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
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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-
gin? The answer to this question is un-
known andmost likely unknowable.More-
over, it has become evidentin recentyears
that the appearanceof artifacts of types
that we today consider to be aesthetic in
intent antedatesthe technical appearance
of ourown species-Homo sapienssapiens
-by a considerablelengthof time. Indeed
it may well be thatourimmediateancestors
concerned themselves with artisticbehav-
iors upwardsof a quarterof a millionyears
before the appearanceof the well-known
cave murals, engravings, and figurinesof
southwesternEuropeandelsewhere.There
now exists evidence that houses of a type
still common in some parts of the world
today were being constructedmore than
300,000 years ago.
Thus the kindof "artwork"characteris-
tic of the Paleolithic period existed for a
period of time that is thirty times longer
thanthatof the entirespanof the historyof
art with which we are accustomedto deal
in standard art historical surveys from
Mesopotamiato the present. The startling
expansionof ourknowledgeof the Paleoli-
thic-madeworld in recentyearshas served
to render our picture of the "origins of
art" even moreconfusingandconsiderably
more complex than it has been over the
past century.
I simply note these things here in order
to remindthe readerthatquiteliterally,the
bottom has dropped out of the assumed
and conventionallowerlimits of theevolu-
tionary schemata of art and architectural
history. In addition, it now also appears,
thanks to recent research, that the begin-
nings of systems of notationor of writing
may be morethanfive thousandyearsolder
than previously thought, bringing such
practicesto the very thresholdsof the Neo-
lithic period in the Near East some 12,000
320 ArtJournal
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is controversial; but however this new
materialis interpreted(and I referhere to
the work of Denise Schmandt-Besseratof
the University of Texas), what is pertinent
to our purposes here is that scholars in
various disciplines have begun to consider
such questionsas the originsof writingand
the origins of artin quite new andexciting
ways and have begunto attendmoredirect-
ly and explicitly to the variousmetaphori-
cal schemata which have gone unques-
tioned for some time. At any rate, it would
appearthat we can no longer considerthe
problems of the origins and evolution of
"artwork" and "writing" as entirelydis-
tinct developments.
Wheredoes arthistoricalscholarshipfit
into this changing picture?In this essay I
shall attemptto do two things. First,I shall
examine briefly several texts-art histori-
cal and anthropological-that addressthe
problem of the natureand origins of aes-
thetic behavior. These texts have been
chosenas examples:eachservesto illustrate
quite poignantlya numberof deep assump-
tions and metaphors that have played a
large role in determininghow we approach
the study of artworkof any period.
Second, I shall look at some of the more
recentdevelopmentsin analyticmethodol-
ogy growing out of the Paleolithicstudies
of the past decade that have already had
deep implicationsfor thegenericdiscourse
on aesthetic origins. In this section, an
attemptwill be madeto illustratehow some
of this new workpowerfullyintersectswith
concernsindependentlybroughtto the fore-
groundby contemporaryand (for lack of a
betterterm)post-structuralistarttheory.
f it can be said thatthe "bottomhas
dropped out" of the temporaland ar-
chaeological structureof the historyof art-
work, it should also be noted that this
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
belly of the arthistoricalbeast. This intel-
lectual vulnerabilitymay be nowheremore
poignantthanin JosephRykwert'sAdam's
House in Paradise: TheIdea of thePrimi-
tive Hut in ArchitecturalHistory. Thereis
perhaps no other scholarlybook in recent
times which has with suchrhetoricalfinesse
demonstratedthe fact thatevery theoryof
architecture(and art)implicitlyandexplic-
itly serves to justify and validatea mythof
origins, but it fell victim, in its concluding
chapter,to its own mythof origins.
