Download or read book Art in Small scale Societies written by Richard L. Anderson and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1993 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each one of the 34 readings in this text is derived from rigorously collected field data, and addresses the major questions about art in small-scale societies: what does art do, what meanings does it convey, who makes it, how is it conceptualized by those who use it, and how does it change with the passage of time? Over 100 illustrations provide visual references and the text represents a wide variety of cultures, art forms (not only visual arts but performing arts as well), authorial voices, and theoretical models. For artists, sociologists, undergraduate and graduate readers.
Download or read book Art in Small scale Societies written by Richard L. Anderson and published by Pearson. This book was released on 1989 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using information from many in-depth fieldwork studies of hunter-gatherer, horticultural, and pastoral peoples from around the world, this book provides a comprehensive account of the major questions regarding art in its cultural context. Anderson presents are not as exotic-looking museum pieces, but as aesthetically powerful artifacts that play vital roles in the social, intellectual, and affective lives of the people who make and use them.
Download or read book Arguing About Art written by Alex Neill and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offering a unique 'debate' format, the third edition of the bestselling Arguing About Art is ideal for newcomers to aesthetics or philosophy of art. This lively collection presents an extensive range of short, clear introductions to each of the discussions which include: sentimentality appreciation interpretation understanding objectivity nature food horror. With revised introductions, updated suggestions for further reading and new sections on pornography and societies without art, Arguing About Art provides a stimulating and accessible anthology suitable for those coming to aesthetics for the first time. The book will also appeal to students of art history, literature, and cultural studies.
Download or read book The Anthropology of Art written by Robert Layton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1991-08-30 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative introduction to art forms in the non-Western world addresses the problem of cross-cultural aesthetic appreciation in societies ranging from traditional West African craftsmen to Australian hunter-gatherers.
Download or read book The Tapestry of Culture written by Abraham Rosman and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2009-06-16 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tapestry of Culture: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology provides students and the interested public with a concise picture of the field of cultural anthropology today. From the first edition of Tapestry of Culture published in the early 1980s until now, anthropology has changed greatly, responding to scholarly and political influences as well as changing generations; the ninth edition reflects this ongoing transformation. The influence of postmodernism has generated new debates over theory and practice in anthropology. The content of Tapestry explains these debates, as well as what is still generally accepted and agreed upon by most anthropologists. This edition provides the instructor, student and lay public with the information necessary to enable them to critically read the literature of anthropology, more specifically ethnographic texts which are still the heart of this field. The approach of the book is to accommodate the various points of view in anthropology today. It shows how the concepts, ideas and behavior of other cultures are translated into our culture's terms. Though today many emphasize each culture's uniqueness, the presence of cultural similarities is compelling. Using a comparative approach, The Tapestry of Culture reveals cultural similarities, as well as the cultural differences.
Download or read book Art and Creativity in a New Guinea Society written by Ross Bowden and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-07-26 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kwoma, the subject of this book, are one of a number of peoples in the Sepik River region of northern Papua New Guinea who have created some of the most distinctive visual art in the Pacific. Through case studies of their painting, sculpture, architecture and ritual this book examines in detail how people in this society understand their art as a cultural phenomenon. This includes how they understand its origins in the spirit world, how they judge quality in art and how they understand artistic creativity. The book contrasts Kwoma beliefs with the radically different approach to art found in the modern West. The modern Western concept of art first emerged not in the eighteenth century in the Enlightenment, or even later, as anthropologists and art historians often assume, but several centuries earlier in the Renaissance. The book gives an account of radical changes that took place culturally in Europe between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries in the way human intellectual creativity was understood, and how this gave rise to a new concept of art, one that remains unchanged in the modern West today.
Download or read book Art and aesthetics written by Marta Herrero and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Aesthetic Mind written by Elisabeth Schellekens and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-10-13 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Aesthetic Mind breaks new ground in bringing together empirical sciences and philosophy to enhance our understanding of aesthetics and the experience of art. An eminent international team of experts presents new research in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and social anthropology: they explore the roles of emotion, imagination, empathy, and beauty in this realm of human experience, ranging over visual and literary art, music, and dance. Among the questions discussed are: Why do we engage with things aesthetically and why do we create art? Does art or aesthetic experience have a function or functions? Which characteristics distinguish aesthetic mental states? Which skills or abilities do we put to use when we engage aesthetically with an object and how does that compare with non-aesthetic experiences? What does our ability to create art and engage aesthetically with things tell us about what it is to be a human being? This ambitious and far-reaching volume is essential reading for anyone investigating the aesthetic and the artistic.
Download or read book Unpacking Culture written by Ruth B. Phillips and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1999-01-30 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tourist art production is a global phenomenon and is increasingly recognized as an important and authentic expression of indigenous visual traditions. These thoughtful, engaging essays provide a comparative perspective on the history, character, and impact of tourist art in colonized societies in three areas of the world: Africa, Oceania, and North America. Ranging broadly historically and geographically, Unpacking Culture is the first collection to bring together substantial case studies on this topic from around the world.
Download or read book Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy written by Karl Widerquist and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at how modern philosophers pass on myths about prehistory. Why do political philosophers talk so much about the Stone Age? The state of nature, the origin of property, the origin of government, and the primordial nature of inequality and war are popular topics in political philosophy, but are they being used as more than just illustrative examples? Does the best available evidence from archaeology and anthropology support or conflict with the stories being passed on by political philosophers?This book presents a philosophical look at the origin of civilization, examining political theories to show how claims about prehistory are used and presents evidence that much of what we think we know about human origins comes not from scientific investigation but from the imagination of philosophers.
