cave art and the theory of art the origins of the religious interpretation of palaeolithic graphic...

ojoa_337 1..14

EDUARDO PALACIO-PÉREZ

CAVE ART AND THE THEORY OF ART: THE ORIGINS OFTHE RELIGIOUS INTERPRETATION OF PALAEOLITHICGRAPHIC EXPRESSION

Summary. This paper explores the origins of the symbolic–religiousinterpretation of Palaeolithic art. We analyse the relationship between theexplanations that were given of the ‘primitive’ mentality in the second halfof the nineteenth century and the birth of the religious interpretations ofPalaeolithic art and we try to show how this union does not express a directcause–effect relationship. In order for the union to take place, an intellectualchange that would generate a new way of understanding the origins and thenature of art was necessary.

an ongoing debate

Since the late 1960s, there has developed the idea that the recognition of the age ofPalaeolithic cave art was closely linked to the ‘conceptual discovery’ of the symbolic andreligious world of primitive peoples.

Indeed, the existence in the nineteenth century of an over-rigid idea of progress has beenthe corner-stone of the explanation for the slow process of the acceptance of cave art. In that way,a very simplistic form of evolutionism, which denied any hint of symbolic and intellectualcomplexity amongst hunter-gatherers, made it impossible to fit such art within a ‘savage’ society.It was only when this idea of progress became more flexible, in parallel with the discovery andmore precise definition of the symbolic–religious world of primitive people, that the prehistoricchronology of the parietal depictions could be accepted (Ucko and Rosenfeld 1967, 118–23;Richard 1993, 65–7; González Morales and Moro Abadía 2002; 2004a; Moro Abadía 2006,130–2).

Closely related to the above proposal, González Morales and Moro Abadía (MoroAbadía and González Morales 2003; González Morales and Moro Abadía 2004b) haveassociated the problem with the manner in which prehistorians defined the decorated portableobjects, disseminated from 1864 onwards. These were conceptualized as crafts, a ‘lesser art’aimed at decoration, characteristic of traditional and primitive societies, in contrast with the ‘finearts’ associated with the expression of the aesthetic ideals of civilized mankind. Clearly, withsuch a restricted conception of Palaeolithic art, there was no room for the parietal depictions.

Without doubt, it seems that the two latter explanations have added details to atheoretical context within which the different discoveries and explanations made for Palaeolithic

OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 29(1) 1–14 2010© 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UKand 350 Main Street Malden, MA 02148, USA. 1

art in the period 1860–1900 can be framed. However, does the key for the recognition of the ageof cave art lie in the discovery of the religious and symbolic world of primitive people in thesecond half of the nineteenth century? Is there a direct correlation between the acceptance ofparietal art and the generalization of the concepts of animism, totemism and sympathetic magic?and with the existence of a supposed religion in the ‘Age of Reindeer’, deduced from thediscovery of Palaeolithic burials? Were these new revelations really sufficient to look upon thecave paintings in another way? Or were other changes needed that we have not previously takeninto account?

This paper will attempt to show that there was no direct transference between the‘discovery’ of ‘primitive religion’ and the acceptance of cave art. Tylor and McLennan’s ideasabout animism and totemism, or Frazer’s notion of magic, would not be applied to Palaeolithicart with any continuity until several years later. In the same way, the recognition of Palaeolithicart following the discovery of graves attributed to that period did not bring about any changes inthe way of interpreting portable art.

In our opinion, all these ideas required a catalyst to be applied to Palaeolithic creativity,and this was the Theory of Art. It was only in the late nineteenth century, when Art Theory,undergoing a process of change, began to incorporate the concepts of animism, totemism andsympathetic magic in its reflections, that a new idea was developed for the origins of art itself,enabling the age of cave art to be accepted. This perception understood the origins of art inmagic–religious terms, and not only from the viewpoint of aesthetic feeling. However, thisprocess took place quite rapidly in the 1890s, in parallel with the discovery of new cave artensembles in France.

evolutionist prehistory and the discovery of the palaeolithic mind

The image that most nineteenth century archaeologists had of Palaeolithic hunters wasinfluenced by social evolutionist thought. However, we cannot suppose that this perception washomogeneous throughout the second half of the nineteenth century.

In the first phase, which we can date between 1860 and the mid-1880s, authors such asMortillet and Lubbock were to define a rather crude image of Palaeolithic man. The hunter ‘isneither free nor noble; he is a slave to his own wants, his own passions; imperfectly protected fromthe weather, he suffers from the cold by night and the heat of the sun by day; ignorant of agriculture,living by the chase, and improvident in success, hunger always stares him in the face, and oftendrives him to the dreadful alternative of cannibalism or death’ (Lubbock 1865, 484). Mortilletpresented the Magdalenians as starving nomads constantly in chase of the herds of reindeer(Mortillet 1883, 476–8). Similarly, if their material life was characterized by need, theirintellectual life was seen as dull and simple: ‘that our earliest ancestors could have counted to tenis very improbable, considering that so many races now in existence can not get beyond four’(Lubbock 1865, 475). As well as being incapable and ignorant, the savage was ingenuous andwith no sense of the transcendent. Several authors (Lubbock [1870] 1987, 192; Broca 1866, 75)deduced, therefore, that it was impossible that any true religious thought could exist withinprimitive society. Naturally, Quaternary hunters had no religion, as Mortillet maintainedvehemently all his life: ‘It happens that as soon as religious ideas appear, funerary practices areintroduced. However, there is no evidence of funerary practices in the Quaternary. Quaternary manwas, therefore, wholly devoid of any feeling of religiousness’ (Mortillet 1883, 476). In the case ofGabriel de Mortillet, it was his strict evolutionism combined with personal and political reasons

CAVE ART AND THE THEORY OF ART

OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY© 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.2

that caused him to maintain a radical anti-clericalism. All of this must have coincided in his desireto prove that religion was not intrinsic to human nature (Reinach 1899, 478; Bahn 1992, 341–5).In parallel and in accordance with the above, it was at that time when the definition of portable artas simple decorative craftsmanship was formulated (González Morales and Moro Abadía 2004b).

