South African Journal of Art History Volume 16 (2001)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/14576

South African Journal of Art History, Volume 16, (2001)
Content
SAJAH Volume 16	Cover, general information
Jamal, Ashraf	Norman Cathrine and the art of terror
Shaw R.W.	Ut pictura poesis: Vergil's Laocoon and beyond
Avital, Tsion	The origins of art: an archaeological or a philosophical problem
Van den Berg, Dirk J.	Art as material culture
Mare, Estelle A.	The room as the place of the mind. Louis Kahn's concept of beginnings: a critique, with reference to the Erdman Hall Dormitories at Bryn Mawr College
Opperman, Johann	The Mine metaphor in the work of William Kentridge
Proimos, Constantinos V.	The concepts of art in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: From mimesis to communication
Allen, Nicholas P.L.	Dating the manufacture of the Shroud of Turin: an exercise in basic Iconography
Steyn,Gerald & Holm, Dieter	An analysis of the Omani house in Stone Town, Zanzibar
Van den Berg, Dirk J.	Invisible cities and primed spectators
Olivier, Bert	Merleau-Ponty and painting

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An analysis of an Omani house in Stone Town, Zanzibar
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2001) Steyn, Gerald
The Omani houses of Zanzibar are the tangible legacy of ancient trade links and 19th century political domination. These elegant houses are climatically effective, and offer private outdoor living space in a dense urban environment. This type of house is still popular in Oman, but in Zanzibar it is threatened. As background this report reviews the state of the literature related to the Omani houses of Zanzibar and also presents a very brief historical perspective. A description of the selected case study in its current state is followed by a proposed reconstruction to its perceived original form when built in the 19th century. This exercise reveals a concept of great sophistication and clarity. Although the planning process and the constituent elements were standardized, an infinite range of possible plan forms and sections ensured flexibility and responsiveness. Our subsequent analysis hints that the Omani house is unique but not alien when compared with other traditional Arab courtyard houses. The report is concluded with suggestions for future academic research, while our conclusions and recommendations focus on opportunities for practical research and development. The premature demise of this house type was partly the result of colonization and European interference. It offers valuable lessons, however, which could be explored in our quest for better affordable housing in Southern and East Africa.
Dating the manufacture of the Shroud of Turin : An exercise in basic iconography
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2001) Allen, N.P.L. (Nicholas P.L.)
This paper refutes the recent spate of attempts to invalidate the 1988 carbon dating results which indicated with a 95% certainty, that the Shroud of Lirey-Chambery-Turin was manufactured from flax plants that grew sometime between 1260 and 1390. An attempt will be made to show how the iconography employed in the image of a tortured and crucified man as found on the Shroud of Turin corroborate the carbon dating results quite precisely, thereby confirming that this artefact is mediaeval and not a product of the first century CE.
Merleau-Ponty and painting
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2001) Olivier, Bert
This article takes as its point of departure the question whether, in an age when "artforms" such as multimedia "installations" - which combine visual motifs of all kinds with written texts - seem to be an adequate reflection of an overwhelmingly complex postmodern world, painting still has a right to exist as a distinct art. It is argued that this is indeed the case, and that the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty provides ample material to substantiate this claim. Briefly, this entails the latter's insight concerning the "perceptual dialogue" between painter and visible world, a dialogue which manifests itself in an evolving "style" - or a "coherent deformation" of visual norms - on the part of the painter. Significantly, this presupposes the ambiguity of the visible realm - an ambiguity that is appropriated in one direction or another by the painter's ongoing (equally visible) interpretation of the visually given world. The article concludes with a consideration of the work of a number of postmodern artists in the light of the guiding question, whether their art, as responses to a bewilderingly complex world, may be understood as the outcome of what Merleau-Ponty identifies as the "perceptual dialogue" between artist and world.
Invisible cities and primed spectators
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2001) Van den Berg, Dirk Johannes
This essay discusses the extraordinary travelling exhibition mounted by Alan Alborough as Standard Bank Young Artist of 2000. Reviewing its interaction with the art world's museum and art systems, an attempt is also made to interpret Alborough's work in terms of a scenic worldview framework.
The concepts of art in Aristotle's "Nicomachean ethics" : from "mimesis" to communication
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2001) Proimos, Constantinos V.
