/>image source:</span></span><a href="http://www.musee-antiquitesnationales.fr/homes/home_id20392_u1l2.htm"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;"> http://www.musee-antiquitesnationales.fr/homes/home_id20392_u1l2.htm</span></span></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br/></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTYKVBucu-n-I2UUUEc0v9vzulIT9cu35FwUrkjqy_ooDrnzzje1V2iocRucjv2PVWaIIiIkczY7gGzjQZwwfc3N3y9FoVIk2rEa7zuYqH33rSqBY3KUikVBBJRwVlzOmByPgt0pnDpPQ/s1600-h/detaibisonselechant.jpg"><br/><br/><br/><br/><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTYKVBucu-n-I2UUUEc0v9vzulIT9cu35FwUrkjqy_ooDrnzzje1V2iocRucjv2PVWaIIiIkczY7gGzjQZwwfc3N3y9FoVIk2rEa7zuYqH33rSqBY3KUikVBBJRwVlzOmByPgt0pnDpPQ/s400/detaibisonselechant.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5160522821042797810" /><br/></a><br/><div align="center">detail of the mouth<br/><span><span><span><br/>source:</span><a href="http://www.musee-prehistoire-eyzies.fr/homes/home_id24991_u1l2.htm"><span>http://www.musee-prehistoire-eyzies.fr/homes/home_id24991_u1l2.htm<br/><br/><br/></span></a></span></span><br/></div></span></span></div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-9656880071978554662008-01-27T20:08:00.000+04:002008-01-27T20:51:03.565+04:00Venus of Laussel<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUD41_rkP0D0x_IAPButYPQRH_GiDyiijvx-uGHEMnUyP3wbvK_9iIGWpbDi2mcNVnHUbYo9v-D7SRlXagCGBI_FHOmtALIHsQO4Tu1Nmt6pV-6YHz113qr_K5_dy7k9ZziYOmUDjYITrk/s1600-h/venus-with-horn.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUD41_rkP0D0x_IAPButYPQRH_GiDyiijvx-uGHEMnUyP3wbvK_9iIGWpbDi2mcNVnHUbYo9v-D7SRlXagCGBI_FHOmtALIHsQO4Tu1Nmt6pV-6YHz113qr_K5_dy7k9ZziYOmUDjYITrk/s400/venus-with-horn.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5160190072746507458" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:85%;" ><span style="color:white;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The Venus of Laussel (Marquay),<br />Bas-relief of Female, c. 20,000 BCE</span></span></span><br /><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:85%;" ><span style="color:white;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> she holds a bison horn in one hand.<br />Photo <span style="font-weight: bold;">Museum of Aquitane, Bordeaux</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:85%;" >source:<a href="http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/clottes/page3.php"> http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/clottes/page3.php</a></span><br /></div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-6411982285354966122008-01-25T00:36:00.000+04:002008-01-26T23:02:40.664+04:00Venus of Willendorf<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIh-c-pxe0R5u9jkkW6Xd5Yd2AaT0bnEcwLORlYsp6_vBxmDNdJpfpHtSOpTGKvNZXCDJ_u-cNnjx14YUNxQZsqmXBYvYc6ocOSgP3sEmOpIILHAG772a_HHmzzSn8pVyCUPQOBRzLIT8R/s1600-h/399px-Venus_of_Willendorf_03.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIh-c-pxe0R5u9jkkW6Xd5Yd2AaT0bnEcwLORlYsp6_vBxmDNdJpfpHtSOpTGKvNZXCDJ_u-cNnjx14YUNxQZsqmXBYvYc6ocOSgP3sEmOpIILHAG772a_HHmzzSn8pVyCUPQOBRzLIT8R/s400/399px-Venus_of_Willendorf_03.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159145648369269922" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:85%;" ><b>Naturhistorisches Museum</b>, Vienna</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">source: </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Venus_of_Willendorf_03.jpg">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Venus_of_Willendorf_03.jpg</a><br /><br /></span></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPPJ3vWZasB1xAu5W65ZhiKK79Wby8dD30stGhC6nG1d5v3YWerTfL_bKnNlHzwPVVoaBbw1FCYURGo7yMolK3QsUOjoC1qez4N9p_WhsGFU4OPMm4AdEE8F67qZbu5j9urt5DWZFWHSDg/s1600-h/venuswillendorf.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPPJ3vWZasB1xAu5W65ZhiKK79Wby8dD30stGhC6nG1d5v3YWerTfL_bKnNlHzwPVVoaBbw1FCYURGo7yMolK3QsUOjoC1qez4N9p_WhsGFU4OPMm4AdEE8F67qZbu5j9urt5DWZFWHSDg/s400/venuswillendorf.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159145175922867346" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">source: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Venus_von_Willendorf_01.jpg">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Venus_von_Willendorf_01.jpg</a><br /><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;">"The entirely preserved figurine made of fine limestone is 11 cm tall and shows a corpulent woman with stout hips, a voluminous belly and heavy breasts. A comparatively big head is put upon week shoulders. Thighs and shanks are formed naturally, but shortened. The arms are just outlined; the feet and the face are completely missing. On the inclined head is designed a complicated hairstyle made of parallel curls extending to the neck. Both wrists are decorated with ragged arm-rings. Originally the figurine was painted thickly with red colour. The so-called „Venus of Willendorf" was found on August 7th, 1908 during a systematic excavation in the ninth and highest layer of Site II in Willendorf."