Constru(ct)ing the Origins of Art

Author(s): Donald Preziosi

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Art Journal, Vol. 42, No. 4, The Crisis in the Discipline (Winter, 1982), pp. 320-325
Published by: College Art Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/776692 .
Accessed: 12/12/2012 17:43

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

College Art Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded on Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:43:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Constru(ct)ing
the Origins of Art

By DonaldPreziosi
andwhy, in thecourseof human years ago. I need not say thatmuchof this "bottom" has always been the soft under-
How
evolution, did artistic practices be- is controversial; but however this new belly of the arthistoricalbeast. This intel-
gin? The answer to this question is un- materialis interpreted(and I referhere to lectual vulnerabilitymay be nowheremore
known andmost likely unknowable.More- the work of Denise Schmandt-Besseratof poignantthanin JosephRykwert'sAdam's
over, it has become evidentin recentyears the University of Texas), what is pertinent House in Paradise: TheIdea of thePrimi-
that the appearanceof artifacts of types to our purposes here is that scholars in tive Hut in ArchitecturalHistory. Thereis
that we today consider to be aesthetic in various disciplines have begun to consider perhaps no other scholarlybook in recent
intent antedatesthe technical appearance such questionsas the originsof writingand times which has with suchrhetoricalfinesse
of ourown species-Homo sapienssapiens the origins of artin quite new andexciting demonstratedthe fact thatevery theoryof
-by a considerablelengthof time. Indeed ways and have begunto attendmoredirect- architecture(and art)implicitlyandexplic-
it may well be thatourimmediateancestors ly and explicitly to the variousmetaphori- itly serves to justify and validatea mythof
concerned themselves with artisticbehav- cal schemata which have gone unques- origins, but it fell victim, in its concluding
iors upwardsof a quarterof a millionyears tioned for some time. At any rate, it would chapter,to its own mythof origins.
before the appearanceof the well-known appearthat we can no longer considerthe After nearlytwo hundredpages devoted
cave murals, engravings, and figurinesof problems of the origins and evolution of to a historyof the metaphorof theprimitive
southwesternEuropeandelsewhere.There "artwork" and "writing" as entirelydis- hutin artandarchitectural writing,Rykwert
now exists evidence that houses of a type tinct developments. directs our final attentionsto the formatof
still common in some parts of the world Wheredoes arthistoricalscholarshipfit the Jewish wedding, and in particularto
today were being constructedmore than into this changing picture?In this essay I the formof the huppah,the cloth andocca-
300,000 years ago. shall attemptto do two things. First,I shall sionally trellised covering beneathwhich
Thus the kindof "artwork"characteris- examine briefly several texts-art histori- the weddingceremonytakesplace. He says:
tic of the Paleolithic period existed for a cal and anthropological-that addressthe
Whatever it was made of, clearly it
period of time that is thirty times longer problem of the natureand origins of aes- was not meant to keep the weather
thanthatof the entirespanof the historyof thetic behavior. These texts have been
art with which we are accustomedto deal chosenas examples:eachservesto illustrate out, or to performany of the func-
tions attributedto building, besides
in standard art historical surveys from quite poignantlya numberof deep assump-
tions and metaphors that have played a providing physical enclosure. The
Mesopotamiato the present. The startling shelter providedby the huppahwas
expansionof ourknowledgeof the Paleoli- large role in determininghow we approach notional. Although it was notional,
thic-madeworld in recentyearshas served the study of artworkof any period.
it was nonethelessnecessary.Itsfloor
to render our picture of the "origins of Second, I shall look at some of the more was the earth,its supportswereliving
art" even moreconfusingandconsiderably recentdevelopmentsin analyticmethodol-
more complex than it has been over the beings, its trellised roof was like a
ogy growing out of the Paleolithicstudies tiny sky of leaves andflowers:to the
past century. of the past decade that have already had
I simply note these things here in order couple sheltering within it, it was
deep implicationsfor thegenericdiscourse both an image of theirjoined bodies
to remindthe readerthatquiteliterally,the on aesthetic origins. In this section, an
and a pledge of the world's consent
bottom has dropped out of the assumed attemptwill be madeto illustratehow some to their union. It was more; it pro-
and conventionallowerlimits of theevolu- of this new workpowerfullyintersectswith
vided them-at a criticalmoment-
tionary schemata of art and architectural concernsindependentlybroughtto the fore- with a mediation between the inti-
history. In addition, it now also appears, groundby contemporaryand (for lack of a mate sensationsof theirown bodies
thanks to recent research, that the begin- betterterm)post-structuralistarttheory. and the sense of the greatunexplored
nings of systems of notationor of writing world around.It was both an image
may be morethanfive thousandyearsolder f it can be said thatthe "bottomhas of the occupants'bodies and a map,
than previously thought, bringing such dropped out" of the temporaland ar- a model of the world's meaning.
