Order

In What is Art For? Dissanayake discusses one of the many ways art may have developed in many different ways, and one way is the human need for order. According to Dissanayake "human beings seem to have a natural tendency to make sense of their environment, to find or impose upon a pattern of order and hence comprehensibility"(114). This need for order often helps humans to make sense of their environment like making categories such as edible, not edible and safe and not safe and many more. Humans have been able to distinguish themselves from other animals the in the sheer amount of things we can categorize and the complexity humans show toward categorizing, in ways that humans can make sense of and feel familiar with. This has a dramatic effect on art because it grounds things in reality or puts thing into a state that people can understand much better. Humans often participate in many patterns such as rituals and myths and language, and art if not already infused. But this need for order may have also shaped humans evolutionarily to begin the production of the art, and may have been one of many factors that lead humans to develop art and how it was selected to survive.

                Art has a tendency to create order and this reminded me of last week when two classmates presented on monsters in art. A lot of those pieces that were displayed were a way for themselves and the viewer to make an image of something that might not have an image and create that order or categorization into something that may have been unknown. This also puts something that may have been once feared or supernatural and make it more relate able or familiar to the viewer and make it less (or more depending on the situation) as scary or unknown. This may be even for the artist themselves to take something that may confuse or scare them in their mind and when they put it into their medium in their interpretation and in doing so gives them order from chaos and sometimes makes that idea less frightful.

Dissanayake, Ellen. What Is Art For? Seattle, Wash. [u.a.: Univ. of Washington, 2002. Print.

Aestetic Experience

"To experience something that is outside order and ordinary - which we can call extraordinary. There is an unquestioned human appetite for intensity, and though we can exist without them, intense emotions make us feel we are living." (pg.134, Dissanayake)


The most memorable time I have encountered an extraordinary aesthetic experience is in 2010 when I went to Belize of an archaeology field school for the first time. During the last few days we took a trip to Guatemala for two days and spent one of the days at Tikal, which is the largest Mayan center in Mesoamerica. From the time I stepped in to the first plaza till the end when we watched two storms collide on top of the largest pyramid at the site. Throughout the entire experience I was practically speechless and in awe of how massive and beautiful these structures are in real life, for me it was like my childhood fantasy coming to life. It just hit home about much time and effort and detail were put in to these enormous and beautiful structures. The purpose of many of these buildings was to create awe and attract people and were used in many supernatural ceremonies and rituals. These structures still exude the extraordinary and still had a similar effect on me after nearly 1000 years. How many 200ft tall structures made of stone in the modern day world, they peak out of the top of the jungle similar to mountains and clouds and there is now a vast sea of jungle around them. These structures were most likely more impressive during the time they were built, the limestone stucco they used for the exterior often shined and glistened in the sun kind of like snow, and many were painted especially on the interiors. One of the best parts was also sharing the experience with some of my best friends and teacher. This experience didn't feel real it felt like I was n a dream and I would wake up in my bed. But it made me realize that humans could produce this without modern day and its almost as if we haven't really progressed as much as people seem to think.

Making Special?

To be honest this weeks prompt of looking around your personal space and document something that you made special, was actually pretty difficult to answer. I don't have anything that I have created, I don't have anything like room arrangement, or pictures that are special to me. the best thing i could come up with would be the combination of my movie collection and some of my posters. Though I don't see them as treasures that are particularly special, they are just movies, and posters. my posters are quasi making special to me because they represent some of my favorite movies, so its tied into my movie collection. These posters are references to what some of the movies mean to me. These movies mean a lot to me because it feels like they are often some of the only things I can relate and even sometimes I see my self in these movies, It may not be my entire personality being reflected in these movies but maybe fragments like how I view justice or morals. These posters are reminders of these movies. One example is of my Indiana Jones poster, because the movies reached out to me when i was very young like 8 years old and ever since all Ive wanted to become was and archaeologist (even though that's not how archaeology works) and that's exactly what I am still doing and have even gone trekking the the Belize jungle for an archaeology field school the past few years. Some other examples is my Fight Club poster that has the rules because i really love the cultural criticism and satire are used, and a Dark Knight poster because I really like batman's morals and how they were tested.

My movie collection isn't that big it numbers probably around 90 DVDs, but all of them were chosen for a reason and were thought about meticulously. This is because every movie I add means something to me. So for me "making special" in my personal space isn't something that's easy to articulate because its not the DVDs themselves nor the posters themselves, its its the personal value I have attached to the story and views the the writers and the artistic expression of the directors.

Problems with the term "Primitive"art

The concept of “primitive” art is problematic mainly in part that it carries a connotation of inferiority between different cultures. In What is Art For? Dissanayake explains that “writers using the appellation “primitive “ in regard to societies are advised to explain and justify their use of the word, since it carries unfortunate mistaken connotations of being underdeveloped and lacking complexity, hence inferior. In my view there are no satisfactory synonyms” (Dissanayake, 43).  So in Dissanayake’s point of view she does not like the term primitive to describe art from cultures with small scale settlements and are not industrialized and or modernized, but she would rather use it because there are no other terms that are suitable replacements in her mind. But she does not believe that Primitive art is produced by a culture that lacks complexity, or is any way inferior to the modernized cultures. According to Layton in the Anthropology of Art “the phrase primitive art can surely be used of recent cultures only as one of those figures of speech which combine opposites for dramatic effect. Any community which possesses a tradition of artistic expression has more or less a little sophistication in its culture” (Layton, 3). There is a difference in the attitudes of these two authors about the use of the term “primitive” when describing art. As mentioned before Dissanayake does not like using the term but will use it because there are not many other terms in her mind that give it justice. Whereas in Layton he takes a less sympathetic approach stating that the term is bad but it’s a good use only if describing recent cultures and for a clear differentiation between the terms. He says that primitive is a problematic term because any culture that can produce art has some sophistication.  Both authors dislike the use of the term primitive when talking about cultures and their art, but Dissanayake made a much more in-depth  attempt to explain why the term is problematic, and disagrees with the term but at the same time still use it.

My position the use of the term “Primitive”, is that I am against it because right now its out of context and place in the modern world. This term has a connotation of westernized superiority, colonialism, and racism mainly stemming from the 17^th century.  Even though the term primitive is still used today as a category for culturally different types of art than that of the west there should be a different term that is much more modern and of today’s world. Even Picasso is famous for quoting after the seeing the cave paintings at Altamira that "after Altamira, all is decadence" (Wikipedia). 

Layton, Robert. The Anthropology of Art. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. Print.
Dissanayake, Ellen. What Is Art For? Seattle, Wash. [u.a.: Univ. of Washington, 2002. Print.