Download or read book For Spirits and Kings written by Susan Mullin Vogel and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 1981 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Anthropology of Art written by Howard Morphy and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-02-04 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology provides a single-volume overview of the essential theoretical debates in the anthropology of art. Drawing together significant work in the field from the second half of the twentieth century, it enables readers to appreciate the art of different cultures at different times. Advances a cross-cultural concept of art that moves beyond traditional distinctions between Western and non-Western art. Provides the basis for the appreciation of art of different cultures and times. Enhances readers’ appreciation of the aesthetics of art and of the important role it plays in human society.
Download or read book Art and Intimacy written by Ellen Dissanayake and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2015-08-03 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To Ellen Dissanayake, the arts are biologically evolved propensities of human nature: their fundamental features helped early humans adapt to their environment and reproduce themselves successfully over generations. In Art and Intimacy she argues for the joint evolutionary origin of art and intimacy, what we commonly call love. It all begins with the human trait of birthing immature and helpless infants. To ensure that mothers find their demanding babies worth caring for, humans evolved to be lovable and to attune themselves to others from the moment of birth. The ways in which mother and infant respond to each other are rhythmically patterned vocalizations and exaggerated face and body movements that Dissanayake calls rhythms and sensory modes. Rhythms and modes also give rise to the arts. Because humans are born predisposed to respond to and use rhythmic-modal signals, societies everywhere have elaborated them further as music, mime, dance, and display, in rituals which instill and reinforce valued cultural beliefs. Just as rhythms and modes coordinate and unify the mother-infant pair, in ceremonies they coordinate and unify members of a group. Today we humans live in environments very different from those of our ancestors. They used ceremonies (the arts) to address matters of serious concern, such as health, prosperity, and fecundity, that affected their survival. Now we tend to dismiss the arts, to see them as superfluous, only for an elite. But if we are biologically predisposed to participate in artlike behavior, then we actually need the arts. Even -- or perhaps especially -- in our fast-paced, sophisticated modern lives, the arts encourage us to show that we care about important things.
Download or read book On the Origin of Stories written by Brian Boyd and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 555 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A century and a half after the publication of Origin of Species, evolutionary thinking has expanded beyond the field of biology to include virtually all human-related subjects—anthropology, archeology, psychology, economics, religion, morality, politics, culture, and art. Now a distinguished scholar offers the first comprehensive account of the evolutionary origins of art and storytelling. Brian Boyd explains why we tell stories, how our minds are shaped to understand them, and what difference an evolutionary understanding of human nature makes to stories we love. Art is a specifically human adaptation, Boyd argues. It offers tangible advantages for human survival, and it derives from play, itself an adaptation widespread among more intelligent animals. More particularly, our fondness for storytelling has sharpened social cognition, encouraged cooperation, and fostered creativity. After considering art as adaptation, Boyd examines Homer’s Odyssey and Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who! demonstrating how an evolutionary lens can offer new understanding and appreciation of specific works. What triggers our emotional engagement with these works? What patterns facilitate our responses? The need to hold an audience’s attention, Boyd underscores, is the fundamental problem facing all storytellers. Enduring artists arrive at solutions that appeal to cognitive universals: an insight out of step with contemporary criticism, which obscures both the individual and universal. Published for the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, Boyd’s study embraces a Darwinian view of human nature and art, and offers a credo for a new humanism.
Download or read book Continuum Encyclopedia of Native Art written by Hope B. Werness and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This lavishly produced voulume is the first reference work to focus on the symbols, meaning, and significance of art in native, or indigenous, cultures.
Download or read book The Artful Species written by Stephen Davies and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-11-29 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Artful Species explores the idea that our aesthetic responses and art behaviors are connected to our evolved human nature. Our humanoid forerunners displayed aesthetic sensibilities hundreds of thousands of years ago and the art standing of prehistoric cave paintings is virtually uncontested. In Part One, Stephen Davies analyses the key concepts of the aesthetic, art, and evolution, and explores how they might be related. He considers a range of issues, including whether animals have aesthetic tastes and whether art is not only universal but cross-culturally comprehensible. Part Two examines the many aesthetic interests humans take in animals and how these reflect our biological interests, and the idea that our environmental and landscape preferences are rooted in the experiences of our distant ancestors. In considering the controversial subject of human beauty, evolutionary psychologists have traditionally focused on female physical attractiveness in the context of mate selection, but Davies presents a broader view which decouples human beauty from mate choice and explains why it goes more with social performance and self-presentation. Part Three asks if the arts, together or singly, are biological adaptations, incidental byproducts of nonart adaptations, or so removed from biology that they rate as purely cultural technologies. Davies does not conclusively support any one of the many positions considered here, but argues that there are grounds, nevertheless, for seeing art as part of human nature. Art serves as a powerful and complex signal of human fitness, and so cannot be incidental to biology. Indeed, aesthetic responses and art behaviors are the touchstones of our humanity.
Download or read book Human Nature and the Evolution of Society written by Stephen K. Sanderson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If evolution has changed humans physically, has it also affected human behavior? Drawing on evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, and human behavioral ecology, Human Nature and the Evolution of Society explores the evolutionary dynamics underlying social life. In this introduction to human behavior and the organization of social life, Stephen K. Sanderson discusses traditional subjects like mating behavior, kinship, parenthood, status-seeking, and violence, as well as important topics seldom included in books of this type, especially gender, economies, politics, foodways, race and ethnicity, and the arts. Examples and research on a wide range of human societies, both industrial and nonindustrial, are integrated throughout. With chapter summaries of key points, thoughtful discussion questions, and important terms defined within the text, the result is a broad-ranging and comprehensive consideration of human society, thoroughly grounded in an evolutionary perspective.
