III. TRIBAL ART QUA ART
There is growing realisation that any philosophy and explanation of Art without an account and understanding of aesthetic experience is inadequate and lifeless. This trend of thought has also dominated by and large the phenomenology of aesthetic experience. The scientific theory of an expression of this directedness of consciousness upon an object, is quite different to the universe of discourse that is given shape by artistic experience and expression. In the triad of consciousness, aesthetic objects and Art expression, experience is definitely the primal source, common to all human communities. Art experience is an exudation of consciousness from the privacy of the inner, and cannot therefore be treated merely as a ‘thing’. The language of Art moves beyond the conceptual, semantic, and syntactic constraints involved in it, since there in its cognizance the reality of silence playing a major role. One may say that the language of Art is an obvious deviation from empirical, ordinary language but it does not fully relinquish the garb of ordinary language; the latter being more of an instrument and less an expression of be-ing carrying a deeper and new meaning.
In other words, Art experience, both for the creator and the spectator, is dialogic in all its pre-linguistic, linguistic and trans-linguistic aspects. Art, viewed in this sense, signifies a continuity of reality through different spatial and temporal levels, i.e. the range of human faculties like perception, reason and imagination are not confined to any particular hierarchical level of reality. The images of poetry, painting, sculpture and architecture, music, dance and all other arts constitute such items of knowledge.
The questions which arise from such an approach may be as follows:
What is one’s relation with works of Art?
What is the nature of the creative process?
What is the relation between man as an artist and his creations?
How is the meaning of Art determined?; and
What is the ontological status of a work of Art? (Biswas: 1995)
There are considerable variations and differences in the manner of presentation, in the degree of sensuousness, flexibility, opacity, materiality, and in the role of medium, etc. so far as different Art forms are concerned. However, viewed within this general framework, the approach provides a common platform on which all Arts stand together. There is then a sense also of indeterminacy in experiencing a work of Art because when one creates, or enjoys or evaluates a work of Art, there is an in-built awareness of something which comes to take shape and which is likely to change in the course of time. In the works of Art there is an absence of a facticity of a kind which is common place in the modern world – an ‘I-It’ relationship is replaced by an ‘I-Thou’ one.
Appearances of things are abstracted from their material existence and transformed into visions, forms and images in Art, e.g., a picture is made with pigments on a given surface, but the painting that emerges is not ‘pigment on canvas’ since it expresses its own space and a particular relationship between the human and the world; it is both significant and speakable in this sense. In short, a work of Art has a continuous existence and identity, and like a human being it is ‘no-thing’, a nonfactual order of be-ing. The modern world is dominated by a fact-ridden reality, beset with dichotomies and hierarchies which become irreconcilable. It is only when one understands this basic holistic vision which gives rise to non-utilitarian attitude to man and his creative work, that any insight to "tribal" Art research may become possible.
Thus, "tribal" Art qua Art, is an artistic activity and an act of creativity. It may only be understood by adopting an approach that views the arts as not dissociated from life but integral to it, i.e. experience and creativity are its central concern – be this be termed Art or non-Art in conventional terms. This is a departure from such notions as ‘art for art’s sake’, conflict-confrontationists binary opposites (sacred-secular, high-low, literate-non-literate, urban-rural or tribal, traditional-modern, etc.), structural-functional, uni or multilinear evolutionary models and so on ways of investigations. The paper suggests principles of complementarity, pluralism, concurrency, coexistence, polyvalence and synergy, to view works of Art – "tribal" art – within the framework of the universal category of a creative act. Obviously implying thereby that there are no fundamental qualitative hierarchies amongst the spheres of creativity, often so assessed through the adoption/application of socio-economic yardsticks of ‘development’ and ‘progress’. The concern of artistic manifestation is to focus attention on dynamic interrelationships, towards what one may call ‘integrality’ as distinct from de-contextualization of artistic manifestation and expression which is true in the modern context.
While in this sense there is no distinction between what happened in artistic manifestation in ancient times and more recent eras, it does not discard altogether any evolutionary processes, or the archaeological records. But these developments become subsets of larger categories, which even in terms of contemporary scientific notions suggests principles of concurrency, simultaneity and space-time continuum in preference to linear progressive movements. In times when the written word, or thought had not becomes so specialised, man was in touch with his various senses to nature, to the stars and so on, i.e. there was the central role of inner experience, beyond the person and individual, expressed and articulated through non-verbal expressions. Or, there was a balancing of the inner/outer, verbal/nonverbal and the recognition of fuzzy areas, beyond rigid clear cut demarcations, i.e., art was not separated from not only music, dance, etc. but also social and economic (subsistence patterns) life. In other words Art as a creative act involves common core principles that are equally valid for all cultures albeit these may have evolved and are articulated in many different ways sometimes consciously as theoretical artistic/aesthetic concepts, and at others these are discernible in participatory observation. Both of these ways are of equal value, and may be considered ad interdependent and interrelated.