practicesto the very thresholdsof the Neo- chaeological structureof the historyof art- That, if at all, is why I mustpostulate
lithic period in the Near East some 12,000 work, it should also be noted that this
320 ArtJournal

This content downloaded on Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:43:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 minds, it must correspondto some paleon- some standpointoutside of social life from
a house for Adamin Paradise.Not as tologic reality. But on the other hand, it which propertiesmay be studiedin a kind
a shelteragainstthe weather,butas a must correspondto some historicalreality of experimentalor laboratorysituation.
volume which he could interpretin because it is a valid image for all architec- How then is it possible to talk aboutthe
terms of his own body and which yet ture. In short, despite local anddiachronic "origins of art" or, to use the rhetorical
was an exposition of the paradisal variation, it is the irreduciblecore of all displacement in my own text, "aesthetic
plan, and thereforeestablishedhim architecture. behavior"?
at the centerof it. (P. 190) I think we may see here with striking
So far there is little here which does not clarity a series of epistemologicalclosures W e must now turn a corner. The
recall similar and complementarydescrip- that illustratethe strong centripetalismof "art" which we soughtto discover
tions of spatialritualamongmany peoples an inescapablemetaphoricalmachine.It is in its nascent "origins" is in fact a projec-
not simply accidentally painting oneself tion backwardof ourown needsanddesires
by other historians and ethnologists. But into a corner: it is projecting outwarda for libidinal fixity and justification of a
Rykwertgoes on to observe that
cosmology whose very configurationis a reified category. In other words, the im-
To many readerssuch a claim, made model of the centralcore of the labyrinthin plicit or explicit "returnto origins" in art
on behalf of innumerablecouples- which one is alreadyprisoner. historical discourse is a necessaryimpulse
illiterateor semi-literate,often unat- I chose this text largely because it illus- in the justification of the very category
tractiveandcertainlyunableto artic- trateswith a certainpoignancythateven in ("art") we have inherited. All such im-
ulate such ideas in conscious terms the midst of a purportedlydemystifying pulses move towards some closure and
-might seem exaggeratedor even discourse, metaphoricalknots and ideo- homogeneity of thatcategory.
absurd. But an awareness of quite logical doublebindsinherentin the materi- The ways in which this has been done
complex matters of this kind does al being critiquedmay yet retainan ines- are varied:a searchfor commonproperties
not necessarily imply an ability to capable power. among artworksis the mostcommonmove-
articulatethem, or even to hold them The text also illustratesthe fact thatany ment, frequently tied to an evolutionary
in a half-consciousway. Somewhere criticism thatasks thequestion "whatdoes vision wherein a core of propertiesgradu-
in the minds of the people who prac- it mean?" constitutes something like an ally generatesa transfiniteset of accretions
ticed them through long millenia allegorical operationin which the material andtransformations. Thetrick,of course,is
there was lodged a convictionof the under scrutiny is systeriiaticallyreformu- to identifya coreof distinctivefeaturesfrom
necessity for these elaborateproce- lated in termsof some fundamentalmaster which all otherpropertiescan be generated
dures, a conviction that was in no code. Interpretationin this sense requires (begun often by means of comparative
way magical-and which they acted the transformationof a given body of mate- studieswithinourown historicalhorizons),
out with theirown bodies. (P. 190) rial into an allegory of its particularmaster then project these back into Paleolithic
After tripping lightly over a phylogenetic code or "transcendentalsignified," or, to horizons in order to match them up with
use Rykwert'sown words, an "irreducible supposedpropertiesof those artifacts.
justification for ontogenesis (all children core." The workingtheoreticalframework Thatsuch a projecthas not been fulfilled
play house), and tying this back to the or presuppositionsof a given methodarein and has not generateda reasonableamount
return to the womb, Rykwert concludes
the book on the following note: general the ideology thatthe methodology of scholarly agreement is due neither to
seeks to perpetuate. accidentnorto a lack of intellectualenergy
The returnto origins is a constantof What the above text seeks to perpetuate and resourcefulness. It may be suggested
humandevelopmentand in this mat- is an ideology founded not simply on a that the termsof the equationarewrong-
ter architectureconformsto all other biological or materialsimilarityamongall that instead of "art" we should speak of
human activities. The primitivehut peoples, but ratheron a conceptualor no- "aesthetic behavior" or "creativity" or
-the home of the first man-is tional identity, regardless of individual, notions of "the beautiful," or "design,"
therefore no incidental concern of social, or culturaldifferentiations.This is "eurhythmy," or what have you. For cer-
theorists, no casual ingredient of much more than a simple reductionism, tainly "art" in our sense is a recentinven-
myth or ritual. ... In the present for this ideology cannotacceptthefact that tion in certainsocieties, and it would seem
rethinkingof why we build andwhat the psyche is historical-something which more productive to speak of some more
we build for, the primitivehutwill, I is as difficult for it to admit as that the "fundamental"propertyor activity-'" de-
suggest, retain its validity as a re- senses themselves are not in se natural sign," for example. But I think this is to
minder of the original and therefore organs but are ratherthe results of long miss the point andto remaintrappedby the
essential meaningof all buildingfor processes of differentiationwithin human same equation, so to speak;the samemeta-
people: that is, of architecture.It history. We do not know the senses except phoricalparadigms.
