Social Context of Tribal Art : Sachidanand

The tribals do not make distinction between the artist who produces ‘pure’ art and the craftsman whose art is held to be of a different category. Art is part of life and not separated from it. It is to be thought of as any embellishment of ordinary living that is achieved with competence and has desirable form.

Tribal art is highly socialised. In many respects it is a technology, manifested in adornment of objects of everyday use such as pots, handles, bowls, fishhooks, combs, doors and windows. The terms of payment for the work of primitive artists bring out the social context still more. In every society work of aesthetic quality gives some reputation to its creator. There may not be much monetary reward for it. He is paid for the article as a craft object irrespective of his artistic contribution.

The preoccupation of the creation of tribal art with animals, birds and natural environment suggests that the tribal is concerned with magicoreligious values to preserve his life. Among the Oraon of Chotanagpur, the principal village deity Chala Pachoho or Sarna Burhia appears in the shape of an old woman with matted locks of snowwhite hair. The clay models and the crude stone sculpture besides lime and brick powder drawings on the mud walls depict the various moods of deities like Chahalapacho and Devi Mai to whom both personality as well as more or less definite form and individuality are ascribed. The tribal attitudes through these expressions of visual art is mainly defiance of and domination over impersonal mysterious powers and the result intended is the expulsion of evil or compulsion of supernatural forces.

Art necessarily implies selection and abstraction in reality. The primitive artists select and represent the social proportion of the subject in relation to the rest of social structure. As elsewhere, tribal art has a symbolism of its own. A symbol is an object or action that represents another entity in virtue of some arbitrarily assigned conceptual relation between them. Most of the symbols are culturally defined. The range of symbolism is wide. Symbolism has an important social function. It serves as a vehicle for the expression of values which are significant for the social relations of the people. By providing a symbolic expression to the value of group consciousness art can serve as a rallying point for group members. As Tolstoy said “art is a means of the union among men joining them together in the same feeling.”

Tribal art is not unchanging. It has to be viewed in the dynamic perspective. Conditions of life and living in tribal areas are constantly changing. The environment, the neighbourhood, as well as the demands of the new style of life present fresh challenges for the sensibilities of the tribal artist. He makes an effort to comprehend the new social reality and tries to express them in various art forms. Thus we find new motifs in some of the artistic creations in tribal areas.

However, the directives laid down by any traditional style govern the artist even as he introduces changes into its art forms. In every society the artist is the experimenter, the innovator, the rebel. But he is an innovator only within bounds, for, his experimentation is influenced by factors that unwittingly guide him in his creative experience as they guide the behaviour of all human beings in every aspect of their life. The artist, as a member of the society, cannot rise beyond his cultural conditioning. Thus even in the aspect of change there are traces of continuity with the older tradition.

The artistic link between various tribes living in the same area may be seen in their dance ensembles. Such cultural links may be regarded as cases of fission, a portion of a tribe becoming detached and modified under the influence of a neighbouring tribe while the other seems to represent the traditional style. All such cases demonstrate the dynamic and vibrant character of the tribe and its artistic expressions. Such a phenomenon is sometimes quoted to refute the view that tribal art has a distinctive quality and that it is static in nature. This view is very simplistic and erroneous.

In tribal art there is expression of a need for security and certainity in the face of perplexing problem of human life. Art to be effective must not reflect only conflict, tension, doubt, anxiety and frustration but also a resolution of these in the personality of the artist. Each art form visible in wood or stone or made known in song or other medium is a permanent reminder of how other individuals have found a resolution of their wants, tensions and imagination in terms of traditional values which are at the same time an assertion of personal human faith. Thus various forms of tribal art can best be appreciated in terms of the social context in which they are created.

 

 

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