After nearlytwo hundredpages devoted
to a historyof the metaphorof theprimitive
hutin artandarchitectural writing,Rykwert
directs our final attentionsto the formatof
the Jewish wedding, and in particularto
the formof the huppah,the cloth andocca-
sionally trellised covering beneathwhich
the weddingceremonytakesplace. He says:
Whatever it was made of, clearly it
was not meant to keep the weather
out, or to performany of the func-
tions attributedto building, besides
providing physical enclosure. The
shelter providedby the huppahwas
notional. Although it was notional,
it was nonethelessnecessary.Itsfloor
was the earth,its supportswereliving
beings, its trellised roof was like a
tiny sky of leaves andflowers:to the
couple sheltering within it, it was
both an image of theirjoined bodies
and a pledge of the world's consent
to their union. It was more; it pro-
vided them-at a criticalmoment-
with a mediation between the inti-
mate sensationsof theirown bodies
and the sense of the greatunexplored
world around.It was both an image
of the occupants'bodies and a map,
a model of the world's meaning.
That, if at all, is why I mustpostulate

a house for Adamin Paradise.Not as
a shelteragainstthe weather,butas a
volume which he could interpretin
terms of his own body and which yet
was an exposition of the paradisal
plan, and thereforeestablishedhim
at the centerof it. (P. 190)
So far there is little here which does not
recall similar and complementarydescrip-
tions of spatialritualamongmany peoples
by other historians and ethnologists. But
Rykwertgoes on to observe that
To many readerssuch a claim, made
on behalf of innumerablecouples-
illiterateor semi-literate,often unat-
tractiveandcertainlyunableto artic-
ulate such ideas in conscious terms
-might seem exaggeratedor even
absurd. But an awareness of quite
complex matters of this kind does
not necessarily imply an ability to
articulatethem, or even to hold them
in a half-consciousway. Somewhere
in the minds of the people who prac-
ticed them through long millenia
there was lodged a convictionof the
necessity for these elaborateproce-
dures, a conviction that was in no
way magical-and which they acted
out with theirown bodies. (P. 190)
After tripping lightly over a phylogenetic
justification for ontogenesis (all children
play house), and tying this back to the
return to the womb, Rykwert concludes
the book on the following note:
The returnto origins is a constantof
humandevelopmentand in this mat-
ter architectureconformsto all other
human activities. The primitivehut
-the home of the first man-is
therefore no incidental concern of
theorists, no casual ingredient of
myth or ritual. ... In the present
rethinkingof why we build andwhat
we build for, the primitivehutwill, I
suggest, retain its validity as a re-
minder of the original and therefore
essential meaningof all buildingfor
people: that is, of architecture.It
remainsthe underlyingstatement,the
irreducible, intentionalcore, which
I have attemptedto show transformed
throughthe tensionsbetweenvarious
historicalforces. (P. 192)
We need not trouble ourselves here too
much in connection with a manifestation
of art historical chutzpah that is sharp
enough to penetrate the unattractiveness
and illiteracy of the inarticulateso as to
bringto consciousnesswhatit is convinced
is lodged "somewhere" in their minds.
Rykwert's basic thesis that the idea of the
primitive hut is widespreadin many archi-
tectural texts and in many societies is
doubly barbed. If it is so lodged in their
This content downloaded on Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:43:23 PM
minds, it must correspondto some paleon- some standpointoutside of social life from
tologic reality. But on the other hand, it which propertiesmay be studiedin a kind
must correspondto some historicalreality of experimentalor laboratorysituation.
because it is a valid image for all architec- How then is it possible to talk aboutthe
ture. In short, despite local anddiachronic "origins of art" or, to use the rhetorical
variation, it is the irreduciblecore of all displacement in my own text, "aesthetic
architecture. behavior"?
I think we may see here with striking
clarity a series of epistemologicalclosures W e must now turn a corner. The
that illustratethe strong centripetalismof "art" which we soughtto discover
an inescapablemetaphoricalmachine.It is in its nascent "origins" is in fact a projec-
not simply accidentally painting oneself tion backwardof ourown needsanddesires
into a corner: it is projecting outwarda for libidinal fixity and justification of a
cosmology whose very configurationis a reified category. In other words, the im-
model of the centralcore of the labyrinthin plicit or explicit "returnto origins" in art
which one is alreadyprisoner. historical discourse is a necessaryimpulse
I chose this text largely because it illus- in the justification of the very category
trateswith a certainpoignancythateven in ("art") we have inherited. All such im-
the midst of a purportedlydemystifying pulses move towards some closure and
discourse, metaphoricalknots and ideo- homogeneity of thatcategory.