remainsthe underlyingstatement,the throughtheiralways-already-situated social The paradigmimplicatedhere is in fact
irreducible, intentionalcore, which and culturalframeworks;they areinacces- the autonomy and self-identityof the spe-
I have attemptedto show transformed sible to us except in acculturatedform, and cies Homo sapiens sapiens in the face of
throughthe tensionsbetweenvarious our approach to them necessarily passes material circumstancesas varied as those
historicalforces. (P. 192) throughtheirpriorculturaladaptations. in our planetarybiosphereand in the face
We need not trouble ourselves here too What Rykwert's text also projectsis an of enormously divergent and historically
much in connection with a manifestation illusory autonomy of the human subject sedimentedsocial or culturalframeworks.
of art historical chutzpah that is sharp over against her environment;indeed it is Although it may seem pertinentto affirma
this very image which servesas a justifying certain self-identity of a species while re-
enough to penetrate the unattractiveness
and illiteracy of the inarticulateso as to metaphor for a notional identity of all mainingawareof the pitfallsof unduereifi-
humansubjects. cation, it is necessaryto keep in touchwith
bringto consciousnesswhatit is convinced
is lodged "somewhere" in their minds. The heightenedexperienceor perception the fact that such categorizationsare ana-
of art in our own world is at one with its lytic instruments.And the most effective
Rykwert's basic thesis that the idea of the
primitive hut is widespreadin many archi- structuralabstractionfrom concreteexpe- way to be sensitiveto this is to be cognizant
tectural texts and in many societies is rience and its hypostasis as autonomous of the historicaland rhetoricalmechanisms
doubly barbed. If it is so lodged in their object, power, or activity. It results from thatgive such categorizationstheirnatural-
an instrumentalismthatattemptsto project ness and legitimacy. No less importantis it
Winter1982 321

This content downloaded on Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:43:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
to remain in touch with the ideological they grow, childrenacquireways of repre- The text is surelyrife with not a few unsup-
structuressuch mechanismsand categories senting recurrentregularitiesin their en- portedand unsupportablepropositionsand
supportand in partserve to create. vironmentsthathelp themto transcendthe implicationsfor contemporarysociety. But
That the issue of aesthetic origins has momentaryby developingways of linking what is pertinentto this discussion is the
been employed perenniallyas a device for past to presentandfuture.Brunerobserves way in which the biological metaphorfor
the preservation,againstall decenterings, thatany system of processingenvironmen- cultureis mappedontoBruner'sthreestages
of the sovereignty of the human subject, tal events depends upon the translationof of cognitive growth in the child. The bulk
can be seen through a close reading of experience into symbolic form. To tran- of the book is a detailed attemptto justify
what is in fact an enormousbody of litera- scend the immediatelyperceptual,the child linking threecharacteristicprehistoricsites
ture. This is no less truefor anthropological needs a system which permitsher to deal and theirartifactualtechnologiestoBruner's
writingthanit is for arthistory,andindeed with the nonpresentand with things that enactive, iconic, and symbolic stages.
in a numberof respectsthe discourseof the are remote in space. Bruner sees verbal The sites are TerraAmata(Nice), dated
two disciplines is coimplicative. language as the most powerful of such to c. 300,000 B.C.;Dolni Vestonice(Czech-
Many anthropologicaltexts dealingwith instruments;he takes language as both a oslovakia), dated to c. 23,000 B.c.; and
the earliesthorizonsof Homosapienswork system of communicationand an instru- Catal Hiiyiik (Turkey), dated to c. 7000
so as to retaina notionof the identityof the ment of thought. Criticalto his schema is B.C. A quarterof a million years separates
species while remaining sensitive to its the patentfact that the capacityfor speech the first two sites, and during that time
patent historical and culturaldifferences. occurs after several years of growth and hominiddevelopmentpassedfroma Homo
Perhaps the most frequent metaphorical that it is not used until it is coupled with erectus stage to a Homo sapiens stage, in
device employed in such texts is the indi- other already developed representational which cranialcapacitywas approximately
vidual biological image of infancy, child- and cognitive technologies. doubled. Fairservis sees TerraAmata as
hood, maturity: the early history of the Bruner'sschematacannotbe easily dis- correspondingto an enactivestageof intel-
species is seen as akin to its birth and cussed without an examinationof a large lectual development, in which the world
infancy, in contrastto contemporaryhori- amountof experimentaldataand theoretic view was dependentlargely on thatwhich
zons, whereinby implicationthe species is suppositions;but very brieflywe may note was immediate in both the environment
a matureadult. The metaphorof course is that he proposes three principalstages of and consequent experience, along with a
equally pervasive in arthistoricalwriting, cognitive developmentin the young child consciousnessof thatwhichwas mysterious
and it has long seemed naturalto speakof -three characteristictypes of representa- in the spiritof things. (P. 72).