<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Museum of Natural History, Vienna </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Department of Prehistory<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;">source: <a href="http://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/NHM/Prehist/Collection/Objekte_PA_01_E.html">http://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/NHM/Prehist/Collection/Objekte_PA_01_E.html</a><br /><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family:arial;">links:<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">C Witcombe : <a href="http://witcombe.sbc.edu/willendorf/">Venus of Willendorf</a><br />Claudine Leduc, <a href="http://clio.revues.org/document1937.html">« Claudine COHEN, La femme des origines. Images de la femme dans la préhistoire occidentale, 2003»,(review)</a><br /><a href="http://www.willendorf-project.org/site.html">Willendorf Project</a><br /><br /><br /></span></div></div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-46241101915230711752008-01-20T20:28:00.000+04:002008-02-07T13:15:23.227+04:00Early sculpture: the Lion-Man<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGcrX6dC2zAXGpwq_wLtZaNhZoXYughilWxqbMdh23XlZTCxIu4U3DDtDdnsK9DP4esy8B70cvnSGQ_HFuz-hC9HZbzv1xd0zciwIqnDEFETBSUTb1wRJUuHR2dh6SagdQ-icSK-1FCcdR/s1600-h/lionlady.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGcrX6dC2zAXGpwq_wLtZaNhZoXYughilWxqbMdh23XlZTCxIu4U3DDtDdnsK9DP4esy8B70cvnSGQ_HFuz-hC9HZbzv1xd0zciwIqnDEFETBSUTb1wRJUuHR2dh6SagdQ-icSK-1FCcdR/s400/lionlady.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157597159391243090" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The "Lion Man" from Hohlenstein-Stadel</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Heigth 28 cm, about 6 cm diameter. Made of mammouth ivory</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Found in the cave of Hohlenstein-Stadel in the Valley of Lone, </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Baden-Württemberg (Germany). </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Dated as Aurignacien, about 30,000 years ago<br /><span>source:</span><a href="http://home.bawue.de/%7Ewmwerner/english/lionlady.html"> http://home.bawue.de/~wmwerner/english/lionlady.html</a><br /><br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;">The Lion Man (also referred to as Lion Woman, for the lack of specific sexual attributes in the statuette) is the “ancestor” of Mickey Mouse and of all the anthropomorphic animal creatures of folk- tales and fairy-tales around the world, as well as religious symbols (for instance, in Egyptian art and religion), totemic figures and emblems, etc.<br /><br />Anthropomorphic images propose correlations between the human world and the world of animals. These correlations may be considered as purely intellectual, that is belonging to the sphere of the symbolic, of socio-cultural taxonomies, of language games, etc. They may, alternatively, be related to the metaphysical sphere of a “savage ontology” and a native cosmic anthropology. Or they may refer to both: to the intellectual operations and communicative strategies of early man and of modern “primitives”, and to the apprehension of the structures of reality itself, that is, to a world in which the separation between knowledge and belief has not yet taken place. In fact: a world in which that separation cannot take place for it will amount to the destruction of the (cosmic) order of communication that constitutes, indeed, the stuff of reality.<br /><br />Anthropomorphism is an important element in shamanic belief-systems and cultures. The practices and beliefs of <span style="font-weight: bold;">shamanism</span> as a key to the understanding of prehistoric art is an idea developed and applied by Lewis-Williams, Clottes, and other contemporary researchers.<br /><br />M.G. Lima</div><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXTqDcbSboSO2yxegCHWzXXVh44vJKwa_H2v_kcgTFCeZNuJ85WhDJ0UNFsEBmZyQ7lcruZ-4-piEgFUM603o9STbTCLnMPOf7LQKijd7B770_kt_LZnURMNFROwiYt7c3DVWFdRLj1YTx/s1600-h/hohlestein_stadel.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXTqDcbSboSO2yxegCHWzXXVh44vJKwa_H2v_kcgTFCeZNuJ85WhDJ0UNFsEBmZyQ7lcruZ-4-piEgFUM603o9STbTCLnMPOf7LQKijd7B770_kt_LZnURMNFROwiYt7c3DVWFdRLj1YTx/s400/hohlestein_stadel.