logical doublebindsinherentin the materi- The ways in which this has been done
al being critiquedmay yet retainan ines- are varied:a searchfor commonproperties
capable power. among artworksis the mostcommonmove-
The text also illustratesthe fact thatany ment, frequently tied to an evolutionary
criticism thatasks thequestion "whatdoes vision wherein a core of propertiesgradu-
it mean?" constitutes something like an ally generatesa transfiniteset of accretions
allegorical operationin which the material andtransformations. Thetrick,of course,is
under scrutiny is systeriiaticallyreformu- to identifya coreof distinctivefeaturesfrom
lated in termsof some fundamentalmaster which all otherpropertiescan be generated
code. Interpretationin this sense requires (begun often by means of comparative
the transformationof a given body of mate- studieswithinourown historicalhorizons),
rial into an allegory of its particularmaster then project these back into Paleolithic
code or "transcendentalsignified," or, to horizons in order to match them up with
use Rykwert'sown words, an "irreducible supposedpropertiesof those artifacts.
core." The workingtheoreticalframework Thatsuch a projecthas not been fulfilled
or presuppositionsof a given methodarein and has not generateda reasonableamount
general the ideology thatthe methodology of scholarly agreement is due neither to
seeks to perpetuate. accidentnorto a lack of intellectualenergy
What the above text seeks to perpetuate and resourcefulness. It may be suggested
is an ideology founded not simply on a that the termsof the equationarewrong-
biological or materialsimilarityamongall that instead of "art" we should speak of
peoples, but ratheron a conceptualor no- "aesthetic behavior" or "creativity" or
tional identity, regardless of individual, notions of "the beautiful," or "design,"
social, or culturaldifferentiations.This is "eurhythmy," or what have you. For cer-
much more than a simple reductionism, tainly "art" in our sense is a recentinven-
for this ideology cannotacceptthefact that tion in certainsocieties, and it would seem
the psyche is historical-something which more productive to speak of some more
is as difficult for it to admit as that the "fundamental"propertyor activity-'" de-
senses themselves are not in se natural sign," for example. But I think this is to
organs but are ratherthe results of long miss the point andto remaintrappedby the
processes of differentiationwithin human same equation, so to speak;the samemeta-
history. We do not know the senses except phoricalparadigms.
throughtheiralways-already-situated social The paradigmimplicatedhere is in fact
and culturalframeworks;they areinacces- the autonomy and self-identityof the spe-
sible to us except in acculturatedform, and cies Homo sapiens sapiens in the face of
our approach to them necessarily passes material circumstancesas varied as those
throughtheirpriorculturaladaptations. in our planetarybiosphereand in the face
What Rykwert's text also projectsis an of enormously divergent and historically
illusory autonomy of the human subject sedimentedsocial or culturalframeworks.
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-
metaphor for a notional identity of all mainingawareof the pitfallsof unduereifi-
humansubjects. cation, it is necessaryto keep in touchwith
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
structuralabstractionfrom concreteexpe- way to be sensitiveto this is to be cognizant
rience and its hypostasis as autonomous of the historicaland rhetoricalmechanisms
object, power, or activity. It results from thatgive such categorizationstheirnatural-
an instrumentalismthatattemptsto project ness and legitimacy. No less importantis it
Winter1982 321
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to remain in touch with the ideological
structuressuch mechanismsand categories
supportand in partserve to create.
That the issue of aesthetic origins has
been employed perenniallyas a device for
the preservation,againstall decenterings,
of the sovereignty of the human subject,
can be seen through a close reading of
what is in fact an enormousbody of litera-
ture. This is no less truefor anthropological
writingthanit is for arthistory,andindeed
in a numberof respectsthe discourseof the
two disciplines is coimplicative.
Many anthropologicaltexts dealingwith
the earliesthorizonsof Homosapienswork
so as to retaina notionof the identityof the
species while remaining sensitive to its
patent historical and culturaldifferences.
Perhaps the most frequent metaphorical
device employed in such texts is the indi-
vidual biological image of infancy, child-
hood, maturity: the early history of the
species is seen as akin to its birth and
infancy, in contrastto contemporaryhori-
zons, whereinby implicationthe species is
a matureadult. The metaphorof course is
equally pervasive in arthistoricalwriting,
and it has long seemed naturalto speakof
arthistoricalperiodsandartisticbiography
in much the same manner.All this is per-
fectly familiarandneednotbe laboredhere.