However, this rigid and simplistic view of intellectual life in the Palaeolithic would startto change, at least after 1885. Without doubt, the diffusion of Tylor’s theories of cultural–mentalist evolutionism1 was an important incentive for this transformation. In fact, in 1866, thisauthor wrote a paper in which for the first time he gave form to his theory of animism to explainthe most primitive and basic expression of religion (Tylor 1866) and he did not hesitate toattribute this type of belief to the most primitive humans: ‘We also know that one of the coarsestforms of religious feelings consists of believing and worshipping the immaterial things that existin the winds, the trees, the waters, that ripen fruits and make the rain fall, that cause the illnessesand misfortunes of the savage hunter [ . . . ] The worship of spirits of this kind are to be found,it may be said, amongst the savage populations all over the world’ (Tylor 1867, 707). A few yearslater, in the wake of the idea of animism created by Tylor, a new topic of discussion appeared:totemism. The general notion of totemism was introduced into the anthropological debate byMcLennan in a paper published in two parts during 1869 and 1870, under the title of ‘Theworship of animals and plants’ (McLennan 1869–1870a; 1869–1870b). McLennan definedtotemism as the oldest animist belief, whilst granting it universal validity. These ideas weredeveloped further by anthropologists and religious scholars. Thus, in 1890, Frazer’s work, TheGolden Bough, appeared. In this, he pursued an evolutionary organization of the different beliefsystems, following Tylor’s proposal that modern religion is simply the development of moreancient ways of thought. Frazer defined the mentality of primitive populations as basicallymagic. In fact, this author, in collaboration with the ethnographers Spencer and Gillen (1899,112–27) reduced totemism to a simple set of magic practices aimed at ensuring the fecundity ofthe totem-species and therefore of the ‘clan’ that identified itself with it. In this way, sympathetichunting magic and totemism became the generic interpretative framework for primitive religion.

Together with the rise of an Anthropology concerned with the mental production ofhuman beings (language, religion, mythology, literature, etc.) we must refer to the developmentof comparative religious studies, with such influential authors as Max Müller (1859; 1889; 1892;1893), and to widely distributed philosophical works such as La Creation, by Edgar Quinet(Quinet 1870b), of which some extracts were published (‘Mort d’une race humaine’, ‘Idée del’immortalité dans l’homme fossile’) in the journal Matériaux pour l’histoire primitive etnaturelle de l’homme (Quinet 1870a).

It is clear that these theories were soon to form part of the prehistorians’ way ofthinking. They appeared in two decisive debates: one arising from the acceptance of thePalaeolithic date of certain burials and, some years later, the debate on the existence of cave art.We shall begin by examining the former of these, as it involved a clear break with all those ideasthat had denied any kind of religiousness among Palaeolithic humans.

1 In the late nineteenth century, two main lines were followed in evolutionist thought. One of these was social, witha clearly materialistic character, which stressed the knowledge of kinship, technology and forms of subsistence.The other line, cultural or intellectual, was concerned with the study of beliefs and the evolution of religions. Thus,whereas for social evolutionists the savage was a hunter dominated by instinct, promiscuous and nomadic, forcultural evolutionists he was a kind of speculator seeking explanations to solve the mysteries of nature andexistence through religion and magic (Stocking 1987, 208–28).


OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY© 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 3

In 1864, Lartet and Christy were the first to suggest the existence of a funerary cultduring the ‘Age of Reindeer’ based on the remains found at Aurignac (Christy and Lartet 1864,24). In the same way, Louis Lartet (1869) recorded in 1868 the presence of a ritual burial in thePalaeolithic at Cro-Magnon. Between 1872 and 1875, Émile Rivière (1872) excavated in thecaves of Bouaoussé-Roussé near Menton, where he discovered the remains of possible burialsamong abundant Palaeolithic material.

However, many prehistorians refused to accept this evidence, and alluded tostratigraphical arguments that negated the Palaeolithic date of the skeletons (Mortillet 1883,471–2) or assumed they were the results of accidents caused by the collapse of boulders, as inthe case of Laugerie-Basse (Massenat, Lalande and Cartailhac 1872, 1063; Mortillet 1883,469–70).

It was Cartailhac who, in 1886, after detailed study of the various human remains foundat different sites, finally attributed the existence of clearly defined burials to the Palaeolithic:‘The skeleton thus prepared had been the object of the mysterious attention of the living, dressedwith adornments, covered with red dust and probably hidden beneath a thin layer of earth andashes [ . . . ] In France we have seen sites that reveal the same funerary rite [ . . . ] Theobservations made in the Pyrenees and the centre of France show that this custom wasgeneralised’ (Cartailhac 1886, 460–70). In this way, the idea grew that the ‘primitive’ people inthe Palaeolithic possessed some form of religiousness and a solid belief in the afterlife.

However, did this new discourse produce a change in the way of interpreting portableart? In general, we can say that it did not. Most authors continued to maintain a decorative–amusement interpretation of the artwork produced on antlers and bones.

continuity and change in the discourse on the origins andnature of ‘primitive’ art

The ideas put forward by Tylor and McLennan about primitive religion and theacceptance of funerary rituals in the Palaeolithic did not produce, at least directly andimmediately, any change in the way of interpreting the art of the ‘Age of Reindeer’.