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5159860773308955826" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Cave of Hohlenstein-Stadel </span></span><br />source: <a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.ice-age-art.de/anfaenge_der_kunst/hohlen.php"><span style="font-size:85%;">http://www.ice-age-art.de/anfaenge_der_kunst/hohlen.php</span></a><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: arial;"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-83190551629104395942008-01-19T17:27:00.001+04:002008-02-07T13:18:35.333+04:00Prehistoric Rock Art in Africa: the Apollo 11 Cave painted slabs (Namibia)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj22dvCxqmLZ9dPcVE58Q704Anpg8DPXJRQdDpvKug7ghYVS3l864rG8MNpMeovnNUgkD1SCy-tJ0xQvgTUmP4L2UYSoXRddU3ZWPzUfZbxZ9pSLY-_KOSffABRsuQne13rEZN0ea8PK75K/s1600-h/apollo11excavationsite.jpg"><br /></a><div align="center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKkIcSIyyPqUMGoff24jPJF0Ab6UzXycCvQYJZ1Oormf-B3XsZfuJXO1VuugpbOgI-JVd7XzYLfrF0vMlRmO-uDxt7zlkE_Ofe6vul0ZCKFkD-idYcbQfZAv_0Lerke5-cFfQZnV-J7RbW/s1600-h/apollo11slabanimal.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKkIcSIyyPqUMGoff24jPJF0Ab6UzXycCvQYJZ1Oormf-B3XsZfuJXO1VuugpbOgI-JVd7XzYLfrF0vMlRmO-uDxt7zlkE_Ofe6vul0ZCKFkD-idYcbQfZAv_0Lerke5-cFfQZnV-J7RbW/s400/apollo11slabanimal.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157179740109679362" border="0" /><br /></a><div align="center"><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >Painted Slab, Apollo 11 Cave, Namibia, approx. 5"x4¼".<br />2600 to 2800 BCE<br /></span> <div style="text-align: center;"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >image source: <a href="http://www.heinrich-barth-stiftung.de/index.html">http://www.heinrich-barth-stiftung.de/index.html</a><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >"The seven slabs of rock with traces of animal figures that were found in the Apollo 11 Cave in the Huns Mountains of southwestern Namibia have been dated with unusual precision for ancient rock art. Originally brought to the site from elsewhere, the stones were painted in charcoal, ocher, and white. Until recently, the Apollo 11 stones were the oldest known artwork of any kind from the African continent. More recent discoveries of incised ocher date back almost as far as 100,000 B.C., making Africa home to the oldest images in the world."<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >from: Apollo 11 (ca. 25,500–23,500 b.c.) and Wonderwerk (ca. 8000 b.c.) Cave Stones, Metropolitan Museum website <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/apol/hd_apol.htm">http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/apol/hd_apol.htm</a></span><br /></div></div><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family:arial;">On art and "conceptual realism"</span><br /></div><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family:arial;">The characteristic profile view of an animal (here a quadruped of uncertain species) is the equivalent of a "pictorial definition", providing the most complete information for prompt identification of the depicted being. In the image above it is displayed one of the oldest known examples of an approach to form and to representation that stresses the idea of the structural unity of the thing depicted, rather than a momentary, subjective, and therefore relative and dynamic view of an object or phenomenon. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The notion of <span style="font-style: italic;">structural unity</span> will allow, or rather, demand that the most characteristic elements be displayed in the representation: therefore frontal and lateral views will be combined into one characteristic form. This sort of “conceptual” approach to form, that is, embodying our knowledge of what is represented, rather than the actual optical experience, will have a long history, marking artistic representation in prehistoric times as well as in the arts of the early civilizations and beyond. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Also designated as “law of frontality” or “conceptual realism”, this approach is linked by some authors to the very nature of the image in archaic mentality: the image is not pure “representation”, an abstract, purely mental or symbolic equivalent, but a double of the object, a real duplication of the real object. Reality itself is multidimensional, formed by layers that confront each other and interact in complex ways, as the image interacts with its object. The power of the image, therefore, in the depiction of an animated reality, is a living power. Accordingly, the “law of frontality” will be applied strictly and systematically in the depiction of human beings in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.<br /><br />Marcelo G. Lima<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:85%;" >reference:<br /><br />Huyghe, Rene - Art forms and societies (in Chapter 3 - Agrarian Empires)<br />Larousse Encyclopedia of Prehistoric and Ancient Art, London: 1967<br /></span><br /><br /></div><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj22dvCxqmLZ9dPcVE58Q704Anpg8DPXJRQdDpvKug7ghYVS3l864rG8MNpMeovnNUgkD1SCy-tJ0xQvgTUmP4L2UYSoXRddU3ZWPzUfZbxZ9pSLY-_KOSffABRsuQne13rEZN0ea8PK75K/s1600-h/apollo11excavationsite.