Marvels of Everyday Vision... by Jeremy Coote

Coote states “There is, it is true, probably no society that has no art-form at all, but there are certainly societies with no visual art traditions.” This being said, he analyzes the cattle-keeping Nilotes (Nuer, Dinka, Atuot, and Mandari) of Southern Sudan and East Africa and their visions of aesthetics. “Cattle are not just a food source, but a central factor in all aspects of their social and cultural activities, being used to mediate social relationships through the institutions of bridewealth and bloodwealth, as well as to mediate man’s relationship with God through their roles as sacrificial victims (pg.137).” The perceptual qualities of cattle are very different from anything the Western world could think of. Three main characteristics of the cattle are given most importance: the color, the glossy hide, and the horn shape. These characteristics are not only seen as qualities of the cattle themselves, but are used as terminologies and analogies for people and things alike. The qualities of cattle are seen as art and aesthetics itself. One line sums up their view of cattle: “cattle are primarily a feast for the eyes, and only secondarily a feast for the stomach.”
Because the Nilotes’ entire livelihood depends on their cattle, children grow up knowing everything about them. Cattle characteristics play a role in every part of society, whether it is dance, clothing, color schemes, or architecture.
Although this article was to summarize the value of aesthetics among a particular group of people in Africa, it served a greater purpose. This article showed that aesthetics are not the same everywhere. One’s own sense of beauty comes from whatever he or she grew up with. Also, mere descriptive words come from wherever the person grew up and what he or she is comparing the thing to.

Art and Anthropology by Raymond Firth

Firth states the myriad of ways in which art has been expressed and contemplated in this essay. He says that although anthropologists give particular importance to the formal qualities of a piece of art (whether a sculpture or a piece of music), “even the simplest naming of an object—as mask, or anthropomorphic figure, or funeral song—indicates an awareness of a social, ritual, and economic matrix in which the object has been produced (pg.121).”
Modern architects or scientists claim that the construction of a building, and the discoveries using scientific theory are all really art. However, Firth attempts to make a clear distinction by stating that craft is technical skill that has been applied to useful ends, whereas “art” is predominantly non-utilitarian. In many societies, the artist and the craftsman are practically the same thing. The title of “craftsman” depends on his creation’s level of social use. There is a tendency to think of art as only consisting of man-made objects, and created by man. While comparing man-made “art” with natural aesthetic patterns and occurrences, Firth makes a point of defining “incipient art.” He states that although patterns such as forms in snow crystals, and the songs of birds occur naturally, they are converted (whether consciously or unconsciously) into art by human recognition.
Although he offers different examples of art and different societies’ interpretation of art such as the Tikopia and the cattle-keeping Ahir of Bihar, he also presents the reader with some pros of Western influence. “Industrial society has not only offered a new market for indigenous art work, it has also given new opportunities for artistic enterprise (pg.131).”
Firth questions the motivations of exotic art, and where the tensions in the pieces arise. Do the tensions arise from personal woes and wishes or from the political system as a whole? The entire essay forced me to think about so-called exotic art from different angles, as opposed to the well-known angles that are posed to us by the West. It was a great contextual introduction to the anthropology of the arts.

Franz Boas: Primitive Art, 1927

I enjoyed reading this piece very much. The style of writing was not filled with jargon, and I found myself immersed in what Boas had to say about the meaning of aesthitic art versus industrial activity, etc. I agree with Boas completely in that, "It is hardly possible to state objectively just where the line between artistic and pre-artistic forms should be drawn." Alois Riegl's idea that "the WILL to produce an artistic piece is the essence of artistic work" seems to speak some truth. However, that does not explain why some pieces are said to have "no taste" by critics, despite the artists' WILL to create it.
The point that artistic effect has a twofold source, (form, and the ideas associated with form), gave me a much clearer understanding of the actual meaning of "art". How nostagia, symbols, or a particular meaning plays into the aesthetic form of art gives "art" itself a deeper meaning besides merely the artists' expertise.
One thing I was somewhat unsure about was whether people like Richard Thurnwald, Emil Stephan, and Alfred C. Haddon were art critics or cultural anthropologists.

Art as a Cultural System by Clifford Geertz

Although Geertz said, “Art is notoriously hard to talk about,” I found this essay topic hard to read about. Some parts of the article seemed very wordy to me at first. However, the points made became clearer to me after the second read. A line that stood out to me was, “…only in the modern age and in the West that some people have managed to convince themselves that technical talk about art, however developed, is sufficient to a complete understanding of it.” I agree that many art critics and so-called connoisseurs of art have convinced themselves that using big words to describe an artifact or a painting shows that they have knowledge about it.
Quattrocento painting from Renaissance Italy and Qur’anic poetry were discussed at length in this article. Italian paintings were meant to deepen human awareness of the spiritual dimensions of existence, and reflect the truths of Christianity. Geertz quotes a Dominican preacher: “For it is one thing to adore a painting, but it is quite another to learn from a painted narrative what to adore.”
From this article, I learned a great deal about Islam and the Quran. The fact that the Quran contains exact words of God, rather than reports by prophets of what God said, was interesting. This makes the reading of the Quran solely an act of worship, rather than for artistic beauty or poetry. This point is made clearer by a quote in the article, “…one such poet said, trying hard, to explain his art, ‘The I forgot the verses and remembered the words.’”