Art, Universals in

From a strict anthropological point of view, informed by the recent self-critical turn of the research, it is a debatable issue whether we should admit universals in art. It is equally an open question as to whether art is indeed a universal form of expression and communication. In what follows, we will attempt to lay down the conditions of the possibility of admission of universals in art as well as of considering art itself as one of these universals.

Anthropology has been formed as a social science in the course of 19th century and in the context of the great European colonial states. The European need to understand the non-Western world was concomitant with the desire to maximize the benefits acquired by the exploitation of the colonies. As a result, for a very long time, anthropology was based on empirical data and fieldwork, without really being concerned for its epistemological status as a science or with questioning its approaches to other cultures. This situation has radically changed in the course of the last 50 years, and anthropologists have systematically criticized the colonial, ethnocentric approach to other cultures as well as the epistemological basis and object of anthropology as a science. The termreflexive anthropology indicates that a scientific approach to non-Western societies is difficult and complex and, furthermore, requires both relentless critique and uncompromising alertness as far as questions of method are concerned. There is an increased awareness today of the perils and problems associated with central concepts like primitive art for example, which manifest a derogatory attitude to creative aspects of the material culture of non-Western societies, even when accompanied by the best intentions, as in the case of Franz Boas. This is the reason why the adjective primitive has almost unanimously been replaced by the term non-Western or small-scale. Apart from carefully scrutinizing terminology, anthropologists have recently turned their attention to their own society. In cooperation with the rest of human sciences and by implementing in their own society the approach reserved for non-Western societies, anthropologists have often generated impressive results of acute, hermeneutic analysis of Western institutions, customs, attitudes, and modes of behavior. One may here indicatively mention the pioneering work of Mary Douglas, or more recently of Jonathan Culler. If anthropologists tend to criticize the most intimate conventions of their own cultures, it is likely that they will be reluctant to accept unconditionally universals, which are conventions with cross-cultural application.

Art is a universal term that has been employed in the anthropological study of other cultures as an extension of its conventional use in the Western world. There are two interrelated problems concerning this employment: First, there is a serious problem of definition of art, even within European aesthetics, let alone in cultures that lack terms that even approximately translate as art, and second, the notion of art is an instrument of value if it remains undistinguished from fine art, a pervasive term in European culture with relatively recent origins in the 18th century, as Goehr indicates. To render a concept of art [Page 278]relatively functional in anthropology, it ought not be an instrument of value, restricted to fine art, but should rather be open and meant in the broadest way possible, to allow the analysis of objects from other cultures in their own terms. This is the reason why Anderson attempts to define art via skill and Layton via aesthetic factors, expressive considerations, and communication. However, anthropologists of art should not be limited by the objects included in any of the Western categories of art or by the Western aesthetic categories. Should art serve as a category of cultural differentiation, it needs to be a very accepting category and should indeed arise out of a thorough and careful consideration of all related contexts, attributes, and conditions as they apply to each and every unique case studied.

Source: © iStockphoto/Dan Brandenburg.

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