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj22dvCxqmLZ9dPcVE58Q704Anpg8DPXJRQdDpvKug7ghYVS3l864rG8MNpMeovnNUgkD1SCy-tJ0xQvgTUmP4L2UYSoXRddU3ZWPzUfZbxZ9pSLY-_KOSffABRsuQne13rEZN0ea8PK75K/s400/apollo11excavationsite.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157182377219599122" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:85%;" >Apollo 11 excavation site</span><br /><div style="text-align: center;font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:85%;">image source: <a href="http://www.heinrich-barth-stiftung.de/hb_files_e/hb_projekte31.html#">http://www.heinrich-barth-stiftung.de/hb_files_e/hb_projekte31.html#</a><br /><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7P-yil5tZHtuK9GF9oAR-uBZ1epu3MtAJD9msnd7FJMCOrl1ntfzNyhgoUb5dGdsQgzisz09Hpq-vgSmbIVZGUneyTcyXSsZLSCcRAIaHGcjdpfr7O651UGlETP00HZ-39e2uRBeclOdi/s1600-h/mapapollo11cave.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7P-yil5tZHtuK9GF9oAR-uBZ1epu3MtAJD9msnd7FJMCOrl1ntfzNyhgoUb5dGdsQgzisz09Hpq-vgSmbIVZGUneyTcyXSsZLSCcRAIaHGcjdpfr7O651UGlETP00HZ-39e2uRBeclOdi/s400/mapapollo11cave.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157185559790365474" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Location of Apollo 11 Cave - Namibia<br />image source: <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/apol/hd_apol.htm">http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/apol/hd_apol.htm</a><br /></span></span></div><br /><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:85%;" >links:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.heinrich-barth-stiftung.de/index.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jutta Vogel Stiftung</span> - <span style="font-weight: bold;">Heinrich Barth Institute</span> http://www.heinrich-barth-stiftung.de/index.html<br /></a><br /><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Genesis/tattersall_lecture.asp">African Origins: Metropolitan Museum http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Genesis/tattersall_lecture.asp</a><br /><br /><br /><br /></span></div></div></div></div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-39644104330050028502008-01-19T13:03:00.000+04:002008-01-19T13:40:17.749+04:00Upper Paleolithic Art in Europe<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0x36Ke9bwa8ngVWHfAj97FVolaHvEa9MYGRRmEb82OibKSres3D7wkBkPCb-4MthORsvnAWVJc3ArKGDX_bl_8izzjHXND14qL7gSgkPe7WAM21CZQsPvx6fL1ojklHKirISM88o4-bne/s1600-h/Upper_Paleolihic_Art_in_Europe.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0x36Ke9bwa8ngVWHfAj97FVolaHvEa9MYGRRmEb82OibKSres3D7wkBkPCb-4MthORsvnAWVJc3ArKGDX_bl_8izzjHXND14qL7gSgkPe7WAM21CZQsPvx6fL1ojklHKirISM88o4-bne/s400/Upper_Paleolihic_Art_in_Europe.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5157112682785286850" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:arial;">Upper Paleolithic Art in Europe</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"> Thin dark blue line: coastline</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"> Thick light blue (cyan) line: limits of the main glaciations</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"> Red tones: mural art</span> <span style="font-family:arial;"> Green tones: portable art</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Source:</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">Engish wikipedia en:Image:Upper Paleolihic Art in Europe.gif, Based in A. Moure, El Origen del Hombre, Historia 16 ed. ISBN 84-7679-127-5<br />Link: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Upper_Paleolihic_Art_in_Europe.gif">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Upper_Paleolihic_Art_in_Europe.gif</a><br /></span></span>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-57417102259492967222008-01-17T13:45:00.000+04:002008-01-19T19:08:54.964+04:00The Beginnings of Art<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDj6c9HedUYlyhJh08X-PhrIwpXnzT0cUceXt8GdcNlBmG5towoXJYLBNLzICXWpy2NcqNqTwwnrWcWETinCw2t-Ce6A2ge0Kt6GTD9rCrQEovuS__mcakP2mewZpQ1pNjFc0kLtRDshC6/s1600-h/upperpaleotools4.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDj6c9HedUYlyhJh08X-PhrIwpXnzT0cUceXt8GdcNlBmG5towoXJYLBNLzICXWpy2NcqNqTwwnrWcWETinCw2t-Ce6A2ge0Kt6GTD9rCrQEovuS__mcakP2mewZpQ1pNjFc0kLtRDshC6/s200/upperpaleotools4.