arthistoricalperiodsandartisticbiography tional instrumentality.These he termsthe Dolni Vestonicecorrespondsto an iconic
in much the same manner.All this is per- enactive stage, in which the individual world view wherein was manifest the re-
fectly familiarandneednotbe laboredhere. knows and respondsto recurrentregulari- sults of thoughtfulplanningin responseto
In anthropology,therehave been a great ties in the environmentby meansof skilled technological need. This is supportedby
many versions of the ontogeny-recapitu- and patternedactivities; the iconic stage, evidence of representationalimagery (so-
lating-phylogenymodeldown intoourown in which the individual responds to the called "Venus figurines") anda largerep-
time, but those of the contemporaryperiod environmentby meansof conventionalized ertoire of artifacts. Fairservis postulates
have been characteristicallygiven a more spatioqualitativeimageryand selectiveper- the existence of complex kinship systems
scientific orientation.We no longer speak ceptual organization;and finally the sym- based on differentiationsamong artifacts
of savagery, barbarism,andcivilizationor bolic or linguistic stage, in which the indi- and building types. He sees the existence
so overtly of primitivevs. civilized states vidual responds to the environment by of the Dolni Vestonice settlementas repre-
of societal development.Rather,replacing means of linguistic encodingwhichplaces senting a "giant step on the pathto civili-
the categoryof infancy, we find a ladderof a selective latticebetweenherandthephys- zation." (P. 118).
stages of cognitive developmentmodeled ical environment.A symbol system repre- Catal Hiiyiikcorrespondsto a symbolic
on psychologicalviews of individualdevel- sents things by means of design features mode of existence. The artifactualevidence
opment. A good exampleis thefollowing. that include remoteness and arbitrariness from this remarkablesettlementis seen as
or conventionality. representinga worldof symbolismboth in
T he Thresholdof Civilizationby the
anthropologist William Fairservis
(New York, 1975) offers one of the more
In the introductionto his book, Fairservis its graphic art (which includes the earliest
writes that paintedtown plan known)andin its modu-
larly plannedand constructedpueblo-type
It is a premiseof the following chap-
explicit attemptsto map the fossil record ters thatprehistorictime was like the houses and shrines.
of humancultureonto stages of individual I have discussed Fairservis'sarguments
infancy and childhoodof an individ-
cognitive development. The cognitive ual, a periodwhen man, alreadypos- at length in a recentvolume,andwill notre-
model of development chosen is by no sessed of naturalphysicalcapability, hearse these here. I thinkwe can see clearly
means unsophisticated;it was developed from what has alreadybeen noted thathis
passed throughstages of intellectual
by the esteemed cognitive psychologist awarenessuntilhe reachedthatstage attemptto account for hominidprehistory
Jerome Bruner, whose long study of in- of self-consciousnesscalled civiliza- amounts principally to a displacementof
fancy and childhood has led to some of tion..... Some men achievedcivili- older metaphoricalparadigmsinto newer
today's more interesting and persuasive zation in the past andpassed it on as and apparentlymore "scientificallybased"
pictures of cognitive growth among chil- a potential for all individuals:it has models which nonetheless serve familiar
dren.The workof Brunerandhis colleagues not, however, been accepted by all ideological ends. Even thoughthe inhabi-
has led to a series of volumeswhose results tants of TerraAmatamake houses (which
individuals even though paradoxi-
bear some resemblance to those of Jean all individuals live within are identicalin formto manyknownin eth-
cally it.
Piaget in Switzerland,andhis bookStudies Many people who are adult in body nographichorizonstoday;apparentlyexact
in Cognitive Growth, published in 1966, have not intellectuallyrecapitulated duplicates may be found in partsof West
has had a profoundinfluence on contem- the prehistoricexperience essential Africa today) and also make artifactsof
poraryviews of cognitionandperception. to all civilized human beings and varioustypes, they predatethe sureappear-
Brunersuggestedthatintellectualgrowth ance of Homo sapiens in the fossil record.
accordingly still remain within the Fairservis finds an ideal vehicle to ac-
may be conceived as the emergenceof new grasp of the material world from
technologiesfor the unlockingandamplifi- which the truly civilized have long count for such startling morphological
cation of human intellectual power. As since been liberated.(P. 9) coincidences: Bruner's enactive stage of
322 Art Journal

This content downloaded on Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:43:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
cognitive growth, which is imagined by child development. ture of intellectual growth is not merely
Fairservis to correspondmore closely to But Bruner's hypotheses must also be one that any arthistorianmight recognize
the more "natural" state of non-human assessed through a close examinationof as grossly simplisticandreductive,butit is
animals. He would have us assumethatthe certainof its implicationsthatbeardirectly also one that is essentially in accordwith
Terra Amatans spoke no language of a on the interests of this discussion. This the prefabricatedmetaphoricaldoublebind
type we might recognize and that their concerns the problemof iconic representa- alreadydiscussed above:the visual artifact
state of consciousness consisted of re- tion; in Bruner's words, the response to as a reflection or representationof menti-
sponses to the environment which were recurrentregularities in our environment faction; a signifier of a notionalsignified.