In anthropology,therehave been a great
many versions of the ontogeny-recapitu-
lating-phylogenymodeldown intoourown
time, but those of the contemporaryperiod
have been characteristicallygiven a more
scientific orientation.We no longer speak
of savagery, barbarism,andcivilizationor
so overtly of primitivevs. civilized states
of societal development.Rather,replacing
the categoryof infancy, we find a ladderof
stages of cognitive developmentmodeled
on psychologicalviews of individualdevel-
opment. A good exampleis thefollowing.
T he Thresholdof Civilizationby the
anthropologist William Fairservis
(New York, 1975) offers one of the more
explicit attemptsto map the fossil record
of humancultureonto stages of individual
cognitive development. The cognitive
model of development chosen is by no
means unsophisticated;it was developed
by the esteemed cognitive psychologist
Jerome Bruner, whose long study of in-
fancy and childhood has led to some of
today's more interesting and persuasive
pictures of cognitive growth among chil-
dren.The workof Brunerandhis colleagues
has led to a series of volumeswhose results
bear some resemblance to those of Jean
Piaget in Switzerland,andhis bookStudies
in Cognitive Growth, published in 1966,
has had a profoundinfluence on contem-
poraryviews of cognitionandperception.
Brunersuggestedthatintellectualgrowth
may be conceived as the emergenceof new
technologiesfor the unlockingandamplifi-
cation of human intellectual power. As
322 Art Journal
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they grow, childrenacquireways of repre- The text is surelyrife with not a few unsup-
senting recurrentregularitiesin their en- portedand unsupportablepropositionsand
vironmentsthathelp themto transcendthe implicationsfor contemporarysociety. But
momentaryby developingways of linking what is pertinentto this discussion is the
past to presentandfuture.Brunerobserves way in which the biological metaphorfor
thatany system of processingenvironmen- cultureis mappedontoBruner'sthreestages
tal events depends upon the translationof of cognitive growth in the child. The bulk
experience into symbolic form. To tran- of the book is a detailed attemptto justify
scend the immediatelyperceptual,the child linking threecharacteristicprehistoricsites
needs a system which permitsher to deal and theirartifactualtechnologiestoBruner's
with the nonpresentand with things that enactive, iconic, and symbolic stages.
are remote in space. Bruner sees verbal The sites are TerraAmata(Nice), dated
language as the most powerful of such to c. 300,000 B.C.;Dolni Vestonice(Czech-
instruments;he takes language as both a oslovakia), dated to c. 23,000 B.c.; and
system of communicationand an instru- Catal Hiiyiik (Turkey), dated to c. 7000
ment of thought. Criticalto his schema is B.C. A quarterof a million years separates
the patentfact that the capacityfor speech the first two sites, and during that time
occurs after several years of growth and hominiddevelopmentpassedfroma Homo
that it is not used until it is coupled with erectus stage to a Homo sapiens stage, in
other already developed representational which cranialcapacitywas approximately
and cognitive technologies. doubled. Fairservis sees TerraAmata as
Bruner'sschematacannotbe easily dis- correspondingto an enactivestageof intel-
cussed without an examinationof a large lectual development, in which the world
amountof experimentaldataand theoretic view was dependentlargely on thatwhich
suppositions;but very brieflywe may note was immediate in both the environment
that he proposes three principalstages of and consequent experience, along with a
cognitive developmentin the young child consciousnessof thatwhichwas mysterious
-three characteristictypes of representa- in the spiritof things. (P. 72).
tional instrumentality.These he termsthe Dolni Vestonicecorrespondsto an iconic
enactive stage, in which the individual world view wherein was manifest the re-
knows and respondsto recurrentregulari- sults of thoughtfulplanningin responseto
ties in the environmentby meansof skilled technological need. This is supportedby
and patternedactivities; the iconic stage, evidence of representationalimagery (so-
in which the individual responds to the called "Venus figurines") anda largerep-
environmentby meansof conventionalized ertoire of artifacts. Fairservis postulates
spatioqualitativeimageryand selectiveper- the existence of complex kinship systems
ceptual organization;and finally the sym- based on differentiationsamong artifacts
bolic or linguistic stage, in which the indi- and building types. He sees the existence
vidual responds to the environment by of the Dolni Vestonice settlementas repre-
means of linguistic encodingwhichplaces senting a "giant step on the pathto civili-
a selective latticebetweenherandthephys- zation." (P. 118).