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5156430599029009058" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">UPPER PALEOLITHIC TOOLS<br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style=";font-family:Geneva,Arial;font-size:85%;" >(various sites in France)<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">source: <a href="http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/stones.html">http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/stones.html</a></span><a href="http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/stones.html"><br /></a></span></div><a href="http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/stones.html"><br /></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />The capacity to enjoy aspects of experience that relate to the relatively autonomous play of perceptual abilities and motor activities resulting in a sort of realization and confirmation of our “sensuous self” (however mediated), that is, our corporeal being and vital impulses, is an important part of what we may call “aesthetic satisfaction”.<br /><br />Leroi-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Gourhan</span></span> (*) lists three main domains of the “expression of aesthetic feeling” or “aesthetic satisfaction” related to the early stages of humanity that may contribute to our understanding of the beginnings of art:<br /><br />1) Psycho-physiological impressions: having its own “<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">pre</span></span>-history” in the animal world, are related to “the issue of predatory and sexual incentives”, exemplified, for instance, in bodily ornamentation such as the canines of animals used as pendants. The impressions and emotions related here are “not directly aesthetic”, but constitute one of the elementary sources and, according to Leroi-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Gourhan</span></span>, an initial mode of manifestation of the experience of “beauty”.<br /><br />2) Magic-religious: the use of animal canines as ornamentation refers as well to the appropriation of the animal’s perceived potency and manifested powers.<br /><br />In this regard we can also observe that, if <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">mimesis</span></span> is <span style="font-style: italic;">adaptive behavior</span> (with a biological basis, according to the function of mimicry in the natural world), the perception of an animated world of nature will lead man to devise ways of getting closer to, modeling and transforming himself, identifying himself to those other beings and forms of life with their unique powers. Mimetic behavior is at the source of artistic developments.<br /><br />3) Techno-economic: in the creation of stone implements, according to Leroi-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Gourhan</span></span>, the “animal aesthetics” of the preceding domains is supplemented by “functional aesthetics”. The creator of implements is here, as his skills and knowledge develop, the creator of forms more and more regular and more and more adapted to their functions. The development of form results in economy of materials and gestures, the precision of work creating precise instruments, the creation of forms expressing total mastery and attaining a “purity” of design that characterizes, for Leroi-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Gourhan</span></span>, the mark of the “beautiful”. We have at this point, for the anthropologist, the sign of a conscious appreciation of formal qualities, that is, of the “aesthetic” as such.<br /><br />“Conscious art” (the term is by Leroi-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Gourhan</span></span>) evolves from what we may call an “unconscious artistic element”, or rather, elements that are part of activities guided by different aims but that involve, all of them, a realization of a sort of “final”, that is, complete form or stage related to vital demands, abilities and impulses.<br /><br />A complete form integrates material and activities within itself in such a way that parallels the classic notion of the identity between form and content in the realized work of art. In Hegel’s version: the becoming form of content, and the becoming content of form. That is, a complete form is without residues of materials and of human energies: all is spent and yet nothing is lost. The artwork is work conscious of it’s own self-realization.<br /><br />Art is certainly not a separate domain of activity for early man. But perhaps we may conclude that what we call nowadays <span style="font-style: italic;">artistic</span> behavior and capacities, integrating perceptual, imaginative and intellectual abilities, formed one of the central structuring factors of early human activity, contributing to success in adaptation, survival and development.<br /><br />Marcelo G. Lima<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">(*) Leroi-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Gourhan</span></span>, A. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Beginnings of Art</span> in Larousse Encyclopedia of Prehistoric and Ancient Art, London: 1967<br /></div><br /><br /><br /></div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-13973583247937796382008-01-14T15:13:00.000+04:002008-01-16T11:20:13.834+04:00"There is no such thing as art. There are only artists"<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><div style="text-align: justify;">The dictum by Gombrich, in the introduction of his well-known <span style="font-style: italic;">The Story of Art</span> , is perhaps less “clear” than it may appear at first. To apparently "shift" the problematic of art from objects, categories and processes to the agent, the producer, does not eliminate the need to clarify the concept “art” itself.<br /><br />For it is evident that the artist, as a producer, is defined by his product. An artist is somebody who makes art. To identify the artist we must be able “first” to tell, to identify, to know the artistic product, therefore to say both what is art and what art “is”.<br /><br />Gombrich’s “shift” may bring to mind other attempts to a “reductive” approach to the History of Art, such as Wolfflin’s <span style="font-style: italic;">“Art History Without Names”,</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">The History of Art as the History of Styles </span>in their inner, that is logical-formal, developments, what we may call: the notion of artistic style as structure.<br /><br />But certainly Gombrich’s formula was not intended as an attempt to an “original” art historical method, but rather, in a more concise or simplified way, to introduce the problematic at the core of the art historical discipline. Namely, the relative constant presence at different times and places of image making activities and related “artistic”, that is, formal-symbolic practices, and the rather restricted modern notion of Art, “with a capital A”, in regard to the diversity of contexts and functions of the form-making activities in history.<br /><br />In other words, the “universalism” of the very notion of <span style="font-weight: bold;">a</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span>(unique, self-identical, continuous)</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> History of Art</span>, developing from Prehistoric times to the present, encompassing centuries, territories, cultures and a great diversity of forms of activities and meanings, has its origin in the Renaissance. It takes its definite form in the 19th century and is predicated on a vision constructed mainly from the European experience. An experience that culminates in the <span style="font-style: italic;">"L'art pour l'art"</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">“Art for Art’s Sake”</span> idea of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"L'art pour l'art" </span>is also, contrary to appearances, less of a clear response to the question of art than the very index or summary of the complexity of the problem of art as developed in history and in theory in the construction of the Modern World and the Modern Experience.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“Art with a capital A has become something of a bogey and a fetish”</span>, writes Gombrich. In other words, a ghost to be exorcised so the beginner can be lured into the realm of the history of artistic practices and products leaving at the door some of his anxieties, his assumptions or prejudices.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">“There are no wrong reasons for liking a statue or a picture.[ …] There are wrong reasons for disliking a work of art”</span>, writes the art-historian. And the beginner may be allowed, after all, to keep at least some of his assumptions or prejudices. The price to be paid for a liberal lesson on “formal tolerance”?<br /></div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2661308953926467419.post-12873686440148468792007-11-28T12:54:00.000+04:002008-01-16T12:38:38.889+04:00Paleoart - The Oldest "Work" of Art?<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXoinMcH42E_exX-qHQDMrvx3ws-7w5q2p4mPjSLRbV7YCBesCUVUm7CF06XO7LpjqBf216ceKrzlQJn-Qx-k_jJraElQuPkqisaFTD-iRxw1NvJ04H_puXi1zhIr54xui7CaqW4BHuvI/s1600-h/makapangast4a.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBXoinMcH42E_exX-qHQDMrvx3ws-7w5q2p4mPjSLRbV7YCBesCUVUm7CF06XO7LpjqBf216ceKrzlQJn-Qx-k_jJraElQuPkqisaFTD-iRxw1NvJ04H_puXi1zhIr54xui7CaqW4BHuvI/s320/makapangast4a.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5137854883373544594" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >The Makapansgat jasperite cobble, 3 million years, South Africa.<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;">According to archeologist Robert Bednarik, manuports are : <span style="font-style: italic;">“unmodified objects transported and deposited by hominids, and they are distinguished by being of a usually striking material clearly foreign to the sediment containing the occupation deposit they occur in.”