largely expressed through mute actions. by means of conventionalizedspatioquali- In short, we may observe that the concept
He omits something crucial to Bruner's tative imageryandperceptualorganization. of artworkor visual artifice employed in
position, however: the human infant or It is at this point that we may begin to see this psychological theory of intellectual
young child cannotbe seen as existing in a rathermore clearly one of the moreperva- development is an ideological prefabrica-
state of naturalanimality. sive metaphoricalmechanismsin psycho- tion, assimilated whole. But while it may
Moreover, Fairservis omits discussion logical (andto a certainextentarthistorical) be clear to an arthistorianthatthe notionis
of the actual complexities of individual discourse. It is worthquotingBrunerhere: not only inadequatebutmisleadinglyover-
growthanddevelopmentwhich Brunerand Iconic representation summarizes simplified, it is apparentlynot so to either
his colleagues are acutely sensitive to, in- our psychologist or our anthropologist.
events by the selective organization
cluding the fact that from the moment of of percepts and of images, by the
birth, the humaninfantcan be shown to be hesetextshaveof coursebeenchosen
in continual interactionwith the behaviors spatial, temporal, and qualitative as paradigmaticillustrations of the
structuresof the perceptualfield and
and vocalizations of its caregivers. We complexities facing a serious deconstruc-
their transformed images. Images
now appreciatemore clearly, for example, tion of the mythologiesof humanorigins. I
"stand for" perceptualevents in the
that infant vocalization is from the outset would like to begin concluding these re-
close but conventionally selective
highly conventionalized and complexly marks by turningto an area of Paleolithic
coded (somethingany perceptivecaregiver way that a picturestandsfor the ob- research that promises a certain release
will know) andthatthe stagesof intellectual ject pictured.(P. 2) from at least some of the more familiar
growth vary considerablynot only on an By his definition, this mode of represen- metaphoricalknots in the discourseon the
individualbasis, butalso in a culturalsense. tation is differentfrom the more powerful origins of art.
This last point may be seen with increasing strategy of verbal language. He immedi- Faced with artifactual circumstances
clarity in contemporaryresearchon child ately goes on to say: strikingly different in many respectsfrom
behavior;a salient areaof evidence comes A symbol system representsthings those of our own times-or at least appar-
from recent studies of children'sdrawing, ently so-a number of researchershave
for example. by design features that include re-
moteness and arbitrariness.A word begun in recentyearsto approachthe prob-
The situation is, needless to say, con- neitherpoints directly to its referent lem of visual signification in partly new
siderablymore complex thancan be repre- here and now, nordoes it resemblea and partlydifferentways. The workof two
sented in the short space of the present anthropologists looms large in this area,
picture. The lexeme "Philadelphia" and I will discuss some of the implications
paper. It is sufficient to note that Fair- looks no more like the city so desig-
servis's text unmasksitself at manydiffer- of their work in the space remaining. I
nated thandoes a nonsense syllable.
ent points as an instrumentof ideology not refer to the researchof the Frenchscholar
The other propertyof language that
dissimilar from those of anthropological is crucial is its productiveness in AndreLeroi-Gourhanandthatof theAmer-
texts of previous generationswhose rhe- ican anthropologistAlexanderMarshack.
combination, far beyond what can
torical goals we can see by hindsightwith be done with images or acts. (P. 2) Although their work startsfrompartlydif-
considerableclarity. ferent premises and addresses partly dif-
But Fairservisis not alone in this regard, What is not at issue here is the patent ferentbodies of material,bothwritershave
for his argument has itself been woven fact that a child is not born with a paint- in a deep sense revolutionizedour under-
within a frameworkwhich is ideologically brush in her hand any more than she is standing of early hominid artifactualbe-
coimplicit. I am referringto Bruner'sown born speaking the language of her care- havior, with profoundimplicationsfor the
writinghere-not the volumecitedby Fair- givers; nor need Bruner'ssequenceof tech- arthistoricalenterpriseas a whole.
servis, but rathera short articlepublished nological developmentbe counteredby the I shall not recitethe list of interpretations
two years earlierin theAmericanPsychol- evidence for culturaland individualvaria- for Paleolithic figural artwhich have been
ogist (Vol. 19, No. 1, 1964), which Fair- tion. Even where there is controversyre- proposedover the pastcenturyof discovery
servis does not cite, "The Courseof Cog- garding the time-framesand details of se- and exploration. Good sources for under-
nitive Growth." In thatpaper, Brunerbe- quentially cumulative cognitive develop- standing the history of interpretationcan
gins the explication of his modalities of ment, psychologists seem agreedthatsuch be found in many books; I mention just
cognitive growthwithinan anthropological learningdoes proceedby stages. Whatis at two: one, by the French anthropologist
frameworkby presentinga pictureof cul- issue is the implicitsuperiorityandprimacy Annette Laming, entitled Lascaux (Pen-
tural evolution precisely along the lines of verbal language over other systems of guin, 1959); and the other by the English
that his account of infant evolution takes signs, the logocentrism at work in the in- anthropologistAnn Sieveking, entitledThe
later on. His text begins with a view of terpretationsof cognitivedevelopment,and Cave Artists, (Thames & Hudson, 1979).