In fact, even authors who advocated the existence of pristine religiousness amongstEuropeans in the Upper Palaeolithic (Quatrefages [1877] 1896, 349–56; Joly 1885, 304–12)continued to believe in a decorative interpretation of their works of art (Quatrefages [1877] 1896,209–11; Joly 1885, 264–77). In the same way, the recognition of funerary cults in theMagdalenian, and, therefore, some type of pious feeling (Cartailhac 1886; Du Cleuziou 1887,279–83), did not involve seeing the engravings and sculptures on antler and bone as any morethan mere ornamental amusement (Cartailhac 1889, 78–83; Du Cleuziou 1887, 266). In addition,in the opinion of the more simplistic evolutionists, cave-men could not have felt any religiousemotions (Mortillet 1883, 476; Dreyfus [1888] 1893, 292) and, naturally, they remained true totheir idea that the art was only the result of the naïve imitation of nature (Mortillet 1898, 22;Dreyfus [1888] 1893, 224–5).

However, in the 1890s, a series of changes took shape in Art Theory, transforming theway of understanding the primitive creations. These, without doubt, helped to take into accountthe possibility that the paintings and engravings found on the walls and ceilings of cavesbelonged to the prehistoric period. These changes can be summarized thus: first, the concept ofart was enlarged and, second, anthropological and ethnographical studies played a larger part inthe field of aesthetic thought.




enlargement in the concept of art

There have been few moments in history in which the concept of art has undergone sucha profound change as in the last decades of the nineteenth century.

The idea of creativity separate from the pragmatism of everyday life and the absorptionin the search for aesthetic values, as regards beauty and capturing the ‘sublime’ or ‘picturesque’,defined the perception of what art should be during a large part of the nineteenth century(Tatarkiewicz 1971). These ideas favoured an arts classification system which differentiatedbetween ‘lesser arts’ of a decorative or artisan kind, and ‘fine arts’, associated with the search forbeauty and the aesthetic ideal. In this scheme of thought, nineteenth century bourgeois societytended to consider the creations of contemporary ‘savages’ and, naturally, the works of artattributed to ‘Age of Reindeer’ cave-men as a simple form of decorative craftsmanship (MoroAbadía and González Morales 2003; González Morales and Moro Abadía 2004a; 2004b).However, these assumptions were to be slowly eroded away, as became more than clear in the1890s.

Systems classifying the different art-forms had been criticized since 1870. John Ruskinand William Morris, who developed the concepts of the utility and functionality of artisticobjects, personified the initial impulse of the aesthetic revolution. They both helped to regenerateart, and were concerned with improving people’s everyday life with beautiful objects. Equally,they attempted to re-establish the broken links between art and labour; they maintained thatneither industrialized nations nor the man carrying out mechanized labour can produce orappreciate beauty, only the craftsman who conceives his work as a moral commitment is capableof creating beautiful products. This union between the aesthetics of the craftsman andfunctionality culminated in the final decades of the century in the Art Nouveau movement(Pevsner [1936] 1975, 69–84). It is clear that these approaches harboured grave doubts about asystem that separated fine arts from the lesser arts: ‘it is only in latter times, and under the mostintricate conditions of life, that they have fallen apart from one another; and I hold that, whenthey are so parted, it is ill for the Arts altogether’ (Morris [1877] 1947a, 17). And with the samefirmness they demanded an extension to the concept of art: ‘I must ask you to extend the wordart beyond those matters which are consciously works of art, to take in not only painting andsculpture, and architecture, but the shapes and colours of all household goods’ (Morris [1883]1947b, 132).

At the same time, the study of the ‘industrial arts’ of those periods most favoured fromthe academicist point of view (Classical Antiquity and the Renaissance) and styles coming fromdistant cultures (ethnographic collections) and other ancient civilizations (Egypt, Mesopotamia,etc.) further influenced the attack on this classification: ‘Arbitrary divisions, disastrous for thearts, all established from ignorance and a false appreciation of the variety, worth and merit withwhich the human spirit may show itself’ (Soldi 1881, 5).

Together with this theoretical critique, the role played by artistic development itselfwas highly significant. Important artists and designers around 1890 (Cézanne, Gauguin, Hofler,Munch and Toorop) were, without doubt, the creators of a new artistic language whichtransformed the way of understanding art. The pleasure taken in subtle and delicate details, soadmired by classical and impressionist artists, was replaced by strong colours and primitiveforms. Reality was looked down upon in favour of the expressiveness of patterns and theirsymbolic meaning. As Pevsner states: ‘carried over into the artist’s personal outlook, this meansseriousness, religious conscience, fervent passion, and no longer spirited play or skilful



craftsmanship. It means, instead of art for art’s sake, art serving something higher than art itselfcan be’ (Pevsner [1936] 1975, 88). This change in attitude influenced the development of a newway of looking at primitive art. In his work The Origins of Art, Hirn acknowledges the decisiveinfluence of contemporary artistic production in the break with the categorical, ethnocentric andexclusively aesthetic approach that the Theory and History of Art had maintained when it tackledthe problem of the origin and evolution of the arts: ‘The artistic activities of savage tribes, whichhave been practically unknown to esthetic writers until recent years, display many features thatcannot be harmonised with the general laws. And in a yet higher degree contemporary art defiesthe generalisations of a uniform theory’ (Hirn 1900, 3).