ical environment.A symbol system repre- Catal Hiiyiikcorrespondsto a symbolic
sents things by means of design features mode of existence. The artifactualevidence
that include remoteness and arbitrariness from this remarkablesettlementis seen as
or conventionality. representinga worldof symbolismboth in
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-
ters thatprehistorictime was like the houses and shrines.
I have discussed Fairservis'sarguments
infancy and childhoodof an individ-
ual, a periodwhen man, alreadypos- at length in a recentvolume,andwill notre-
sessed of naturalphysicalcapability, hearse these here. I thinkwe can see clearly
from what has alreadybeen noted thathis
passed throughstages of intellectual
awarenessuntilhe reachedthatstage attemptto account for hominidprehistory
of self-consciousnesscalled civiliza- amounts principally to a displacementof
tion..... Some men achievedcivili- older metaphoricalparadigmsinto newer
zation in the past andpassed it on as and apparentlymore "scientificallybased"
a potential for all individuals:it has models which nonetheless serve familiar
not, however, been accepted by all ideological ends. Even thoughthe inhabi-
tants of TerraAmatamake houses (which
individuals even though paradoxi-
all individuals live within are identicalin formto manyknownin eth-
cally it.
Many people who are adult in body nographichorizonstoday;apparentlyexact
have not intellectuallyrecapitulated duplicates may be found in partsof West
the prehistoricexperience essential Africa today) and also make artifactsof
to all civilized human beings and varioustypes, they predatethe sureappear-
ance of Homo sapiens in the fossil record.
accordingly still remain within the Fairservis finds an ideal vehicle to ac-
grasp of the material world from
which the truly civilized have long count for such startling morphological
since been liberated.(P. 9) coincidences: Bruner's enactive stage of
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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

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sorcery, sexuality, or religious feeling.
Most interpretationshave had only brief
and transitoryappeal, and by hindsightit
can be seen thatmuchspeculationhasbeen
based on the selective use of some portion
of the materialto supporthypothesesbased
upon analogies with non-Paleolithicprac-
tice. Incredibleas it maynow seem, serious
excavationandmappingof completecaves
took place only withinthepasttwo decades.
By and large, the study of Paleolithicart-
work has been restrictedto individualim-
ages or compositionalgroups-a situation
reflecting dominantarthistoricalpractice.
The poverty and fragmentarynatureof
Paleolithicresearchbeganto yield to more
comprehensive methodological programs
only a quarterof a centuryago. Prominent
in this movementhas been Leroi-Gourhan,
who has become best knownin the popular
imagination for his theories of sexual or
gender symbolism in connection with the
relative positionings of paintedimages in
caves. Leroi-Gourhan'ssuggestion, based
on thorough statistical surveys of the de-
ployment of sexed animalsin whole caves
or cave galleries, was that images with
male-relatedmarkingstendto occurin cer-
tainpartsof caves, while thosewithfemale-
related markings tend to occur in other
areas. He proposedthatany seriousunder-
standing of the use and import of cave
paintingmustbe closely relatedto a knowl-
edge of the positional context of images:
whether they occur in deep wall recesses,
at points of transition between galleries
and spaces, or in centralor peripheralloca-
tions. He suggested in effect that.therewas
a certainresemblancebetweenmaterialfor-
mations of the cave itself and generalgen-
der-related features of painted imagery.
As perhapsmightbe expected,male-related
imagery tends to occur at points of protu-
berance of cave walls or points of abrupt
transition,whereasfemale-relatedimagery
tends to occur in or arounddeep recesses
orcentralizeddepressionsof a wall surface.