what the formermust have been, and then the secondaryposition given the technolo- Suffice it to say, the interpretationsof Pa-
passes imperceptibly,and practicallywith- gies of visual constructionand representa- leolithic artworkhave focused almost ex-
in the same breath, to child development. tion. In short, the visual is but a weaker clusively on what might be termed the
By comparinghis texts, andalso by reading plateauof transitionto the full strengthand "semantic" or referentialcontent of this
BrunerthroughFairservis(and vice versa) power of the verbal. material, and almost without exception
it will become apparentthatwe aredealing We have alreadyseen how this imposi- such interpretationshave reflected one or
with a theoretical circularityand a meta- tion of hierarchy has been employed to anotherdominantethnographicintereston
phorical double bind: child development justify a vision of culturaland social evolu- the part of anthropologists:questions of
must be akin to species developmentbe- tion. Here we may note thatthe conceptof totemism, animism, hunting magic, col-
cause species development must be like visual cognition woven into Bruner'spic- lective or groupsymbolismor territoriality,
Winter1982 323

This content downloaded on Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:43:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
sorcery, sexuality, or religious feeling. become the object of study. lating images on a surface. As he notes:
Most interpretationshave had only brief In short, Leroi-Gourhan'swork is para-
and transitoryappeal, and by hindsightit At a distanceof 20,000 ormoreyears
digmaticof whathas come to be a tendency
can be seen thatmuchspeculationhasbeen to take into accountthe entiregeomorphol- simple visual examinationsor "rec-
based on the selective use of some portion ogy, paleontology, climatic and lighting ognitions" mightbe used in the con-
of the materialto supporthypothesesbased structionof typologies of style, but
contexts, and spatial affordances of the for an understandingof semantics,
upon analogies with non-Paleolithicprac- caves. What begins to emerge is a picture
one must try to determinethe cogni-
tice. Incredibleas it maynow seem, serious of a Paleolithic artwork which is at the
excavationandmappingof completecaves same time extremely complex and in a tive, conceptualsystemwithinwhich
took place only withinthepasttwo decades. sense rathermore rule-governedand con- an imagefunctionsandthoseperson-
al andculturalstrategiesand models
By and large, the study of Paleolithicart- textually-implicative than previously as- which are involved in the making
work has been restrictedto individualim- sumed. And it has come to be moreclearly
anduse of the image. ("TheMeander
ages or compositionalgroups-a situation seen that any understandingof Paleolithic
as a System: The Analysis and Rec-
reflecting dominantarthistoricalpractice. imagery must be deeply connected to its
The poverty and fragmentarynatureof individualand collective conditionsof im- ognition of IconographicUnits in
Paleolithicresearchbeganto yield to more Upper Paleolithic Compositions,"
age production, function, and perception. Form in IndigenousArt, Canberra,
comprehensive methodological programs It is in these areas that some of the more
1977, P. 287).
only a quarterof a centuryago. Prominent exciting developmentshave come aboutin
in this movementhas been Leroi-Gourhan, recent years. Thus, from early researchin In short, his concern has been with the
who has become best knownin the popular which attention had been focused on the problemof how "iconographicunits" dif-
imagination for his theories of sexual or formal qualities of individualimages and ferentiatethemselvesfor the makerandfor
gender symbolism in connection with the theirpurportedreferentialcontent,we have the analyst.This dualfocus on construction
relative positionings of paintedimages in passed througha period in which images and (analytic) construalhas been one of
caves. Leroi-Gourhan'ssuggestion, based were seen as components of large-scale the more salient featuresof his research,
on thorough statistical surveys of the de- iconographic programs,to the contempo- and his astuteself-consciousnessas an ana-
ployment of sexed animalsin whole caves rary situation in which the insights of a lyst has set his work apartfromthe greater
or cave galleries, was that images with wide variety of lines of research-from bulk of Paleolithic study. As I shall note
male-relatedmarkingstendto occurin cer- paleontology to cognitive anthropologyto further on, it also aligns his work with
tainpartsof caves, while thosewithfemale- visual semiotics-are beginning to yield certainaspectsof contemporarycriticaland
related markings tend to occur in other the outlines of theories of early hominid deconstructivetheory.
areas. He proposedthatany seriousunder- artifactualbehavior which (whethertheir The body of materialdealt with in his
standing of the use and import of cave insights aremoreor less of transitoryperti- research also differs from that of Leroi-
paintingmustbe closely relatedto a knowl- nence) may at least be more realistically Gourhan in that it is largely (though not
edge of the positional context of images: complex. That is not to imply, however, exclusively) confined to non-figuraland
whether they occur in deep wall recesses, thatthey areanyless ideologicallysituated. quasi-figuralimageryand to engravedim-
at points of transition between galleries Just as explorationsof the usage-condi- ages on mobiliarymaterials(stone, bone,
and spaces, or in centralor peripheralloca- tions of caves within which images work antler,etc.). In addition,he has focusedon
tions. He suggested in effect that.therewas have begun to yield some of the possible materialthat in some cases antedatescave
a certainresemblancebetweenmaterialfor- parametersof signification that such art- paintingby morethan 150,000 years.