In his Friedrich Nietzsche lectures, Martin Heidegger's attempt to define art with terms such as technical knowledge, care, carefulness of concern, poetry, seems to be directly inspired by Aristotle's "Nicomachean ethics". Apparently Heidegger's desire was to reconsider art after modernism and think of it in a new and non fundamentalist way which was all too common in aesthetics until his time. First, I follow, analyse and extend Heidegger's original gesture of going back to Aristotle in order to solve the extremely modern problems of art in his time. Then, I assemble the different concepts of art in Aristotle's "Nicomachean ethics" and the different tasks these concepts perform in the contexts in which they appear and question the prevalence of mimesis in understanding art. Finally, my aim is to propose an alternative to [the] mimesis concept of art as a communicative practice in which terms such as influence, experience and communication play a strategic role, in order to bring to the fore neglected issues in the Aristotelean text like artistic truth, prudence and wisdom.
The room as the place of the mind
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2001) Mare, Estelle Alma
The purpose of the article is to decode the meaning and evaluate the architectural relationships of the Erdman Hall Dormitories at Bryn Mawr College, designed by Louis Kahn in collaboration with architects in his office during the early 1960s, as a totality of forms representing the disclosure of a "world". An attempt is made to assess the design of the dormitories as a process with reference to the functionality and aesthetics of the final product.
The "Mine" metaphor in the work of William Kentridge
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2001) Oppermann, Johann
This article discusses how Kentridge's drawings for his film "Mime" ["Mine"], explore the borders between memory and amnesia, drawing and erasure. His drawings reflect a rich record and leave traces of the animation processes of drawing and erasure. Kentridge portrays in this film a day in the life of the mines with the Johannesburg mine magnate, developer and industrialist, Soho Eckstein, as the main character, his wife, Mrs. Eckstein and Felix Teitlebaum, her lover.
Art as material culture
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2001) Van den Berg, Dirk Johannes
With questions concerning the physical basis and the material substructure of works of art as topic, the article surveys a number of related problem areas. These include the objecthood of art, art products as physical remnants, the situatedness and reproduction of art, materials expertise and the iconology of materials. The untenability of materialism features implicitly as an underlying theme.
The origins of art : an archaeological or a philosophical problem?
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2001) Avital, Tsion
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.
"Ut pictura poesis" : Vergil's Laocoön and beyond
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2001) Shaw, R.W.
The liberal arts are not contained by specific boundaries, and with this assertion the artist is free to extract material from other idioms and reap inspirations from literary antecedents outside his immediate domain. Such is the basis for this research in Vergil's poetic style and the visual images emerging from his verses. Appropriating Horace's humanistic doctrine, "ut pictura poesis", which suggests an association between poetry and the visual arts, this article renders a survey of selected works inspired by Vergil's Laocoon narrative including those models derivative of the Vatican antique. There ensues an exegesis of this passage addressing the pictorial imagery of the "Aeneid", after which the theme, "exemplum doloris", culminates in a visual triptych format. All three panels reflect the verbal and structural components of the poet's text, and attempt collectively to capture Vergil's cinematic design in a sequence of events programmatically unfolding to a deterministic conclusion. It is the author's thesis that it is possible to perpetuate the tradition of "Ars pictoria" through the genre of abstract expressionism.
Norman Catherine and the art of terror
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2001) Jamal, A. (Ashraf)
This essay was originally commissioned by Linda Givon of the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. The first movement - "Escape and Resolution" - served as the preface for the first major retrospective on the artist, published by the Goodman Gallery in 2000 and was simply titled "Norman Catherine". The foreword was by David Bowie who in addition to being a pop icon is also an art collector and critic. The main text is by Hazel Friedman. My essay, including the opening movement, is published here for the first time in full. Its purpose is to trace Catherine's journey over a period spanning thirty years to locate the key dimension of laughter and assess the nature of its artistic expression and formal resolution. The second movement - "States of Emergency" - situates the work within a South African context. The third movement re-evaluates the tendency of locating the artist - and South African art in general - within a framing colonial/apartheid legacy. Through the critical prism of Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae, the third movement - "Energy and Form" - asks that we assess Catherine's work within the primal conflict between Apollo and Dionysus. The final movement - "City Deep" - returns Catherine to the secular domain and examines his output in relation to a post-apartheid, inner city, and trans-national domain. At once "primitive and futuristic", Catherine's art, through the distinctiveness of its style, foregrounds laughter and terror as the Janus-faced signature of our time.
South African Journal of Art History, volume 16, 2001
(Art Historical Work Group of South Africa, 2001) Allen, N.P.L. (Nicholas P.L.); Mare, Estelle Alma
This cover of SAJAH features Norman Catherine's "Red Rubber Man", 1991, oil on canvas.

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