That Leroi-Gourhanhas himself largely
abandoned these views (originally pub-
lished in 1965 andimmediatelyopposedby
many of his colleagues) is in partdue to the
complex natureof the evidenceandthefact
that in a numberof cases, the male-female
oppositionwas neitherclear-cutnoruniver-
sally applicable. But of interestto us here
are the implications of Leroi-Gourhan's
search for a new methodologyratherthan
the nature of the semantic or referential
content of Paleolithic imagery. For in ef-
fect, he has calledourattentionto questions
of textuality and narrativityin Paleolithic
art and to the problemof what might con-
stitute distinctive featuresand units in Pa-
leolithic imagery.By focusingourattention
upon the cave-as-text, he has shifted the
natureof Paleolithic researchonto a more
holistic plateauin which entirecave envi-
ronments-of which paintedimageryand
engraving are after all only a part-have
324 Art Journal
This content downloaded on Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:43:23 PM
become the object of study.
In short, Leroi-Gourhan'swork is para-
digmaticof whathas come to be a tendency
to take into accountthe entiregeomorphol-
ogy, paleontology, climatic and lighting
contexts, and spatial affordances of the
caves. What begins to emerge is a picture
of a Paleolithic artwork which is at the
same time extremely complex and in a
sense rathermore rule-governedand con-
textually-implicative than previously as-
sumed. And it has come to be moreclearly
seen that any understandingof Paleolithic
imagery must be deeply connected to its
individualand collective conditionsof im-
age production, function, and perception.
It is in these areas that some of the more
exciting developmentshave come aboutin
recent years. Thus, from early researchin
which attention had been focused on the
formal qualities of individualimages and
theirpurportedreferentialcontent,we have
passed througha period in which images
were seen as components of large-scale
iconographic programs,to the contempo-
rary situation in which the insights of a
wide variety of lines of research-from
paleontology to cognitive anthropologyto
visual semiotics-are beginning to yield
the outlines of theories of early hominid
artifactualbehavior which (whethertheir
insights aremoreor less of transitoryperti-
nence) may at least be more realistically
complex. That is not to imply, however,
thatthey areanyless ideologicallysituated.
Just as explorationsof the usage-condi-
tions of caves within which images work
have begun to yield some of the possible
parametersof signification that such art-
work affords, attention to the conditions
and processes of productionhas recently
opened up new areas of understanding.
Preeminentin this line of inquiryhas been
the work of AlexanderMarshack.
In 1964, Marshack began a study of
Paleolithic materialswith a view towards
developingtechniquesandtheoreticalbases
for an intensive "internal"analysisof im-
agery, insteadof tryingto interpretimages
or signs on the basis of what the modern
eye sees or on what historicculturesmight
offer for analogiccomparison.His assump-
tion was thatthe way an image or composi-
tion was mademay yield moreinformation
than the form or "image" we recognize.
He developeda seriesof microscopicmeth-
odologies for determiningthewaysin which
engravedmarkingswere producedandthe
detailed sequences by which images came
into theirfinal or completedforms. Simple
efforts in this directionhad been madebe-
fore, notably by the Abbe Breuil, but the
intentof such studyhadbeento tryto estab-
lish relative chronologies of "style." By
contrast,Marshack'sworkwas devotedto a
studyof the cognitiveprocessesinvolvedin
the formationof an image, to a studyof the
sequence of the making of an image or a
composition or of the sequenceof accumu-
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lating images on a surface. As he notes:
At a distanceof 20,000 ormoreyears
simple visual examinationsor "rec-
ognitions" mightbe used in the con-
structionof typologies of style, but
for an understandingof semantics,
one must try to determinethe cogni-
tive, conceptualsystemwithinwhich
an imagefunctionsandthoseperson-
al andculturalstrategiesand models
which are involved in the making
anduse of the image. ("TheMeander
as a System: The Analysis and Rec-
ognition of IconographicUnits in
Upper Paleolithic Compositions,"
Form in IndigenousArt, Canberra,
1977, P. 287).
In short, his concern has been with the
problemof how "iconographicunits" dif-
ferentiatethemselvesfor the makerandfor
the analyst.This dualfocus on construction
and (analytic) construalhas been one of
the more salient featuresof his research,
and his astuteself-consciousnessas an ana-
lyst has set his work apartfromthe greater
bulk of Paleolithic study. As I shall note
further on, it also aligns his work with
certainaspectsof contemporarycriticaland
deconstructivetheory.