Of course, the natural and social environment does shape artistic expression, but the causes of creativity remain unknown. In turn, creative expression effects the natural and human environment. In this way, life-functions, life-cycles, social needs, economic political systems, mythical world-views and so on are in a symbiotic relationship. This is what, we believe, provides the context or several contexts of Art seen as creativity. Art is thus participatory and an individual process, which may or may not be nurtured by the natural environment. Creativity is timeless in this sense, since it springs from a still interiority, a silence that is a form of contemplation – an area from which urban modern man has moved very very far away. Art, in this sense, as a manifestation of the unspoken and authentic experience, invokes, evokes, provokes, stimulates, sustains, disturbs the viewer, i.e., the human social environment.
In short, Art may be seen in its forms, manifestations, and products as an integral part of the totality of life-experience at an individual and collective level. Its playful or unpredictable quality is its power, poetry and potency. Artistic activity is correlated and integral to rituals, fairs, worships, beliefs, festivals – a very wide spectrum that includes all the material techniques, etc. etc. Under certain situations, conditions, forms of art reflect a plurality and diversity which also has specific functional context for the artistic products albeit at the same time the aesthetic aspect is often transcultural spatio-temporally. Thus, there are different orders of experience, different levels of functional attributes, formal values and so on of art as such. All this is equally true for Rock art, and valid for it, given the perspective state above.
However, in view of the above statement, several questions may then arise, if alternate ways of seeing Art – "tribal Art – is to be taken up, for instance:
a. Is it possible to avoid dichotomies and binary opposites?
b. In the holistic vision, how is one to divide and subdivide for purposes of analysis and classification – can one eschew analytical methodology?
c. How to define Art, if one is to cover religio-philosophical-technological and environmental parameters?
d. How to relate to other cultures, to the language and non-language texts, to deal with the problem of translating nonverbal phenomena into verbal essays, without getting into nonlinear narratives?
e. Can one address different levels at the same time or audiences at once?
f. Is legitimate to take the non-European, say the Indian view of culture, in applying it to "tribal" Art, as organising principles in general? Is it alright to ignore 20th century categories, since we are ourselves bound by the 20th century; or is the Indian view universalistic in any true sense? If so, what may be the key categories and definitions for our purpose – as the rubric of our discourse?
In order to answer any of these queries, a different approach, as stated above, needs to be adopted to Art as such, outside the rubric of what is ‘modern’. "Tribal" art ofcourse maybe approached in a variety of ways; as art-history, psychology and metaphysics, religion, utilitarian and functional, graphic representational motifs of some underlying ‘material’ aspect of social and cultural life, subsistence patterns and so on. But all this is still the fragmentary and partial approach which does not tell us about global and universal phenomenon that Art is, since most of all Art, today, is not viewed within any notion of a sacred cosmic order from whence arises the Creative Urge, common to all of humanity, beyond place and time. The creativity of Art is the silent common language of humankind, just as the silent puppets speak to all irrespective of any particularity. True, sincere and authentic Art in this sense speaks of an integral vision, of a world vision which is mystic, mysterious, divine, supernatural, and so on. These are words used variously to express that which is not speakable yet which is communicable because it transcends individual man-centred modern aesthetic notions of Art.
This approach is beyond the questions of what, when, where, and why without excluding any of these even if the latter are arbitrary classifications in terms of linearity, stylistic chronologies in a comparative and relative sense, and not in any inherent logical order except the imposition of the present ‘subject’, his beliefs and so on. The creative urge appraoch has another dynamic and flexible frame of reference since it expresses different kind so inherent cultural continuities in terms of myths, dreamtimes, and other motifs which exist in all of the species of Homo sapiens. It is like the common geometrical patterns, stylised lines, and so on which like basic rhythm of sound, sight – music and dance – is built into the human being. This is a holistic notion of simultaneity, even in style and form.
But none of this can be understood, apart from an experiential level, when one lives or is in touch with the sacred dimension, and within the desacralised ‘modern’ civilization which has lost lustre and significance since it treates Art separate from life and all other activities. This is the decline for modern man in his mental outlook and, therefore, surprises modern man that those ‘primitive’ or "tribal" people could produce art! There is today an excess of emphasis on the external, devoid of the existence of inner feelings which are considered to be private, and therefore there is imitation of nature. This is an indication of disbelief, lack of purpose and ideal, alienation and meaninglessnes, because modern notions of Art have no prophetic strength. But the message of Art, which is perennial in this authenticity is because it is non-material in this sense, its spirit goes on while the body goes away. In this way the inner similarities – moral and spiritual – these internal truths values coincide within a universal creative act.
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