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Whatever Happened to Primitive Art?
Author(s) -
D' Azevedo Warren L.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
anthropology and humanism quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1548-1409
pISSN - 0193-5615
DOI - 10.1525/ahu.1991.16.3.102
Subject(s) - demise , humanity , drama , creativity , relation (database) , object (grammar) , artifact (error) , aesthetics , subject (documents) , epistemology , history , art , philosophy , visual arts , psychology , law , social psychology , computer science , political science , linguistics , theology , database , neuroscience , library science
This article posits a relation between the demise of “primitive art” and the revival of individual creativity as a subject of anthropological inquiry. Scarcely 100 years have passed since the “discovery” of non‐Western art by anthropologists. At the very outset it promised to embellish the drama of human technological and cognitive evolution. But as the script became unwieldy and the stage too large it was stored away as a prop of past productions, an artifact of “primitive cultures.” Meanwhile, back from the field, the art of the other is entering as player rather than object in the works of a discipline bemused by reflection upon itself, its own unavoidable humanity, and its intrinsic artistry.