The body of materialdealt with in his
research also differs from that of Leroi-
Gourhan in that it is largely (though not
exclusively) confined to non-figuraland
quasi-figuralimageryand to engravedim-
ages on mobiliarymaterials(stone, bone,
antler,etc.). In addition,he has focusedon
materialthat in some cases antedatescave
paintingby morethan 150,000 years.
Some of Marshack's work may seem
ratherfamiliarto the professionalarthisto-
rianconcernedwithdistinguishing"hands"
in the productionof an image or groupof
images, and his concernwith mappingthe
detailedsequencesinvolvedin the building
up of an image may evoke not a few classic
and recent art historicalstudies. But both
the context and purposes of Marshack's
work are largely distinct:his concernhas
not been with establishingindividualsty-
listic provenanceor withclassifyingateliers
according to formal criteria. Instead, he
has sought to reconstructwhat may be
termed the "syntax" or cognitive strate-
gies, involved in the constructionof im-
ages, the topology of linkages between
discernible stages of image formation.He
takes it as given thatthe semanticor refer-
ential content of images cannot be recon-
structedwithoutimaginaryandlargelyun-
justifiable projection on the part of the
analyst, and suggests both explicitly and
through his analytic technologies that a
focus on the logic of what may be termed
the "building program" of images may
yield more informationabout the condi-
tions, circumstances,and cognitive strate-
gies of early image-making. Such infor-
mation is itself contextualizedby an astute
awareness of and concern for the circum-
stancesof image-perception,use, andreuse
by manygenerationsof individuals.In con-
nection with this, it has been one of the
more substantivefindings of recentPaleo-
lithic researchthatnearlyevery imagetype
is used and reusedin a numberof different
ways and in varying contexts, both sepa-
ratelyandin associationwithotherimages.
In short, we now see more clearly that
Paleolithicimages have in manycases been
continuallypalimpsestedover long periods
of time, and theirfinal forms are the result
of numerous participatoryacts by many
individuals, often using widely divergent
marking techniques. This applies both to
stable wall images in caves and to images
markedor engravedon portablematerials.
Images in this sense arethe sites andocca-
sions for an ongoing processof imagegen-
eration. Images themselves become tools
for makingfurtherimages.
An importantimplicationof Marshack's
research is a displacementof the question
of meaning or significationfrom the indi-
vidual boundariesof particularimages to
the performativeor orchestrativecontext
within which artworkscome to be invested
with (partial) meaning. In other words,
individual images or image-groups are
components in an ongoing, dynamic,mul-
timodal performativeevent-structure.He
suggests quite explicitly that
It may not be the product(statement,
gesture, or image) that carries the
weight of meaning, but the partici-
patory act itself. No matterwhat the
mode of production... they have
no meaningoutsideof suchcontexts.
Archaeologically, therefore, we are
faced with a special problem. All
that we have for study are the prod-
ucts of culturalbehaviorthathappen
to have been made of imperishable
materials and that have been acci-
dentally retainedin the soil or on a
protectedwall. Yet humansymbolic
activity occurs equally in all modes.
("Upper PaleolithicSymbolSystems
of the Russian Plain: Cognitive and
Comparative Analysis," Current
Anthropology Vol. 20, No. 2, June
1979, P. 304).
It should be added here that in addition
to its componentialstatusas a contributor
to multimodal signification, the relative
semiotic "weight"'of imagesin suchactiv-
ities will necessarilyvary amongindividu-
als and collectives: in one situation, the
image component may serve more direct
and primaryreferentialfunctions,although
in anothersituation at a differenttime (or
for differentparticipantsin a groupactivi-
ty), an image (or what might materiallybe
the same image) may operate in a more
indirectandbackgroundfashion.The point
here is thatMarshack'sperspectiveallows
a sensitivity to such dynamiccomplexities
This content downloaded on Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:43:23 PM
in image constructionand construalpre- aspects of the diachronictotalityof forma-
cisely by loosening the object or artwork tions-in short, the entire subsequenthis-
from an ideal of semantic fixity that has tory of artwork.Such impulsesareinsepa-
been pervasive (as we have seen above) in rable from their functions as ideological
traditionalarthistoricalanalysis. instruments,justifyingreceivedtheological
Thus, by demonstratingempiricallythat notions of some universalhumanessence
Paleolithic images arenot closed butopen, that transcends (and thus erases) history.