mations of the cave itself and generalgen- work affords, attention to the conditions Some of Marshack's work may seem
der-related features of painted imagery. and processes of productionhas recently ratherfamiliarto the professionalarthisto-
As perhapsmightbe expected,male-related opened up new areas of understanding. rianconcernedwithdistinguishing"hands"
imagery tends to occur at points of protu- Preeminentin this line of inquiryhas been in the productionof an image or groupof
berance of cave walls or points of abrupt the work of AlexanderMarshack. images, and his concernwith mappingthe
transition,whereasfemale-relatedimagery In 1964, Marshack began a study of detailedsequencesinvolvedin the building
tends to occur in or arounddeep recesses Paleolithic materialswith a view towards up of an image may evoke not a few classic
orcentralizeddepressionsof a wall surface. developingtechniquesandtheoreticalbases and recent art historicalstudies. But both
That Leroi-Gourhanhas himself largely for an intensive "internal"analysisof im- the context and purposes of Marshack's
abandoned these views (originally pub- agery, insteadof tryingto interpretimages work are largely distinct:his concernhas
lished in 1965 andimmediatelyopposedby or signs on the basis of what the modern not been with establishingindividualsty-
many of his colleagues) is in partdue to the eye sees or on what historicculturesmight listic provenanceor withclassifyingateliers
complex natureof the evidenceandthefact offer for analogiccomparison.His assump- according to formal criteria. Instead, he
that in a numberof cases, the male-female tion was thatthe way an image or composi- has sought to reconstructwhat may be
oppositionwas neitherclear-cutnoruniver- tion was mademay yield moreinformation termed the "syntax" or cognitive strate-
sally applicable. But of interestto us here than the form or "image" we recognize. gies, involved in the constructionof im-
are the implications of Leroi-Gourhan's He developeda seriesof microscopicmeth- ages, the topology of linkages between
search for a new methodologyratherthan odologies for determiningthewaysin which discernible stages of image formation.He
the nature of the semantic or referential engravedmarkingswere producedandthe takes it as given thatthe semanticor refer-
content of Paleolithic imagery. For in ef- detailed sequences by which images came ential content of images cannot be recon-
fect, he has calledourattentionto questions into theirfinal or completedforms. Simple structedwithoutimaginaryandlargelyun-
of textuality and narrativityin Paleolithic efforts in this directionhad been madebe- justifiable projection on the part of the
art and to the problemof what might con- fore, notably by the Abbe Breuil, but the analyst, and suggests both explicitly and
stitute distinctive featuresand units in Pa- intentof such studyhadbeento tryto estab- through his analytic technologies that a
leolithic imagery.By focusingourattention lish relative chronologies of "style." By focus on the logic of what may be termed
upon the cave-as-text, he has shifted the contrast,Marshack'sworkwas devotedto a the "building program" of images may
natureof Paleolithic researchonto a more studyof the cognitiveprocessesinvolvedin yield more informationabout the condi-
holistic plateauin which entirecave envi- the formationof an image, to a studyof the tions, circumstances,and cognitive strate-
ronments-of which paintedimageryand sequence of the making of an image or a gies of early image-making. Such infor-
engraving are after all only a part-have composition or of the sequenceof accumu- mation is itself contextualizedby an astute
324 Art Journal

This content downloaded on Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:43:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
awareness of and concern for the circum- in image constructionand construalpre- aspects of the diachronictotalityof forma-
stancesof image-perception,use, andreuse cisely by loosening the object or artwork tions-in short, the entire subsequenthis-
by manygenerationsof individuals.In con- from an ideal of semantic fixity that has tory of artwork.Such impulsesareinsepa-
nection with this, it has been one of the been pervasive (as we have seen above) in rable from their functions as ideological
more substantivefindings of recentPaleo- traditionalarthistoricalanalysis. instruments,justifyingreceivedtheological
lithic researchthatnearlyevery imagetype Thus, by demonstratingempiricallythat notions of some universalhumanessence
is used and reusedin a numberof different Paleolithic images arenot closed butopen, that transcends (and thus erases) history.
ways and in varying contexts, both sepa- and that they serve as sites for ongoing Moreover, such impulses have always re-
ratelyandin associationwithotherimages. palimpsest and modification(bothwithina quired a diachronicRed Sea before which
In short, we now see more clearly that single time frameandovertime), Marshack we must speak of proto- or pre-hominid
Paleolithicimages have in manycases been arrives at a perspective on artworkthat is (and therefore in some sense naturalor
continuallypalimpsestedover long periods coincident with a numberof lines of post- animal) artifactualizationand after which
of time, and theirfinal forms are the result structuralist theoretical writing. But we we can safely and univocally speakof hu-
of numerous participatoryacts by many should be clear at this point thatthe impli- man art. We need hardlybe surprisedthat
individuals, often using widely divergent cations of Marshack'swork go far beyond creationist vipers lie coiled beneath the
marking techniques. This applies both to being yet anotherrecentpleafor takinginto mantleof some of themoresecular-seeming
stable wall images in caves and to images account the contexts of images and art- evolutionisms.
