Court critical thinking

Assignment 1.

It is difficult to image how primitive mind of the Palaeolithic people might have worked, but I think that even in the animalistic, tribal community, Palaeolithic people were already distinct from the rest of the animal world. I think they created cave art, not for its beauty, but rather as means of communication. In this context, they might have wanted to send a message to other tribes or use images as means of teaching their younger generation. Especially, since images depicted the vital animals of everyday hunting. So, it could have been more useful to show images of the chosen hunting targets and the most vulnerable places on animal’s body rather than practicing immediately during the hunt and getting hurt trying. So, these images served as means of communication.

Assignment 2.

Taking into consideration existing theories about the meaning of the cave art, I can say that my opinion had changed a bit. I do not think that my initial suggestion was entirely wrong, rather than the existing theories might have detailed it. For instance, the theory suggesting that images describe the sacred magic of the hunt, would still mean that images were used as means of communication and knowledge exchange. So, what was the target audience?
The knowledge passing function was emphasised even better by totemism theory in works of Max Raphael and A. Laming-Emperaire, who suggested that organisation of the images corresponded to mythical and religious topics. In this context, the message of images was in worshipping sacred creatures embodied in animals. Thus, it can be viewed as sanctuary. Particularly interesting is the theory about topographic meaning of the images and their correspondence to the organisation of the world in that time, at least the way it was viewed by a Palaeolithic man.
While most of the theories discuss potential context of the message images were means to an end, they agree on the fact that these images were aimed at sending a message. In other words, they were used as means of knowledge transfer. Probably, placing all these theories and interpretations together with the order images were painted, we might make a conclusion that the cave served as proto-library of Palaeolithic epoch.

Assignment 3.

Concerning the media resource which may have the same purposes and which would fit into my interpretation of the topic, I would argue that newspaper as a chronicle of the recent events and a source of the most relevant information for every-day life. Although today, we do not use newspapers as means of spreading the knowledge of the magic of hunt, just as cave art, it provides us with the messages of what is happening nowadays and which mode of actions is appropriate, which political figures are crucial today and which type of meat is essential.
Just as cave images show certain seasonal change and thus tracked history in its own way, so do the newspapers, which show what happened and when. If the information of the news papers were transformed into images and shown in its sequential appearance and importance of news, we might have the similar pattern of appearance and painting as cave images. In this context is meant that just the images of horses were painted first, so would be the news of global and general importance. Only then sport and entertainment would follow.
Just as newspapers can be a source of empirical knowledge of a certain period of time, so are those images. Their seasonal character of images shows a track of time, just as newspapers. It can be even argued that those images were the first chronicles of events we still cannot understand. The difference between newspaper and these images in the form of message transfer is actually irrelevant; so far the target audience understood the message. In other words, although cave art spoke in images, and newspapers mostly in words, the efficiency of information transfer was the same.

Egyptian Sculpture

While in the contemporary civilisation the art has various purposes, it is often evaluated for its own sake. On the other hand, in times of the Ancient Egypt such attitude to art would have been considered as simple waste. In the Ancient Egypt everything had its purpose and divine meaning, so did Egyptian art and sculpture in particular. The art, just as anything else in the early Egyptian society was conditioned by social structure and unarguable dominance of pharaoh over his subjects (Janson 65). In this context, the meaning of every single object either in a tomb or in the royal palace was aimed at worshipping of his divine origin and closeness to gods. Other functions of any art object were to worship gods and prepare for eternity – to remain unchanged in the afterlife (Robins 72). In this context, just as wall paintings, manuscripts hieroglyphs, tombs and statues of sphinx, Egyptian sculpture aimed at the depiction of the world order – divine rule of the pharaoh.
This argument can be shown on the example of the statue of the Pharaoh Menkaure and his Queen (2548-2530 BC, The Old Kingdom, 4th Dynasty). The authority of Pharaoh is shown through a quite strict and rigid position of two figures in a standing, formal posture (Robins 82). Irrespective of certain intimacy of queen’s arms around her husband’s waist, both figures express readiness and calmness at the same time. The frontal view speaks not only for their lack of fear and strength, but also unchanging nature – endurance through time (Janson 53). Thus, it symbolises their eternal rule even in the afterlife. This statue also shows another quite essential means of depicting authority – the use of scale. In this regard, although in accordance with traditional Egyptian canon proportions were kept, the scale of the statues is bigger than or ordinary human being. The meaning of this is again to show dominance of Pharaoh’s rule over his subjects (Robins 95). From the point of endurance and authority, the choice of material was exceptional, since greywacke rock is quite strong, but its dark grey colour corresponded to the royal black colour, which symbolised fertility and endurance of Pharaoh’s rule (Panofsky and Janson 71).
Since the given example is from the Old Kingdom, it depicts conventions in Egyptian sculpture. Although Egyptian art developed under relatively the same environmental and cultural conditions and is argued to remain practically same over 3000 years, certain changes took place due to political, social and religious changes (Ross 25). In this context, works of the Old Kingdom were characterised by prevision in details and differentiation of human features in sculptures, more diverse use of materials was used. This was due to strong rule of pharaohs and dominant meaning of sculpture in his worshipping (Robins 62). On the other hand, the Middle Kingdom, characterised by feudal rivalry and competition between various kingdoms, showed little interest to sculptures. They were often quite vague and could not describe the right person. On the other hand, the dominance of Hyksos tribes in the rule resulted in the introduction of another face and body types in sculptures – narrow eyes, high cheek bones, strong jaws, and beards (Ross 19). With the return of unified Pharaoh rule of the New Kingdom, the large sculptures retuned into fashion together with new ornaments of foreign flora and fauna. On the other hand, precision and naturalism of the Old Kingdom was not revived.
In terms of connection with other cultures, Egyptian sculpture had various influences on them. Although Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilisation shared much in common, their sculptures served different aims. Although both sculptures usually described authority and dominance of rulers and thus described standing, proportionate, muscled, static and large scale male figures, the purpose of Mesopotamian sculpture was different. It did not aim at unification of the general King’s rule, but described the authority and honour of a certain hero or king. In this context, warrior like authority and dominance were more important than divine origin of endurance in afterlife. Therefore, Mesopotamian sculptures were more detailed and personalised (Janson 52). On the other hand, the Ancient Greek sculpture of kouroi was largely influenced by Egyptians. Greeks followed Egyptian formula of proportion – the whole body was relatively similar: cubic figures, front-facing, broad shoulders small waists, arms close to the body usually with clenched fists (Janson 65). Thus, they were quite static and differed mainly by face. On the other hand, unlike Egyptians, Greeks managed to master the art of movement in stone and began to show motions in their sculptures (Panofsky and Janson 37).
Although in the Ancient times, sculpture aimed mainly at a sacred message; in the contemporary American culture, sculpture has more varied use and meaning. Although Lincoln memorial sculpture has both political and social message for the next generations, it is more conditioned by respect (Panofsky and Janson 21). Sculptures describing pieta indeed have religious message and subsequent worshipping function, but it is nothing the same as in the Ancient times. Sculpture does not serve one purpose of imposing authority; it became multi-functional and probably less symbolical than in the Ancient times.

Works cited

Janson, H. W. History of Art: The Western Tradition. New Jersey: Pearson Publications. 2004.
Print.
Panofsky, Erwin and Janson H. W. Tomb sculpture: four lectures on its changing aspects
Robins, Gay. Egyptian Statues. London: Shire Publications, 2008. Print.
Ross, Stewart. Ancient Egypt. London: Gareth Stevens Publication, 2005. Print.