Art from the Past
Well, they just discovered the oldest known art on the planet, some zig zag scratches on a clamshell from 500 thousand years ago. This is about 300,000 years earlier than the next oldest masterpiece from the prehistoric era. I guess that zig zag abstract set us artists back, oh, not quite half a million years. Presumably the philistines of the Neanderthal caves weren’t ready for avant-garde minimalist renderings at their clam barbecues, a lesson us contemporary aesthetes ought to take to heart. Sure wouldn’t want to be responsible for another Dark Ages. And … I notice the Neanderthals have mostly died out. Okay, maybe not died out so much as just kept denouncing art and Western culture. Okay, actually they seem to be making a comeback in the Middle East, parts of Africa, and all of the American South. Kind of a heavy price for a couple lousy scratches on some bi-valve shell left in a midden, you ask me. Course there will be a boatload of theories why art languished from then until the French cave drawings. Everything from comets hitting the salons of the shell carvers’ showings to Obama’s predecessors over-reaching their political positions.
Art, not for everybody. The cave renderings in France awhile later were a little better received. Realistic animals the Cro-Magnon boyz hunted, probably used for target practice with slingshots. Practical art. The mizzus probably complained but they didn’t have wallpaper yet and even some animal scribbles probably Martha Stewarted up the damp cave walls. That happily-received realism held sway for, well, pretty much into the 20th century. For you art historians that adds up to about 300,000 years… or pretty much 99.999% of human existence. That’s a lot of painting and sculptures of horses, cute kids, sunsets and nature scenes. I mean, I can’t really get enough either. And so, apparently, can’t the South End judging by the tourist art cramming up the galleries and boutiques . As the gentleman who sent me a hate letter when we built the decidedly abstract Visitor Center a decade ago stated vehemently, Modern Art was dead and relegated to the ash heap of history according to his fellow art professors … and pretty much my so-called career was too … or so he hoped. Why, he asked, couldn’t I have done a mural of a mountain or a stream, something equally as beautiful as nature? Why too couldn’t I just go away and spare the island my blighted vision of the world?
A good question, Professor, but since you didn’t give me a return address, it’s one that you apparently weren’t interested in hearing a response to. The Zig Zag Man of half a million years ago might have had a better answer than mine anyway, but since Art beat Literature and Writing to the historical table, we’ll never know, will we? And since I beat the good Professor to the finish line, his criticism was a bit too belated to stop the project. He did, however, write a similar complaint to the Senior Center when he got wind of another contemporary window we’d planned for installation in the entryway, more ‘degenerate’ art he might have called it if Adolph hadn’t sullied the description for future critics. Of course, unlike a lot of artists, I’m a bit tone deaf to criticism. So instead of just a couple of door panels we doubled down and did the entire front entryway to the Center. The Perfesser no doubt was apoplectic, but … it didn’t destroy the building after all. Jump forward a nano-second in the Human Timeline and those abstract shell scribbles are dotting the landscape from the South End to Seattle and Gomorrah and beyond. Someday, no doubt, future art archeologists will pry up remnants of broken glass and marvel that nothing like that has been seen on earth for a quarter million years. And my guess is they’ll probably be thankful. Like my old man always said, You can’t please em all…
I have a theory about the long gap between prehistoric hominid shell carving and neolithic cave painting.
300,000 years ago, a young man tried to carve a few lines into a shell. His neighbor, the original nosy guy next door, walked over to see what was going on. He grunted something, and the artist quickly offered to show him what the completed design would look like, scratching lines and curves into loose dirt with a stick. This period of prehistory, was also pre-art, as well as pre-language, and unfortunately communication could be brief and often misconstrued. The busybody took offense at the strange shapes before him on the ground, and became the original art critic with a club, literally, when he killed the artist on the spot. The incident entered primitive folklore as “The Myth of the Dead Artist.” In ancient society it held great influence over young minds during a time when “myth” meant “reality but older.”
Fast forward to 30,000 years ago, when we meet someone with a bold new idea. What if he (or she!) could create a copy of an image he (or she!) saw in a vision, and place that copy somewhere outside of his (or her!) head. Not taking any chances, as parents still recited “The Myth of the Dead Artist” to their neolithic children for a bedtime story, s/he realized it would be best to work on this project out of sight until completed.
S/he found a suitable cave, and over the following weeks worked on painting various images of horses, hunters, beasts, and antelope. When finally finished, a close friend was invited to view the scene. He was immediately offended. Some of the animals only had three legs instead of 4, many with one eye not two. The artist tried to describe how a partially drawn image could imply movement and speed, as well the rapidly changing context within which the hunt took place as a hunter might experience when he chased his prey.
The friend would have none of it. Any idiot knows you could stalk an animal with three legs by walking, not running. And how hard would it be to sneak up on an elk with one eye? No, no, he wasn’t buying any of this newfangled theory of motion, or for that matter a reasonably priced wall painting from his friend. After a long day shlepping after antelope, then skinning, cooking and eating it, he just wanted to come home and relax. If anybody put anything on his cave wall, it had better have 4 legs, 2 eyes, stand very still, and look exactly like whatever it was.
The artist wandered off, alone, deeper into the cave, unaware that a great advancement in human culture had just taken place. A leap forward for our species almost on par with the discovery of fire charred steaks. The artist lived! No longer would creative minds need to hide their ideas from those who couldn’t or just wouldn’t even try to understand. Humanity could burst free, into a new epoch, a golden age, when the metamorphosis of original thought into creative expression unfurled into it’s own original and unique tradition that has survived until this day. “The Myth of the Dead Artist” had ended, replaced and transcended by a new order, “The Myth of the Starving Artist.”
Because even to this day there’s a critic in every neighborhood. Without a club perhaps, but he’s still not buying your painting.
We’re having a huge controversy in the city of Everett, WA over a contest they had recently to create a new logo for the city. They’re going thru growing pains and they’re prior image of Mill Town just wasn’t what the Chamber of Commerce wanted to stick with. The winning entry received some criticism in the editorial pages — no surprise there. But yesterday it was discovered that some financial outfit in Chicago or Vladivostok or somewhere ELSE had already copyrighted the banal little logo and so now there’s facial egg and further criticism of not only the artwork but the Process itself and calls to cancel the artist’s whopping 5000 smacker prize winning check. The citizenry, in other words, is in Full Cry. Let’s just say things never really change and more to the point, I’m not considering the next round of logo submissions. Life is dangerous enuff down here in my cave.