The origins of art : an archaeological or a philosophical problem?

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dc.contributor.author Avital, Tsion
dc.date.accessioned 2010-11-11T13:27:33Z
dc.date.available 2010-11-11T13:27:33Z
dc.date.created 2010-11
dc.date.issued 2001
dc.description Article digitised using: Suprascan 1000 RGB scanner, scanned at 400 dpi; 24-bit colour; 100% Image derivating - Software used: Adobe Photoshop CS3 - Image levels, crop, deskew Abbyy Fine Reader No.9 - Image manipulation + OCR Adobe Acrobat 9 (PDF) en_US
dc.description.abstract During our century the demarcation lines between art and non-art have become vague to the extent that the continuation of art as a valuable component of culture is questionable. The history of art and aesthetics has so far failed to delineate clearly those demarcation lines. Hence, an understanding of the origins of art is needed now more than ever because it may reveal the most important attributes of art in its very beginnings. This essay examines three theories which attempt to explain the origins of art from very different epistemological points of view: a naive empiricist point of view (H. Breuil), a rather simplistic cognitive point of view (E.H. Gombrich) and an extreme behaviourist point of view (W. Davis), the analysis and refutation of which comprise the major part of this essay. The analysis of these approaches to the problem shows that none offers an adequate explanation of the origins of art, mainly because each disregards either empirical or epistemological considerations or both. The behaviourist rejects all epistemological factors, but this hardly makes them immaterial; it only conceals them as implied and inevitable assumptions. An interdisciplinary approach is called for in order to elucidate the problem of the origins of art. en_US
dc.description.uri http://explore.up.ac.za/record=b1719138 en_US
dc.format.extent 24 pages en_US
dc.format.medium Pdf en_US
dc.identifier.citation Avital, T 2001, 'The origins of art: an archaeological or a philosophical problem?' South African Journal of Art History, vol. 16, pp. 34-57. en_US
dc.identifier.issn 0258-3542
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/15253
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher Art Historical Work Group of South Africa en_US
dc.rights Art Historical Work Group of South Africa en_US
dc.subject Aesthetics en_US
dc.subject 20th century art en_US
dc.subject Origins of art en_US
dc.subject Philosophy of art en_US
dc.subject History of art en_US
dc.subject Breuil, Henri-Édouard-Prosper, 1877-1961 en_US
dc.subject Gombrich, Ernst Hans, 1909-2001 en_US
dc.subject Davis, Wade en_US
dc.subject.lcsh Art -- History en
dc.subject.lcsh Art -- Philosophy en
dc.title The origins of art : an archaeological or a philosophical problem? en_US
dc.type Article en_US


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