In the same way, we must bear in mind that in the last decades of the century, the conceptof art itself and its classification system had to face the massive spread of photography and newforms of expression, such as the cinema (Tatarkiewicz 1971).

In conclusion, all these events and ideas widened and made more flexible the concept ofwhat should be considered art, and were a substantial influence on a new assessment of primitivecreations, whether they be contemporary or prehistoric. Hence, Alois Riegl in his book Stilfragen,Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik (Problems of Style. Fundamentals for aHistory of Ornamentation) stated, in reference to Palaeolithic art: ‘The techniques used in theproduction of theAquitaine troglodytes do not belong specifically to the so-called crafts, but ratherto the so-called higher art (figurative sculpture) which demonstrates the foolishness and injusticeexisting in that separation from the scientific point of view’ (Riegl 1893, 21).

the anthropological approach in the history of art: towards social aesthetic

In the final decades of the nineteenth century, the increasing interest in anthropologicalstudies meant that other disciplines, such as Archaeology, Philology, the History of Religion andthe History of Art were greatly influenced by its ideas (Díaz Andreu 2007, 388–9).

Within this context, knowledge of the art of contemporary ‘primitive’societies increased,owing to the appearance of more detailed ethnographic descriptions and the foundation of severalmuseums exhibiting the creations produced by indigenous peoples in the colonies. Abundantethnographic literature dealt with and informed these topics. In the case of South Africa, the mostimportant works were by Gustav Fritsch (1872; 1880), Emil Holub (1881) and Fréderic Christol(1897). Some of the most outstanding works on Australian Aborigines were the publications ofMathews (1893; 1895a; 1895b; 1896a; 1896b; 1897; 1898), Roth (1897), Mathew (1894) and thefirst edition of the report by Badwin Spencer and Frank Gillen (1899), especially Chapter 19.In the case of North America, many important publications were derived from the activities ofthe Bureau of American Ethnology and the National Museum dependent on the SmithsonianInstitution; we may highlight the works of Hamilton (1883), Garrick Mallery (1884), Franz Boas(1888; 1897a; 1897b) and Hoffman (1897). In connection with Arctic populations, the work ofJohan Adrian Jacobsen [1884] (1977) was widely circulated.

All this information not only influenced the development of Ethnology andAnthropology, but soon provided food for thought for History of Art and Aesthetics. Thisoccurred above all in the German-speaking world, where museum ethnographic collections hadgrown considerably since 1870, and in the Anglo-Saxon sphere, where there was a greater linkwith the development of anthropological theory. In the 1890s a series of general works began toappear, tackling the problems of the origins of art from what we might call an ethnological–anthropological viewpoint.




Within the Germanic scenario, one of the first scholars to follow this approach was thesociologist Ernst Grosse. In his works Ethnologie und Ästhetik (Ethnology and Aesthetics)(1891) and Die Anfänge der Kunst (The Beginnings of Art) (1894), he drew up a sociologicalartistic theory. Grosse concluded that art has a social function and that the productions of‘primitive’ peoples can only be understood within the cultural forms in which they originated.He applied the artistic urge to mankind as a whole, especially including hunter-gatherercommunities: ‘The gifts of observation and dexterity are the main qualities needed to produceart; these are also the essential qualities required in the profession of hunter’ (Grosse [1894]1902, 151). However, for this scholar, the art had no religious dimension. The motivation behindthese productions would be simple aesthetic pleasure or some practical purpose (narrative orcommemorative) associated with the transmission of information, and only in certain exceptionalcases does he accept the involvement of pious feelings: ‘we have been able to reach theconclusion from the above that the art of primitive peoples, except for certain isolated cases, hasno religious meaning. We are therefore fully authorised to agree with the abundant evidence infavour of the hypothesis stating that primitive people produce art for the pleasure that it givesthem’ (Grosse [1894] 1902, 155).

A similar impulse can be noted in the Anglo-Saxon world. The level of developmentreached by Social Anthropology at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford in the latenineteenth century and the foundation of the Pitt Rivers Museum were an incentive for a newlook at ‘primitive art’. This new approach would incorporate the ideas that authors like Tylor,McLennan and Frazer had developed about the religious and spiritual life of ‘savages’ (Conway1891, 30–1; Haddon 1895, 235–305).

A good example of this perspective can be found in the work Dawn of Art in the AncientWorld. An Archaeological Sketch, published by the art historian W.M. Conway in 1891. Theauthor extends the sense for aesthetics to all the populations in the world and distances himselffrom evolutionist positions by adopting clearly particularist approaches: ‘Thus the spiritualand intellectual products of the human mind are different at different times and in differentplaces’ (Conway 1891, 9). In accordance with this assessment, he modifies the homogenizing,ethnocentric and categorical concept that Western thought held about aesthetics. Art would nowbe understood as the result of the specific ideas of a society: ‘Artists of all countries and periodsare conditioned by the circumstances in which their lives are passed and by the ideas prevalentamong the societies and individuals for whom they work’ (Conway 1891, 19). In the same way,the art of ‘primitive’ people, including that of the Palaeolithic period, would be directly relatedto their symbolic and spiritual world: ‘It is far from improbable that the animals depicted by thecave-artists were the totems of the cave-dwellers. If so, Palaeolithic man possessed germs ofreligious emotion [ . . . ] Thus on the far horizon of time, we behold Art and Religion comingforth hand in hand. If not generated by the same emotions, at any rate the emotions by which theyare generated arise in a common atmosphere’ (Conway 1891, 31).

We thus see that, in the early 1890s, certain scholars had overcome the amusement–decorative interpretation of art and did not hesitate in giving a religious meaning to the depictionsproduced on antler and bone objects.