</span><br /><br />The Makapansgat pebble is such a manuport, found in a cave in South Africa’s Makapansgat Valley, associated with Australopithecus' remains. It is a natural object with distinct color and shape and with marks that resemble a face. Although the marks themselves were produced by natural processes and not by the actions of our distant relative or ancestor, that is, the object was not made but only found, Bednarik associates it with paleoart.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiRpRSVKx_4ex01XHXeAjWDhUKQE_Fegrzokjg0mojXq_LNZTwXK7K2d0V5X2IePOCwdoRuIbMFUCaRcI5PfIbF7C_YYQeH6mluH7HgOzaYfbYq5BOXuFKx1AID3KY_qD-XxW0d-XnNbbe/s1600-h/makapansgatred-cliffs.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiRpRSVKx_4ex01XHXeAjWDhUKQE_Fegrzokjg0mojXq_LNZTwXK7K2d0V5X2IePOCwdoRuIbMFUCaRcI5PfIbF7C_YYQeH6mluH7HgOzaYfbYq5BOXuFKx1AID3KY_qD-XxW0d-XnNbbe/s400/makapansgatred-cliffs.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5155270386628438290" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Red Cliffs at the head of the Makapansgat Valley</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">source: </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/research/makapansgat">http://www.shef.ac.uk/archaeology/research/makapansgat</a><br /><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the archeologist the object <span style="font-style: italic;">“conveyed non-inherent properties to its collectors that were imposed by neural processes and involved an incipient form of consciousness.” </span> That is, the act of collecting and transporting the pebble is evidence of early perceptive and projective capacities and choices linked to the exercise of inner mental dispositions, in this case, we may add, not related immediately to material needs. An instance of internal processes inscribing their patterns in the external world. And therefore leading gradually to the imposition of order upon empirical reality via selection, collection and classification.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Selective activity precedes and prepares the production of graphic marks, symbols and patterns. A process that, according to Bednarik, will later result on to the invention of art. From "reading" to "writing" perceptual-symbolic patterns in reality.<br /></div><br />We can say therefore that art started with the <span style="font-weight: bold;">“ready-made”</span>.<br /><br />Marcelo Lima<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Links: </span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><br /><br />Robert G. Bednarik </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- <a href="http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/portable/web/manuport.html">Manuports and very early palaeoart </a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">CogWeb: Cognitive Cultural Studies (UCLA)</span> - </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Paleoanthropology.html">Hominid Family History</a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Human Evolution </span>- <a href="http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/evol.html">Hominid fossil record and hypothesized lines of human evolution</a><br /></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWGsnztT-7vaAFSws6fu1V-Nv2ebzLazeLo2J2goN6ohlXdaJ_KKMV0UeT11ugjaT3Ll_lQxKY8HfIUuJ6wse_0S4Dv-KLwC-yPlfxTzQVJ9gUcD5kHi-Yu8ipZpVKwA2PQa6jTPLoDsQr/s1600-h/SASiteMap.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWGsnztT-7vaAFSws6fu1V-Nv2ebzLazeLo2J2goN6ohlXdaJ_KKMV0UeT11ugjaT3Ll_lQxKY8HfIUuJ6wse_0S4Dv-KLwC-yPlfxTzQVJ9gUcD5kHi-Yu8ipZpVKwA2PQa6jTPLoDsQr/s320/SASiteMap.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5138261612481508514" border="0" /></a>Early hominid sites in South Africa<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">source: <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Eorigins/teach/P314/p3142000week2.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">http://www.indiana.edu/~origins/teach/P314/p3142000week2.html</span></a><br /></span><br /><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBRHrNMGw_gZ5Y3o_lCvIgAtoi5EkDNJLv4TldqltVHSXPgPoAOOQccCFP5AkvDp643K939e0znxXh5_LOEdmDb83f9aMzwWfp1mf7usYOHJeo9qVVxKqPJlIDi5fc8SYLGLO5Chy2flmv/s1600-h/Australopithecus-Erectus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBRHrNMGw_gZ5Y3o_lCvIgAtoi5EkDNJLv4TldqltVHSXPgPoAOOQccCFP5AkvDp643K939e0znxXh5_LOEdmDb83f9aMzwWfp1mf7usYOHJeo9qVVxKqPJlIDi5fc8SYLGLO5Chy2flmv/s400/Australopithecus-Erectus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5155280604355635506" border="0" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><p align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;">Australopithecus afarensis compared to Homo erectus.<br />Credit: Laszlo Meszoly, Harvard U.