and that they serve as sites for ongoing Moreover, such impulses have always re-
palimpsest and modification(bothwithina quired a diachronicRed Sea before which
single time frameandovertime), Marshack we must speak of proto- or pre-hominid
arrives at a perspective on artworkthat is (and therefore in some sense naturalor
coincident with a numberof lines of post- animal) artifactualizationand after which
structuralist theoretical writing. But we we can safely and univocally speakof hu-
should be clear at this point thatthe impli- man art. We need hardlybe surprisedthat
cations of Marshack'swork go far beyond creationist vipers lie coiled beneath the
being yet anotherrecentpleafor takinginto mantleof some of themoresecular-seeming
account the contexts of images and art- evolutionisms.
works. Forit is preciselythenotionof' con- There is no such Red Sea. We may
text" that is distinctly different from the perhapsmoreclearlysee today, in no small
ambientformalor social "surround"of the measurebecauseof developmentsin Paleo-
instrumentalistparadigm-within which, lithic researchover the past few decades,
after all, the "object" always retains(i.e., that a Red Sea is always in some sense nec-
is invested with) a certainsemiotic or sig- essary because it co-implies a Jordanat the
nificative autonomy. The perspective ar- other end. Brideswear white becausewid-
rived at by the researchof Marshack(and ows wearblack becausebrideswearwhite.
by an increasing body of Paleolithic re- It is a perennialtemptation-and trap-
search inspiredby and coincidentwith his to suggest that the developmentsof one's
work) is that the analytic autonomization own age indicate the most profound of
of artworkis a manifestationof our own intellectual revolutions. And yet with re-
ideological prefabrications. gard to art history, I think it is more than
Moreover, his work serves at the same mere rhetoricalexaggerationto note that
time as a critique of the traditionallogo- we are in fact in the midst of changes
centrisms double-bindingthe operational which have alreadyprecipitatedthe end of
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
necessarily nor always the privilegedtem- academic revolutions, the changes in our
plate of social activity, but is always a discipline are coming aboutnot by turning
componentialfacet of individualandsocial away from its history, butratherby paying
behavior, as little understandable in formal close and carefulattentionto the historyof
isolation as is visual artifaction. It is a its textualprotocolsandmetaphorical mech-
reminderthatthe notionof verballanguage anisms. In the contemporarymovement
as an internallycoherentsystem is as much towards an archaeologyof the discipline,
an ironic and illusory fiction (e.g., as the we have begun not only to deconstruct
"object" of study of the discipline of lin- received arthistoricaltheoriesandpractices
guistics) as is the notion of art. -including, of course, ourown-but also
RereadingLeroi-GourhanthroughMar- to sketch the outlines of a disciplineof art
shack may allow us to understandmore study that moves beyond the various art
clearly that the Paleolithicpaintedcave is historiesin which we have all beentrained.
less a "text" than it is a site for cultural
adaptation which necessarily operates in Donald Preziosi is Associate Professor
many ways and that individualimages or of Art History at S. U.N. Y.-Binghamton.
image-groupsare less episodes in narration He is the authorof The Semiotics of the
thanthey are multifunctionalthreadswhich Built Environment,Architecture,Lan-
afford dynamic and continualre-weaving. guage & Meaning, MinoanArchitectural
They are rather,so to speak, tools to build Design, The Originsof the Built World,
tools. Caves (and individualportableen- and theforthcoming RereadingArt
gravedobjects)areno merestaticstagesets History:A Post-Structuralist Reader.He is
or tableaux:theyarealreadymembersof the completinga book on the origins of art.
cast and play many roles even within the
same scenes. In short,the individualimage
or object is a site of deferralanddifference.
It is always alreadysomewhereelse.
t becomes apparent that the impulse
I towardstelling storiesaboutoriginsis at
one with an impulsetowardsthe establish-
ment of transcendentalsignifieds-irre-
ducible cores of featuresthatserveas a key
to align and genealogize all the variant
Winter1982 325
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