This resolute incorporation of religious motivation in the interpretation of primitive artcan also be found in Balfour’s work, The Evolution of Decorative Art. An Essay upon its Originand Development as Illustrated by the Art of Modern Races of Mankind (1893), and in AlfredHaddon’s Evolution in Art (1895). Both authors supposed that the artistic forms of ‘primitive’people evolved, or rather degenerated, from an initial realist approach towards increasingly



schematic phases (Haddon 1895, 8). Together with this formal interpretation of the art ofcontemporary ‘savages’, they did not hesitate in attributing to it a multitude of motivations,including the sense of the aesthetic, the transmission of information, the exhibition of wealth,magic and religion (Haddon 1895, 4–5). Indeed, the symbolic world of ‘primitive’peoples becamepart of the explanation of their artistic forms, and the concepts of sympathetic magic, totemism andreligious symbology became key elements in the discourse (Haddon 1895, 235–305).

The work of the Swedish art theoretician and historian Y. Hirn, The Origins of Art(1900), marks the culmination of this way of tackling the problem of the beginnings andevolution of artistic activity. This author does not give priority to aesthetic feelings as the drivingforce behind art, and instead emphasizes the utilitarian character of human creations. For him,the artistic activity of traditional societies is not a sublime thing, foreign and separate frompractical needs and requirements: ‘this art is seldom free and disinterested; it has generally ausefulness real or supposed and is often even a necessity of life’ (Hirn 1900, 12). In his opinion,magic was one of the main motivations of the art of ‘savage’ societies: ‘the sorcerer who worksby similarities is compelled to create a representation of things and beings in order to acquire aninfluence over them. Thus magical purposes call forth imitations of nature and life which,although essentially non-aesthetic in their intention, may nevertheless be of importance for thehistorical evolution of art’ (Hirn 1900, 283).

In conclusion, during the final decade of the nineteenth century, various scholars wouldcontribute to a new way of understanding the origin and development of artistic activity invarious primitive and traditional societies:

1. The autotelic perspective presupposing that all artistic works are a beginning and an end inthemselves was abandoned. In contrast with this approach, the new Aesthetics saw art as ahuman production intimately related with other facets of social and individual life, andpositioned itself beyond a mere speculative science of beauty. The aesthetic feeling wouldimpregnate other fields of existence: ‘Aesthetics is the study and practice of art for art’s sake,that is, for the pleasurable sensations which are induced by certain combinations of form,line, and colour [ . . . ] All men have this sense, varying from a rudimentary to an exaltedextent. Though it is naturally the basis of all art work, it does not follow that the aestheticsense has been the sole cause of decorative work. Religion and the desire to conveyinformation have both imitated and controlled pictorial and decorative art, but the artisticsense has all along exerted its influence to a greater or less extent. The artistic feeling hasendeavoured to cast a glamour of beauty over the crude efforts of religion and science’(Haddon 1895, 200).

2. Ethnographic studies would show the difficulty in applying generic criteria to theproductions of different cultures although, despite appreciating these differences, overallexplanations would still be attempted for the whole of ‘primitive’ art.

3. Magic and religious symbology would become the keys to understanding and interpretingmuch of the art of ‘savages’.

the consideration of palaeolithic parietal art and the newconceptualization of ‘primitive art’

The superimposition of a new theoretical discourse on the origins and function of artcoincided in time with a series of discoveries in France (La Mouthe, Pair-non-Pair, Chabot,




Combarelles and Font-de-Gaume). These finds made it necessary to re-examine the question ofthe age of the paintings and engravings seen on the walls and ceilings of caves, a topic that haddisappeared from scientific debate after the now-forgotten discovery of Altamira.

The new discoveries were discussed in the most important French scientific societiesuntil, between 1901 and 1902, the Palaeolithic chronology of cave art came to be generallyaccepted (Capitan and Breuil 1901a; 1901b; Cartailhac 1902). Without doubt the recent findsinfluenced this new evaluation, but it seems reasonable to admit that behind this turn-aboutthere existed a profound change in scientific mentality. We have already seen how theacknowledgement of the existence of Palaeolithic religiousness did not involve a change in theway of interpreting portable art. However, a new explanation of the meaning and significance ofPalaeolithic depictions ran more or less parallel to the evaluation of cave art (Coye 1997, 246).Thus the graphic depictions that had been seen during the second half of the nineteenth centuryas mere decorative play became, at the turn of the century, a reflection of the magic–religiousthought of the Palaeolithic savages.

We may therefore ask ourselves how this change was achieved and whether the newdiscourse that developed about the origins and nature of art played a decisive role in the process.

The magic–religious exegesis of Palaeolithic art was not new. We can differentiate twokey moments in the use of this explanation:

1. A series of isolated references, in some cases made quite timidly, in the 1870s and 1880s andwhich had no continuity in their development (Bourgeois and Delaunay 1865, 92; Piette1873, 414–16; Bernardin 1876, 12; Reinach 1889, 234).

2. A group of proposals that were developed at the turn of the century and which weresynchronic with the increasing acceptance of the antiquity of cave art (Reinach 1899, 478;1903; Girod and Massenat 1900; Chauvet 1903, 6; Cartailhac and Breuil 1903, 10; 1906,144–225). These no longer had an isolated character but were integrated within a generaltheory of the interpretation of ‘primitive art’.

Thus, it cannot be chance that in the interval between these two phases there took placethe renewal in artistic theory, involving the development of a different discourse on the origin andnature of art.

Indeed, some of the leading researchers in the redefinition of the meaning of Palaeolithicart, such as Reinach or Breuil, acknowledge their debt to the scholars who introduced theanthropological approach into the study of art, in the final decade of the nineteenth century.

It was Reinach who promoted and explained in most detail the magic–religious view ofPalaeolithic art. Thus, in 1899, he stated in reference to the portable objects: ‘I have often insistedon the religious character of the bâtons de commandement and I believe that it is most legitimate,in contrast with Mortillet, to attribute cavemen with a well-developed religiousness. Perhaps, theanimal figures, so frequent in their art, are evidences for some kind of totemism’ (Reinach 1899,478). A few years later he published his outstanding paper, ‘L’Art et la magie’ (1903), where hedetailed the utilitarian character of Palaeolithic artistic forms, especially cave art, and their directrelationship with sympathetic magic. In this text he does not hide his debt to authors such asFrazer (1890) or Spencer and Gillen (1899), and neither to Grosse’s work Die Anfänge der Kunst(1894) or Hirn’s The Origins of Art (1900), which are frequently cited and even paraphrased.Grosse and Hirn’s writings were the basis of the ethnographic comparisons referred to byReinach (1903, 259–61). They equally enabled him to recognize the idea that Palaeolithic art‘is the product of a truly artistic activity’ (ibid., 264). In addition, they were also the main



inspirational source for his application of the idea of ‘homeopathetic’ or ‘sympathetic’ magic tothe interpretation of prehistoric art (ibid., 260–3).

Breuil cites Ernst Grosse’s work (Cartailhac and Breuil 1906, 236) and refers to theinfluence of Balfour and Haddon’s writings (Breuil 1958–1960) in the composition of hisqualification thesis for the University of Fribourg. In his autobiography he acknowledges thatthese works were vital for his understanding of how most of the schematic and abstract formsderive, by a process of stylization, from previous naturalist forms (ibid., 154). In the same way,they made him aware of the importance of ethnographic comparisons as an approach to theinterpretation of the art of the ‘Age of Reindeer’ (ibid., 192, 212).

In short, we must conclude that the conceptual renewal that occurred in Art Theory inthe last decade of the nineteenth century was decisive for the attainment of a new explanation forPalaeolithic art. This took place in parallel to an increasing acceptance of the antiquity of theparietal depictions and, without doubt, contributed significantly towards it. The enlargement inthe concept of art and the plurality of motivations that were seen behind it, beyond the simplesearch for beauty, made it possible to establish a correspondence and a continuity between themotifs engraved on antler and bone objects and the parietal art. Cave art would now fit within thenew magic–religious definition of ‘primitive art’: ‘It would be too much of an exaggeration topretend that magic is the only source of art, and deny the role of the instinct of imitation, ofadornment, of the social need to express and communicate thought, but the discovery of cavepaintings in France and Spain, completing that of sculpted and engraved objects collected in thecaves, seems to show that the great increase in art in the Age of Reindeer was related to thedevelopment of magic’ (Reinach 1903, 266).

conclusions

We have attempted to show that the redefinition undergone by Palaeolithic art in about1900 can best be explained if it is related to the transformation that the general theory of art wentthrough in the final decade of the nineteenth century.

The extension in the concept of art enabled works that until that time had beenconsidered as crafts or second-class creations to be included within that category. In the sameway, the anthropological approach applied in the studies of the History of Art assisted therecognition of the social function of artistic activity. This made it possible to reconcile theconcepts of ‘creativity’ and ‘functionality’. Hence, an artistic object, whatever its aesthetic value,fulfilled a material or symbolic function in the context of a certain society. This new discoursesteadily took shape in the field of Aesthetics and Art Theory and, in fact, it was believed, throughthe study of primitive societies, that a meaning connected with magic and religious symbologyexisted behind many ‘savage’ creations. This new paradigm finally concluded that magic–religious beliefs lay at the basis of the origins of art.

This discourse entered the field of prehistoric science in the last years of the nineteenthcentury, coinciding with the appearance of new examples of cave art in France.

Within this relational framework we can highlight several points:

1. The transformation in the concept of ‘primitive art’ in the light of magic–religiousutilitarianism was an approach developed by anthropologists and art historians, and onlylater was it incorporated into the discourse of prehistorians.

2. This new concept was applied first to the interpretation of Palaeolithic portable art and notto parietal art as is usually supposed.




3. The addition of this new paradigm to the theoretical corpus of prehistory took place inparallel to the deliberations on parietal art. Both aspects fed back on each other, favouringthe acceptance of the ancient chronology of cave art and the drafting of a new discourse onthe nature and meaning of Palaeolithic art.

In this initial discourse were born ideas such as ‘Palaeolithic sanctuary’, ‘initiation art’,‘totemic images’ and ‘shamanic symbols’ that have conditioned, in modified forms, theinterpretation of Palaeolithic art until the present time.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Dr Margarita Díaz Andreu (University of Durham) and Dr Pablo Arias Cabal(IIIPC) for reading and criticizing the manuscript, and to Dr Oscar Moro Abadía (Memorial Universityof Newfoundland) for helpful insights in regard to relevant nineteenth century literature. Finally, veryspecial thanks must go to Dr César González Sáinz (University of Cantabria) for his constant help withthis paper.

Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria (IIIPC) EdificioInterfacultativo

Universidad de CantabriaAvda. de Los Castros, s/n

39005 SantanderSPAIN

E-mail: [email protected]

references

bahn, p.g. 1992: Expecting the Spanish Inquisition: Altamira’s rejection in its 19th century context. InGoldsmith, S., Garvie, S., Selin, D. and Smith, J. (eds.), Ancient Images, Ancient Thought: theArchaeology of Ideology. Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference of the ArchaeologicalAssociation of the University of Calgary, 1990 (Calgary, University of Calgary ArchaeologicalAssociation), 339–46.

balfour, h. 1893: The Evolution of Decorative Art. An Essay upon its Origin and Development asIllustrated by the Art of Modern Races of Mankind (New York).

bernardin, r.j. 1876: Les archives et les monnaies préhistoriques. La Revue savoisienne 17ème année,11–13.

boas, f. 1888: The central Eskimo. In Powell, J.W. (ed.), Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnologyto the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1884–85 (Washington), 409–669.

boas, f. 1897a: The social organization and the secret societies of the Kwakiutl Indians. Report of theUnited States National Museum for 1895, 311–738.

boas, f. 1897b: The decorative art of the Indians of the north Pacific coast. Bulletin of the AmericanMuseum of Natural History 9, 123–76.

bourgeois, l. and delaunay, abbé 1865: Notice sur la Grotte de la Chaisse. Revue Archéologique XII,90–4.

breuil, h. 1958–1960: Autobiographie (Typed manuscript in Musée d’Archéologie Nationale, Saint-Germain-en-Laye).

broca, p. 1866: Discours sur l’homme et les animaux. Bulletins de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris(2ème série), 1(1), 53–79.

capitan, l. and breuil, h. 1901a: Une nouvelle grotte avec parois gravées à l’epoque paléolithique.Comptes rendus hebdomadaires de l’Academie des Sciences 133, 478–80.



capitan, l. and breuil, h. 1901b: Une nouvelle grotte avec figures peintes sur les parois à l’epoquepaléolithique. Comptes rendus hebdomadaires de l’Academie des Sciences 133, 493–5.

cartailhac, e. 1886: Ossement et squelettes humaines dans les cavernes et stations quaternaires. Revued’Anthropologie (3ème série), 1, 448–70.

cartailhac, e. 1889: La France Préhistorique d’après les sépultures et les monuments (Paris).cartailhac, e. 1902: Les cavernes ornées de dessins. La grotte d’Altamira, Espagne. ‘Mea culpa’ d’un

sceptique. L’Anthropologie XIII, 348–54.cartailhac, e. and breuil, h. 1903: Les pintures préhistoriques de la grotte d’Altamira a Santillane

Espagne (Paris).cartailhac, e. and breuil, h. 1906: La Caverne d’Altamira a Santillane près Santander, Espagne

(Monaco).conway, w.m. 1891: Dawn of Art in the Ancient World. An Archaeological Sketch (London).coye, n. 1997: La Préhistoire en parole et en acte. Méthodes et enjeux de la pratique archéologique

(1830–1950) (Paris).chauvet, g. 1903: Note sur l’art primitive (Angoulême).christol, f. 1897: Au sud de l’Afrique (Paris).christy, h. and lartet, e. 1864: Sur des figures des animaux gravées ou sculptées et autres produits d’art

et d’industrie rapportables aux temps primordiaux de la période humaine (Paris).díaz-andreu, m. 2007: A World History of Nineteenth-Century Archaeology. Nationalism, Colonialism

and the Past (Oxford).dreyfus, f.c. [1888] 1893: L’évolution des mondes et des sociétés (Paris).du cleuziou, h. 1887: La création de l’homme et les premiers âges de l’humanité (Paris).frazer, j.g. 1890: The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Oxford).fritsch, g. 1872: Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrika’s: ethnographisch und anatomisch beschrieben (Breslau).fritsch, g. 1880: Die afrikanischen Buschmänner als Urrasse. Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 12, 289–

300.girod, p. and massenat, e. 1900: Les Stations de l’Age du renne dans les vallées de la Vézère et de la

Corrèze (Paris).gonzález morales, m.r. and moro abadía, o. 2002: 1902, El reconocimiento del arte rupestre

paleolítico. In Torres, J. (ed.), Historica et Philologica: in honorem José María Robles (Santander,Universidad de Cantabria), 211–28.

gonzález morales, m.r. and moro abadía, o. 2004a: 1864–1902: El reconocimiento del ArtePaleolítico. Zephyrus LVII, 119–35.

gonzález morales, m.r. and moro abadía, o. 2004b: Towards a genealogy of the concept of ‘Paleolithicmobiliary art’. Journal of Anthropological Research 60, 321–40.

grosse, e. 1891: Ethnologie und Ästhetik. Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie XV,392–417.

grosse, e. 1894: Die Anfänge der Kunst (Freiburg).grosse, e. [1894] 1902: Les débuts de l’art (Paris).haddon, a. 1895: Evolution in Art as IIlustrated by the Life-Histories of Designs (London).hamilton, f. 1883: Zuñi Fetiches. In Powell, J.W. (ed.), Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology

to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1880–81 (Washington), 9–45.hirn, y. 1900: The Origins of Art. A Psychological and Sociological Inquiry (London).hoffman, w.j. 1897: The graphic art of the Eskimos. Report of the United States National Museum 1895,

739–968.holub, e. 1881: Sieben Jahre in Süd-Afrika: Erlebnisse, Forschungen und Jagden auf meinen Reisen von

den Diamantenfeldern zum Zambesi (1872– 1879) (Wien).jacobsen, j.a. [1884] 1977: Alaskan Voyage 1881–1883, An Expedition to the Northwest Coast of America

(Chicago).joly, n. 1885: L’homme avant les métaux (Paris).lartet, l. 1869: Un sépulture des troglodytes du Perigord. Matériaux pour l’histoire primitive et naturelle

de l’homme (2ème série), I, 97–105.lubbock, j. 1865: Prehistoric Times, as Illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Customs of

Modern Savages (London).lubbock, j. [1870] 1987: Los orígenes de la civilización y la condición primitiva del hombre (Barcelona).




mallery, g. 1884: Pictographs of the North American Indians. In Powell, J.W., Third Annual Report of theBureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1881–82 (Washington), 13–263.

massenat, e., lalande, p. and cartailhac, e. 1872: Découverte d’un squelette humaine de l’âge durenne à Laugerie-Basse (Dordogne). Comptes rendus hebdomadaires de l’Academie des Sciences 74,1060–3.

mathew, j. 1894: The cave paintings of Australia, their authorship and significance. Journal of theAnthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 23, 42–52.

mathews, r.h. 1893: Rock paintings by the Aborigines in caves on Bulgar Creek, near Singleton. Journaland Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales 27, 353–8.

mathews, r.h. 1895a: Aboriginal rock pictures of Australia. Proceedings and Transactions of theQueensland Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia 10, 46–70.

mathews, r.h. 1895b: The Bora, or initiation ceremonies of the Kamilaroi Tribe. Journal of theAnthropological Institute 24, 411–27.

mathews, r.h. 1896a: The Bunan ceremony of New South Wales. American Anthropologist 9, 327–44.mathews, r.h. 1896b: The Burbung of the New England tribes, New South Wales. Proceedings of the

Royal Society of Victoria (New Series) 9, 120–36.mathews, r.h. 1897: The Burbung, or initiation ceremonies of the Murrumbidgee Tribes. Journal and

Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales 31, 111–53.mathews, r.h. 1898: Gravures et peintures sur rochers par les Aborigènes d’Australie. Bulletins et

Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris (4ème série), 9, 425–32.mclennan, j.m. 1869–1870a: The worship of animals and plants. Fortnightly Review 6, 407–582.mclennan, j.m. 1869–1870b: The worship of animals and plants. Fortnightly Review 7, 194–216.moro abadía, o. 2006: Art, crafts and Paleolithic art. Journal of Social Archaeology 6(1), 119–41.moro abadía, o. and gonzález morales, m.r. 2003: L’art bourgeois de la fin du XIXème siècle face à l’art

mobilier Paléolithique. L’Anthropologie 107, 455–70.morris, w. [1877] 1947a: The lesser arts. In Morris, W., On Art and Socialism, Essays and Lectures

(London), 17–37.morris, w. [1883] 1947b: Art under plutocracy. In Morris, W., On Art and Socialism, Essays and Lectures

(London), 132–55.mortillet, g. de 1883: Le Préhistorique, antiquité de l’homme (Paris).mortillet, g. de 1898: Grottes ornées de gravures et de pintures. Revue de l’Ecole d’Anthropologie VIII,

20–7.müller, m. 1859: Essai de la Mythologie Comparée (Paris).müller, m. 1889: Natural Religion (London).müller, m. 1892: Anthropological Religion (London).müller, m. 1893: Theosophy, or Psychological Religion (London).pevsner, n. [1936] 1975: Pioneers of Modern Art Design. From William Morris to Walter Gropius

(London).piette, e. 1873: La grotte de Gourdan, sur la lacune que plusieurs auteurs placent entre l’âge du renne et

celui de la pierre polie, et sur l’art paléolithique dans ses rapports avec l’art gaulois. Bulletin de laSociété d’Anthropologie de Paris (2ème série), VIII, 384–425.

quatrefages, a. [1877] 1896: L’espèce humaine (Paris).quinet, e. 1870a: Mort d’une race humaine; Idée de l’immortalité dans l’homme fossile. Matériaux pour

l’histoire primitive et naturelle de l’homme (2ème série), I, 398–403.quinet, e. 1870b: La Creation (Paris).reinach, s. 1889: Antiquites Nationales, Description raisonnée du Musée de Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

Tome 1 Epoque des alluvions et des cavernes (Paris).reinach, s. 1899: Bibliographie. Paul Girop et Èmile Massénat, Les stations de l’âge du Renne dans les

vallées de la Vézère et de la Corrèze. Revue Archéologique (3ème série), XXXV, 476–8.reinach, s. 1903: L’Art et la magie. L’Anthropologie XIV, 257–66.richard, n. 1993: De l’art ludique a l’art magique. Interprétations de l’art pariétal au XIXème siècle.

Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française 30(1–2), 60–8.riegl, a. 1893: Stilfragen, Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik (Berlin).rivière, m.e. 1872: Sur le squelette humain trouvé dans les cavernes de Baossé-Roussé (Italie), dites

grottes de Menton. Comptes rendus hebdomadaires de l’Academie des Sciences 74, 1204–7.



roth, w.e. 1897: Ethnological Studies among the North-west-central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane).soldi, e. 1881: Les arts Méconnus. Les Nouveaux Musées du Trocadero (Paris).spencer, b. and gillen, f.j. 1899: Native Tribes of Central Australia (London).stocking, g. 1987: Victorian Anthropology (New York).tatarkiewicz, w. 1971: What’s art? The problem of definition today. British Journal of Aesthetics 11(2),

134–53.tylor, e.b. 1866: The religion of savages. Fortnightly Review 6, 71–86.tylor, e.b. 1867: Traces de la condition intellectuelle de l’homme dans les âges primitifs. Revue des tours

scientifiques de la France et de l’étrangere (4ème année), 45, 705–10.ucko, p. and rosenfeld, a. 1967: Arte Paleolítico (Madrid).




cave art and the theory of art the origins of the religious interpretation of palaeolithic graphic...

Documents