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;">source: <a href="http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Paleoanthropology.html">http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Paleoanthropology.html</a></span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Paleoanthropology.html"><br /></a></span></p><p style="font-style: italic;" align="center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdTeu5rh2SWXzUjT8WBJfx8EbKSqDI5_Y6F5deQDE3SLfy1C5qh-wGLZEdxo23r_v5cf9DoockAsNeec62Vb3VKpcK2kAh00qfgx2zqLGjTYrrMu-hGAKvi6-kQgYY1VELY2hCJi3DWIHC/s1600-h/GurcheAfarensis.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdTeu5rh2SWXzUjT8WBJfx8EbKSqDI5_Y6F5deQDE3SLfy1C5qh-wGLZEdxo23r_v5cf9DoockAsNeec62Vb3VKpcK2kAh00qfgx2zqLGjTYrrMu-hGAKvi6-kQgYY1VELY2hCJi3DWIHC/s200/GurcheAfarensis.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5155286050374166850" border="0" /></a> </p> <p style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">"On the basis of a skull found at Hadar in Ethiopia in 1992,<br />the artist John Gurche has produced a stunning<br /><a href="http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Images/GurcheAfarensis.jpg">reconstruction of </a><a href="http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Images/GurcheAfarensis.jpg"> Australopithecus Afarensis</a>.<br />This species flourished in the period 3.7 million<br />to 3 million years ago."<br />source: <a href="http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Paleoanthropology.html#Introduction">http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Paleoanthropology.html#Introduction</a></span></p><p style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Paleoanthropology.html#Introduction"><br /></a></span></p><p style="font-style: italic;"><br /></p><p style="font-style: italic;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU-sLIvsorBeX-Q_9MgSVStkt7CrKlZ2MJKNnORUkIq1LZqvlJZDK1nsod0_Wo0ttANCFpsXVH8TN5Jp_vkxpiceq-3h9W9AnE8X1JgRFWYDIM4OMx0KeQksNQvKG5EglQOzFL8TtoTxFQ/s1600-h/philogenyhuman.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU-sLIvsorBeX-Q_9MgSVStkt7CrKlZ2MJKNnORUkIq1LZqvlJZDK1nsod0_Wo0ttANCFpsXVH8TN5Jp_vkxpiceq-3h9W9AnE8X1JgRFWYDIM4OMx0KeQksNQvKG5EglQOzFL8TtoTxFQ/s400/philogenyhuman.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5155324769504340322" border="0" /></a></p><p style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Human Philogeny<br /><br />source: <a href="http://www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/0199255636/freelecturer/images/ho19f01.jpg">http://www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/0199255636/freelecturer/images/ho19f01.jpg</a></span></p><br /><br /><p style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-style: italic;">LINES OF HUMAN EVOLUTION</span><br /></span></p><p style="font-style: italic;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNLGkOBzU9KxFrvg98spRgQMYbszf8eAzOwTYPhG5U5V7a6yJo4-3pH0U3ww16dWPKQWEaAZygmmmkjH18kMUlsGG7v1K7ptI6guBXDp1aC1B0iUSQf5t5f5VAOu0yHme1e93CA7fdbhp8/s1600-h/apes.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNLGkOBzU9KxFrvg98spRgQMYbszf8eAzOwTYPhG5U5V7a6yJo4-3pH0U3ww16dWPKQWEaAZygmmmkjH18kMUlsGG7v1K7ptI6guBXDp1aC1B0iUSQf5t5f5VAOu0yHme1e93CA7fdbhp8/s400/apes.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5155986834418051650" border="0" /></a></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >"Under the current taxonomy (based on genetic rather than behavioral criteria), the term "hominid" refers to members of the biological human family Hominidae: living humans, all human ancestors, the many extinct members of Australopithecus, and our closest primate relatives, the chimpanzee and gorilla. "</span><br /></div><p style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">source: <a href="http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/evol.html">http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/evol.html<br /></a></span></p><br /><p style="font-style: italic;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhntHScZeg-Hsl0YposjX3W4_ZJDHMQRfHPvws9GUB6HNAZbsL2PY-mhKTfjiYW6NO29C_d92ZImEoHx4vPEBfgtwvYUlElwhr52sadhhefQNr2LUlUKkK6ICqCzNA1Bs85eQZnjZCjIwsY/s1600-h/Hominidae.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhntHScZeg-Hsl0YposjX3W4_ZJDHMQRfHPvws9GUB6HNAZbsL2PY-mhKTfjiYW6NO29C_d92ZImEoHx4vPEBfgtwvYUlElwhr52sadhhefQNr2LUlUKkK6ICqCzNA1Bs85eQZnjZCjIwsY/s400/Hominidae.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5155327582707919218" border="0" /></a></p><p style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Hominidae : Humans, great apes, and their extinct relatives<br />"Phylogeny in part from Purvis (1995)."<br />source:<a href="http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Hominidae&contgroup=Catarrhini">http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Hominidae&contgroup=Catarrhini</a></span></p></div></div></div>Marcelo Guimaraes Lima. PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09217135318679862737noreply@blogger.com0