Fabulous pre-historic exhibition at British Museum

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Rhiannon R
Rhiannon Feb 7, 2013 15:52:58
Replying to Littlestone

But I thought you'd studied art in Japan LS?
Surely a similarity of form could (Could) imply a similarity of intent?

Because the opposite seems to hold true doesn't it, say (hmmm) take all those amazing soviet statues of people pointing and looking heroic (albeit with ropey behaviour from the soviet state). Compare the thing that motivated the sculptor making those, with (if you like) Henry Moore and the things you think may have been inspiring him.

These amazing bits of Ice Age art, which have somehow clung on down the millennia so we can see them - they're not functional objects (though they might decorate functional objects), they're presumably Art, as we recognise it today, perhaps they are the products of those prehistoric artists expressing what was really important to them, the embodiment of ideas that they held important (or to influence the real things that the artwork depicts), or (less complicatedly) just the product of an artist wanting to Do Some Art and depict something they found interesting.

So doesn't having modern art there at the exhibition help us question whether those ancient sculptures etc are 'art' as we understand it today, or perhaps something different? Which might make us examine them differently? Or more closely?

I think it's a good idea myself.

L Littlestone
Littlestone Feb 7, 2013 16:25:21
Replying to Rhiannon

“Surely a similarity of form could (Could) imply a similarity of intent?”

That’s a bit like saying a cheese sandwich and a ham sandwich are going to taste the same because (superficially) they look the same :-) Moore and Picasso didn’t arrive at something resembling our Ice Age artefacts through the same process as the people who made them (the artefacts) - they were inspired by them (along with African and Japanese art).

I don’t really think you can apply the word ‘art’ to Ice Age artefacts either. Are totem poles art? Are cave paintings art? Art is a comparatively new concept. Ask to define it I’d say art is fundamentally useless (in the utilitarian sense) whereas Ice Age artefacts, totem poles, cave paintings, Japanese screens etc where/are anything but.

That doesn’t mean (and this may seem like a contradiction) that an object can’t move from one state to another (the most highly prized of Japanese tea bowls are those made by rustic hands in a rustic environment). Such objects are not conceived as art forms however - subsequent attitudes towards them have made them so.