markedor engravedon portablematerials. works. Forit is preciselythenotionof' con- There is no such Red Sea. We may
Images in this sense arethe sites andocca- text" that is distinctly different from the perhapsmoreclearlysee today, in no small
sions for an ongoing processof imagegen- ambientformalor social "surround"of the measurebecauseof developmentsin Paleo-
eration. Images themselves become tools instrumentalistparadigm-within which, lithic researchover the past few decades,
for makingfurtherimages. after all, the "object" always retains(i.e., that a Red Sea is always in some sense nec-
An importantimplicationof Marshack's is invested with) a certainsemiotic or sig- essary because it co-implies a Jordanat the
research is a displacementof the question nificative autonomy. The perspective ar- other end. Brideswear white becausewid-
of meaning or significationfrom the indi- rived at by the researchof Marshack(and ows wearblack becausebrideswearwhite.
vidual boundariesof particularimages to by an increasing body of Paleolithic re- It is a perennialtemptation-and trap-
the performativeor orchestrativecontext search inspiredby and coincidentwith his to suggest that the developmentsof one's
within which artworkscome to be invested work) is that the analytic autonomization own age indicate the most profound of
with (partial) meaning. In other words, of artworkis a manifestationof our own intellectual revolutions. And yet with re-
individual images or image-groups are ideological prefabrications. gard to art history, I think it is more than
components in an ongoing, dynamic,mul- Moreover, his work serves at the same mere rhetoricalexaggerationto note that
timodal performativeevent-structure.He time as a critique of the traditionallogo- we are in fact in the midst of changes
suggests quite explicitly that centrisms double-bindingthe operational which have alreadyprecipitatedthe end of
It may not be the product(statement, formats of received art history, for it sug- art history-and the "art" of arthistory-
gests that verbal language itself is neither as we have known it. But unlike some
gesture, or image) that carries the
weight of meaning, but the partici- necessarily nor always the privilegedtem- academic revolutions, the changes in our
patory act itself. No matterwhat the plate of social activity, but is always a discipline are coming aboutnot by turning
mode of production... they have componentialfacet of individualandsocial away from its history, butratherby paying
no meaningoutsideof suchcontexts. behavior, as little understandable in formal close and carefulattentionto the historyof
isolation as is visual artifaction. It is a its textualprotocolsandmetaphorical mech-
Archaeologically, therefore, we are reminderthatthe notionof verballanguage anisms. In the contemporarymovement
faced with a special problem. All
that we have for study are the prod- as an internallycoherentsystem is as much towards an archaeologyof the discipline,
ucts of culturalbehaviorthathappen an ironic and illusory fiction (e.g., as the we have begun not only to deconstruct
to have been made of imperishable "object" of study of the discipline of lin- received arthistoricaltheoriesandpractices
materials and that have been acci- guistics) as is the notion of art. -including, of course, ourown-but also
RereadingLeroi-GourhanthroughMar- to sketch the outlines of a disciplineof art
dentally retainedin the soil or on a shack may allow us to understandmore study that moves beyond the various art
protectedwall. Yet humansymbolic
activity occurs equally in all modes. clearly that the Paleolithicpaintedcave is historiesin which we have all beentrained.
less a "text" than it is a site for cultural
("Upper PaleolithicSymbolSystems
of the Russian Plain: Cognitive and adaptation which necessarily operates in Donald Preziosi is Associate Professor
Comparative Analysis," Current many ways and that individualimages or of Art History at S. U.N. Y.-Binghamton.
Anthropology Vol. 20, No. 2, June image-groupsare less episodes in narration He is the authorof The Semiotics of the
1979, P. 304). thanthey are multifunctionalthreadswhich Built Environment,Architecture,Lan-
afford dynamic and continualre-weaving. guage & Meaning, MinoanArchitectural
It should be added here that in addition They are rather,so to speak, tools to build Design, The Originsof the Built World,
to its componentialstatusas a contributor tools. Caves (and individualportableen- and theforthcoming RereadingArt
to multimodal signification, the relative gravedobjects)areno merestaticstagesets History:A Post-Structuralist Reader.He is
semiotic "weight"'of imagesin suchactiv- or tableaux:theyarealreadymembersof the completinga book on the origins of art.
ities will necessarilyvary amongindividu- cast and play many roles even within the
als and collectives: in one situation, the same scenes. In short,the individualimage
image component may serve more direct or object is a site of deferralanddifference.
and primaryreferentialfunctions,although It is always alreadysomewhereelse.
in anothersituation at a differenttime (or
for differentparticipantsin a groupactivi- t becomes apparent that the impulse
ty), an image (or what might materiallybe I towardstelling storiesaboutoriginsis at
the same image) may operate in a more one with an impulsetowardsthe establish-
indirectandbackgroundfashion.The point ment of transcendentalsignifieds-irre-
here is thatMarshack'sperspectiveallows ducible cores of featuresthatserveas a key
a sensitivity to such dynamiccomplexities to align and genealogize all the variant
Winter1982 325

This content downloaded on Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:43:23 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions