Symbol and Meaning

A widespread scholarly notion specifies that symbols are if not a sufficient condition of art, are a necessary condition. Today,  in common usage, the term symbol refers to an object associated with and serving to identify something (Roget's II 1988). A symbol, for example, can consist of colors, sounds, gestures, or visual images. Symbols are similar to signs in that both serve to communicate a message. Signs, however, serve as a marker for something specific  and often simple - such as a road sign indicating that the drive should stop,  A symbol, on the other hand, is said to represent something more complex and open to interpretation.  

Even though symbols are open to interpretation, the meaning of a symbol is often public. As art critic and philosopher George Dickie (1971: 121) explained, "the interpretation of symbols in paintings and literature is a public matter. Symbols such as halos have a conventional public or social meaning similar to the way in which words have public meanings." The meaning of a symbol is learned from other people, presumably through their speech. 

Some writers argue or imply that symbolism is perhaps a sufficient condition for art. Mithen (1999), for example, argues that art originated in large-brained humans who had developed the capacity to make and understand symbols. Green (1947z: 308) explained that "it is almost universally agred that if a composition in any medium deserves to be called a "work of art' it has some meaning" As Boas (1955:88) explained, however, "Not all societies have art that is meaningful or has associative connotations." Dissanayake (1992:90) writes that the "existence of non-symbolic designs and patterns in human societies suggests that making art is not in any causal or inevitable way dependent on  image making or symbolizing." Even "western art, Otten (1971:x) argued, "only partially and sporadically  carries this freight of prescribed symbolic meaning. Many objects, even natural objects, can become symbolic as they have “meaning.” We associate a certain place or event that occurred at that place or at that time. To some degree animals understand signs, if not symbols - the sound of a can opener can signify food or it is time to eat.  

Discussions of symbol and meaning often fail to address how the meaning of a symbol is actually transmitted between individuals; how, when it is social, individuals come to agree that it represents a particular thing. It becomes public. While researchers often agree that “common knowledge is a prerequisite to the functioning of the symbols” (Binford 1971:16), they seem to assume that the meaning of a symbol is in some as yet unspecified way transmitted from one human brain to another (Coe 1992). Or, perhaps viewers at a "preconscious or even unconscious level" recognize, through participation in a collective unconscious, a particular shape as a symbol of their "deepest aesthetic feeling" (Vinnicombe 1976: 350). However, unless humans read each other's minds or have a template in their brains that influences a response to a particular symbol, a symbol’s meaning implies an identified and remembered association with its referent (Coe 1992). The memory of this association is crucial to the meaning of any symbol; indeed, this association appears to constitute the meaning of a symbol. Meaning, in other words, is learned and to the extent its meaning it is shared, it is learned from others presumably through their behavior (speech and actions).

To omit meaning from the definition does not imply that art is meaningless; the omission rather suggests that before we can increase our knowledge of what is undone to art, we must separate art from any message to which it calls attention. It is perhaps for these reasons that Boas (1955:13) argued that a focus on symbols could obscure our study of art. Within a society, he mused, “there can be…considerable wavering about the meaning of a symbol” (p. 102); "in the designs of the Californian Indians, the same form will be called by different people or even by the same people at different times, now a lizard's foot, then a mountain covered with trees, then again an owl's claw."

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The aesthetic emotion

Emotion is something that is rarely studied by ethologists as they typically focus on behaviors, such as a message sent (an inflated red pouch on a frigate bird) and a response (females notice and mate with the male). Only a few ethologists concern themselves with any emotional response experienced by the female. Yet, in humans, emotions are a primary element of our studies of visual art. 

Scholars who define art typically define it by reference to the emotion it is said to arouse in both the viewer and the artists. This definition, while appealing, has a number of problems. 

First, it fails to distinguish what art is from what art does (e.g., arouse an emotion). 

Further, it runs the risk of being tautological, inferring a mental state from the art and then using the mental state to explain art (Lewis-Williams 1982). 

In addition, although the emotion aroused by art is said to be pleasure, much of art is said to arouse grave feelings, or it may leave the viewer bewildered, confused, non-plussed, unsure of any emotional reaction (Anderson 1979). Indeed, art may not arouse any emotion; it may arouse “no aesthetic interest” (Brothwell 1976). 

 I recognize, however, that the emotions associated with visual art are often said to be profound, arousing joy and leading to tears.  I also recognize, however, that not all viewers will share the same response.  

However, emotions are fleeting and difficult to articulate (Anderson 1979). Are we really safe in assuming that all dancers share the same emotions, thoughts, and/or beliefs?

A more serious issue here, however, is that emotions and mental processes probably exist because of their influence on behavior, particularly social behavior. An exclusive focus on art and emotion may lead us to ignore art’s social effects. The assumption that any emotions associated with a behavior imply that the behavior is necessarily adaptive can lead even scientific studies astray. Eating high fat foods can be pleasurable; eating many such meals could help promote an early death from chronic disease. While the scarcity of fat in our ancestors’ diet may have promoted our ancestors’ taste for fat, fats are no longer a dietary scarcity. Environments change, and behaviors that were once adaptive may no longer be adaptive. Similarly, although any emotions associated with art may suggest that it once was an adaptation, we cannot use these emotions to argue that it is currently adaptive.

The point of this discussion is not that thoughts or emotion, or even the presumed aesthetic emotion, are irrelevant to visual art. In fact, we can assume that visual art attracts us because it interests us, presumably by provoking some emotion. However, even if we assume that art does arouse an emotion, we still do not know what elicits the emotion. Is it aroused by the color, pattern, form, technique, or the experiences associated with the art object?

 

Visual art is made by humans

Virtually all discussions of visual art make the claim that visual art is manmade; it has a "human creator" (Dissanayake 1992:28). While I accept that only humans produce what we refer to as visual art, the question this raises is why humans regularly refer to the marks that animals make when given pigments and why we find natural objects (e.g.., sunsets, driftwood, colored stones) to be attractive, in the sense that they attract and hold our attention. Further, why do we seem to "art" to refer to those things. What is it about animal "art", sunsets and colored stones that lead people if not to refer to those events and objects as art why do they so often say that they attract and hold their attention? 

Ethologists use the metaphor animal “art” to refer to traits, both permanent and seasonal, that characterize a number of species. This “art” includes the brightly colored feathers of birds, the red belly of the stickleback fish, and the red pouch of the frigate bird (Darwin 1871; Diamond 1991). While these traits are highly influenced by genes, it seem clear that the opposite sex responds differentially  to animals with these characteristics.  Further, in regard to behavior, when elephants in the wild use their trunks to make marks in the dust or a stick to make scratch marks on the ground, this behavior can be referred to as “art” (Diamond 1991). When apes in the wild and in captivity were observed draping themselves with vines and pieces of cloth, Kohler (1925) referred to this behavior as “art.” Bowerbird nests, wove using hundreds of sticks and, at times, colored objects, such as crushed leaves or other objects, are referred to as “art” (Diamond 1991; Joyce 1975). Satin bower birds, who  make a “paintbrush” by nibbling a piece of bark into an appropriate shape,  hold this tool in their beak to control the flow of a paint solution used to decorate the bower (van Lawick-Goodall 1970). Gorillas, orangutan, chimpanzees, and monkeys living in captivity can master painting with a brush or fingers and can work with chalk, crayons, or pencils (Morris 1962). Even can experts find this “art” to be indistinguishable, from products accepted as constituting human visual art.

While the frigate bird’s pouch does not involve learning (unless the learning consists of how to use the pouch to maximum benefit), making and decorating a bowerbird nest involves significant learning. By watching other conspecific males, bowerbirds learn to build bowers that can be as much as nine feet high and weigh several hundred times the weight of the bird. Learning how to build the bower involves identifying the decoration that apparently makes the nest more attractive to a female. This can involve dragging decorations (brightly color objects, for example) dozens of yards (Diamond 1991).

The implicit definition of animal “art” seems to specify neither innateness, nor learning. Nor do all these example necessarily involve the expression of a particular emotion, with in the creation or the response. The necessary element of animal “art” often seems to be the modification of a body or object through the use of form, line, pattern, or color.  This decoration can, but does not necessarily attract attention to a message, including the message: “look at me or look at me and select me as a mate!” Elephants drawing in the sand and primates draping themselves with vines and cloth do not seem to be performing these activities for an audience. As the behaviors do not seem to be noticed, they presumably have no social effect; that is, they do not attract attention nor do the influence the behavior of an observer. They are neither patterned nor predictable.

So, we might draw several points out of this discussion. One is that we regularly use the term art to refer to other things - things in nature - that involve the modification of  a body or object (e.g., the bower). In many cases that modification attracts attention; the "art" is done to attract attention. Presumably, the "art" provokes a response - it attracts and holds our attention. This response can help explain why the "art" might be attractive to - attract the attention of - a female. 

The decoration need not attract attention. For example, some males in their finery are ignored. Perhaps the male's color is not vibrant enough or the pattern of the feathers is off in some way. For some reason that particular male is not successful in attractive females and presumably is less likely to become an ancestor and his genes will, over time, die out.  

Further, it is not clear why primates drape themselves with vines. No one appears to notice the "art." It has no social effect and it might be predicted that this behavior may not persist. It appears to have no regular effect and perhaps has some costs - attracting the attention of a competitor or another, dangerous species. While you may argue that the draping gives the primate some happiness, thus far it has not been able to identify primate emotions with great accuracy.  The emotion is merely assumed to underlie the behavior and then  used to explain the behavior. A final point, is that in nature we can observe things that closely resemble what we refer to as art. If we did not focus on an aesthetic emotion then perhaps we would include these as examples of art. 

Introduction: Is it possible to define visual art empirically? 

The whole science of aesthetics fails to do what we might expect from it, being a mental activity calling itself a science; namely it does not define the qualities and laws of art. (Tolstoy 1977:61)

                                                  Introduction 

Evolutionary biologists, who know how important definitions are, do not always feel obligated to precisely or objectively define terms they are using, particularly if those terms refer to human behaviors. Richard Alexander (2001: 5), one of the best of the evolutionary scholars, wrote: “I am deliberately vague or imprecise in my usage of a term like ‘culture’ and ‘the arts’ because I wish to err on the side of inclusiveness.” Poets and philosophers are known to claim that the arts "are too intangible and changing to be defined or classified" (Munro 1949"5), 

Making the issue of identifying what art is more complex is the fact that anthropologists are known to claim that indigenous and other non-westernized people have no word for art. “It is almost a cliché (perhaps a little too unexamined),” Murphy (1994) wrote, “to remark that there is no word for art in the language of this or that people” (p. 650-651). Whether or not those people produced objects that closely resemble what we call "art" is apparently irrelevant. 

Making the problem of defining art even more difficult is the fact that the term art is used to refer to so many things -  the art of war, the art of cooking, the art of medicine. These, however, may be mere metaphorical extensions of an implicit definition. 

Three things that we need to try to explain here are (1) is it true that some people don't have a work for art and, if so, do they not produce anything that resembles what we call art? (2) why is it said to be so difficult to define art and (3) Is it possible to propose a definition of art that s more inclusive - that includes both westernized and non-westernized (e.g., indigenous) art and that allows for empirical study.  

The first problem we might not solve to anyone's satisfaction (including mine), but it seems clear that even through people may not have a word for art, they do produce objects that not only resemble what we call art, but that have had an influence on westernized artists. French artists - Matisse, Picasso, were influenced by indigenous art. It only makes sense that indigenous art now is classified by some art historians as a form of contemporary art. 

The second issue is related to the influence that art critics and historians have had. For  decades, they  have written and talked (seemingly endlessly) about the so called aesthetic emotion, an emotion (poorly defined) said to be aroused by viewing and presumably making art.  X is art IFF it arouses a specific emotion (in certain people). If we focus solely on visual art (or the plastic arts), prehistorians have faced a conundrum - there is no way to know if prehistoric art aroused an aesthetic emotion.  The way prehistorians solved this is by saying that art was an inappropriate term to use for objects found in the prehistoric or ethnographic record (see Conkey 1983, 1993; Soffer 1997; Tomásková 1997; White 1992).  We cannot assume, scholars argue, that the primary function of either prehistoric or ethnographic art was or is aesthetic. This is especially true if indigenous people have no term for aesthetic emotion.  So, even though prehistoric "whatever" was referred to for decades as "art," it no longer was art.

In sum, one reason scholars have been unable to define art is that they have focused on an emotion, the so called aesthetic emotion  that indigenous people, if asked about the aesthetic emotion, would just be bewildered. I think the problem is that the term initially was used by art critics and historians to classify art they liked (good or fine art) from art that they dismissed (e.g., non art, bad art, or craft).  Instead of focusing on something like mastery of technique, which most people, regardless of their status, are able to identify, they focused on an elusive emotion said to be aroused only by certain art produced in westernized societies. 

In regard to the third problem, the definition of the term "art", we will not solve that problem here in this blog post. However, to begin, the term art has ancient roots and at the beginning it was an inclusive term. It perhaps came from the Sanskrit word for "making" (Duchamp, cited in Cabanne 1971:16). Later, the Latin word ars meant a craft or specialized form of skill (Munro 1949). Throughout the Middle Ages artists were classified as craftsmen who controlled particular techniques. It was in the 16th century that "artists" came to be distinguished from craftsmen and credited with possessing a particular, individualistic genius that aroused, in the viewer, an aesthetic emotion - an emotion that was not aroused by crafts. It is no accident that it was at this time that the first truly influential art historian, Giorgio Vasari, appeared. His book, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects opened the door to discussions of good art (i.e.., fine art) versus craft. In the 18th century the word aesthetic was coined by Alexander Baumgarten. The root of the word was the Greek word, aisthetikos, which referred to perception of the senses. He used the word that to refer to what he found to be beautiful and what he identified as beauty was perfection. Beauty was something we could perceive and respond to. 

Visual art, in other words, has not always had conceptual attachments to aesthetics, beauty, or emotion. While we can respond to beauty in nature, that does not mean that nature is art or that our emotion is an aesthetic one. That emotion is aroused only by fine art.

Classificatory Definitions

A classificatory definition merely asks whether or not something is or is not a work of art. According to Dickie (1971:41) a classificatory definition attempts to specify the necessary and sufficient conditions needed for something to be a work of art. A  necessary condition for being an X is a characteristic why any object must have in order to  be an X. A sufficient condition of an X is a characteristic which, if that object has that characteristic, it is an X.  Similarly, Socrates argued that if we examine a word's various usage, we will find some element that the common to all of those usages, but not to other things. We then will be able to isolate the element that is the essence of things (McEvilley 1992: 166). To ensure that our classificatory definition is also a scientific one we need to add the requirement that the necessary and/or sufficient qualities must be empirically verifiable. We next will continue that search for a classificatory definition. 

It may seem irrelevant to define art (or any term for that matter); however, unless we have a definition of visual art how can we study it scientifically? How can we know if it is a behavior found solely in certain elite groups of people in westernized societies. How might be identify any possible function? How can we answer the question posed by Plato and Socrates over two thousand years ago: what role does art play "in the well ordered state"? 

 

Peopling of the Americas (excuse the font issues - I cannot figure out how to resolve them)

Many years ago, when I was a graduate student, I took a two year long course with Christy Turner on the peopling of the world. Each one of us - or a team in some cases - took a continent. I selected South America. 

It was fascinating to try to figure things out. First I had to try to develop an understanding of the geography and climate as they existed at the time after the ice corridor opened

If the corridor in the ice in Canada did not open until about 10,000 years ago - which is what was estimated at the time - and that was the only way people got to the Americas, which was sort of what they assumed then, that had to be my start date. I assumed they didn't run like 20 year old track stars for the tip of South America - although they seemed to have been present then some 8-9,000 years ago.

Once migrating people arrived in Central America they would have, if they had settled there, created a bottle neck that would have made it difficult for anyone else to get into South America.

However, as people obviously got past the bottle neck, they would have had some problems getting very far into South America.  They would have had problems going down the west coast, as Colombia doesn't have a large or inviting coastal plain. If they had gone to the east, they would soon have run into the Orinoco Drainage. Crossing it would have required some sort of boat. If they had gone down the middle, they had to climb up the side of the Andes. They would have had to climb quite high to reach the intermountain valleys, some of which were blocked by glaciers. If they had somehow made it to Ecuador's coastal plain, which is quite large, they would have had to cross several rivers - the Esmeraldas and the Guayas. If they had tried to continue down the coast, lack of water would have been a problem. Little rain falls around Lima and along the coast of Chile they would have encountered few rivers flowing to the sea. Consequently, finding fresh water would have been problematic. 

I also looked at culture and found that objects like the Jew's Harp was used in the Amazon. There were other similarities with the cultural practices of Australia (assuming the Pacific Islands were not populated until much later).

Further, it was of interest that - if my memory does not fail me - that the coast of Antarctica was land not ice early on - some 6,000 years ago. I began to wonder if some people  had not traveled from Australia, via Antarctica, to the tip of South America and then up into the Amazon Basin.  Early anthropologists did consider that to be a possibility; however for some reason the idea was dropped. I am sure the reasons were good one; however, today I read that indigenous people in South America do share ancestry - genes -with Australians.  The researchers assumed that the ancestors from Australia had traveled via the Bering Strait. I wonder if some didn't come north, via Antarctica. Only time and more evidence can reveal such patterns. Certainly, I ended up feeling that sea  travel had occurred earlier than we thought at the time.

Long ago, perhaps in the 1960s Betty Megger argued that the Japanese visited the coast of South America. She claimed that she  had found similarities in language and anchors that were identical to those used in Japan. Once we had some visitors from Japan and when I showed them a picture of a Valdivia figurine from Ecuador's Sta Elena Province (c. 3000 BC) they immediately said "Jomon". However, her ideas were rejected as "cult anthropology."

Valdivia, Jomon Fishermen, and the Nature of the North Pacific: Some Nautical Problems with Meggers, Evans, and Estrada's (1965) Transoceanic Contact Thesis

Gordon F. McEwan and D. Bruce Dickson

American Antiquity

Vol. 43, No. 3 (Jul., 1978), pp. 362-371 (10 pages)

Published by: Cambridge University Press

ABSTRACT

Meggers, Evans, and Estrada's (1965) thesis, that storm-tossed Jomon fishermen drifted across the North Pacific to the coast of Ecuador and introduced pottery-making at the Valdivia site, is presented. The thesis is examined from the standpoint of the mechanics of such a voyage. The nature of the surface current patterns in the North Pacific are discussed, together with the weather conditions found along the presumed route, the types of vessels known archaeologically for the early Jomon, and the suitability of such vessels for a trans-Pacific crossing. Finally, the survival problems faced by a crew adrift in an open boat on the North Pacific are presented. It is concluded that contact between Jomon and Valdivian peoples was unlikely to have occurred in the manner suggested by Meggers, Evans, and Estrada. Several possible alternative routes and explanations are advanced.

Archaeology | Studies examine clues of transoceanic contact  

Bradley T. Lepper is curator of archaeology at the Ohio Historical Society.

blepper@ohiohistory.org

https://www.dispatch.com/article/20130519/news/305199804 

Pottery offers a bonanza of information for archaeologists. It represents a revolution in container technology, and the clay from which it is made provides a canvas with many possibilities for self-expression. As a result, differences and similarities in pottery decorations can offer clues about cultural relationships over space and through time.

Residues on pots reveal important clues to how people used their pottery. An international team of scientists reported last month in the journal Nature the results of chemical analyses of the charred gunk on the surfaces of pottery shards from Jomon period sites in Japan. They determined it was composed mostly of the oily residue from cooking ocean fish.

The Jomon culture was mentioned in other news this month. The largest ever genetic study of native South Americans identified a sub-population in Ecuador with an unexpected link to eastern Asia. The study, published in PLOS Genetics, concluded that Asian genes had been introduced into South America sometime after 6,000 years ago -- the same time the Jomon culture was flourishing in Japan.

Back in the 1960s, the renowned Smithsonian archaeologist Betty Meggers argued that similarities between the pottery of the contemporaneous Valdivia culture in Ecuador and Japan’s Jomon culture indicated that Japanese fishermen had “discovered” America about 5,000 years ago.

Few archaeologists took this idea seriously. Gordon McEwan and Bruce Dickson, writing in a 1978 issue of American Antiquity, pointed out significant flaws with the hypothesis.

First of all, Pacific Ocean currents did not provide a direct route from Japan to Ecuador. Second, Jomon dugout canoes were unlikely to have been sufficiently seaworthy to allow a crew to survive an extended voyage across the ocean. Finally, food and fresh water would have been difficult to obtain.

Writing in 1980, Meggers expressed frustration that transoceanic contact as an explanation for cultural similarities was dismissed by dogmatic colleagues as “cult archaeology,” and she complained that “no amount of evidence” could convince them.

I can appreciate Meggers’ frustration, but although it’s likely that no amount of the same type of evidence that she marshaled in support of her original argument could make a thoroughly convincing case, I believe that most archaeologists could be convinced if compelling new evidence for transpacific contact were uncovered.

The discovery of an apparent genetic link between eastern Asians and Ecuadoran natives provides intriguing independent support for Meggers’ hypothesis. Moreover, the fact that Jomon pottery was used predominantly for cooking seafood suggests that Jomon fishermen would have had little trouble feeding themselves on a long ocean voyage.

Transoceanic contact long has been a popular explanation for cultural similarities, such as the occurrence of pyramids in both Egypt and Mexico. Archaeologists have demonstrated, however, that such similarities are largely superficial and meaningless. When closely examined, Egyptian and Mayan pyramids turn out to be fundamentally different things.

Meggers might prove to have been right after all about the origins of Valdivia pottery, but she was wrong to attribute the rejection of her ideas to scientific dogmatism. Meggers simply didn’t have the extraordinary evidence to support her extraordinary claim.