Parallels are often made between the culture of San hunter-gatherers of southern Africa and that of European Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. Despite different environmental conditions and lifestyles, the fact that both groups live by hunting provides a point of comparison that can afford insights into Ice Age art. Focusing on both groups' hunting relationships with prey animals can illuminate the intermeshing of human and animal traits in Upper Paleolithic art. We can now give a fairly precise account (...) of the cognitive and affective neurological mechanisms that facilitate hunting and that also have an impact on depicting animals. (shrink)

This brief overview argues that the evidence of the images themselves, as well as their contexts, suggests that some Franco‐Cantabrian Upper Paleolithic cave art was, at least in part, intimately associated with various shamanic practices. Universal features of altered states of consciousness and the deep caves combined to create notions of a subterranean spirit‐world that became, amongst other ritual areas, the location of vision quests.

One characteristic of the transition from the Middle Paleolithic to the Upper Paleolithic in Europe was the emergence of representational charcoal drawings and engravings by Aurignacian and Gravettian artists. European Neanderthals never engaged in representational drawing during the Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic, a property that might reflect less developed visuomotor coordination. This article postulates a causal relationship between an evolved ability of anatomically modern humans to throw spears accurately while hunting and their ability to (...) draw representational images from working memory. Unlike Neanderthals, archaic and anatomically modern humans in sub-Saharan Africa adopted longer-range hunting practices using hand-cast spears as a compensation for the emergence of increasingly wary game. For Neanderthals, paleoclimatic fluctuations likely precluded consistent hunting of cold-adapted game, a property making game more approachable for close-range hunting with thrusting spears. As evidence of less historical wariness of humans, many of the species hunted by Neanderthals were eventually domesticated. Due to strong sources of natural selection on archaic and anatomically modern humans for effective hunting, the parietal cortex that integrates visual imagery and motor coordination expanded progressively, yielding the globular shape of the human cranium that is not evident in Neanderthals. To characterize how the cognitive properties employed for throwing spears and drawing line work are similar, the Upper Paleolithic drawings of animals in Chauvet cave, France, are discussed in the speculative context of how these artists engaged simultaneously in overt attention to guide their hand movements and covert attention to their mental images during the drawing process. (shrink)

Ornaments are the most common and ubiquitous art form of the Late Pleistocene. This fact suggests a common, fundamental function somewhat different to other kinds of Paleolithic art. While the capacity for artistic expression could be considerably older than the record of preserved art would suggest, beads signal a novel development in the efficiency and flexibility of visual communication technology. The Upper Paleolithic was a period of considerable regional differentiation in material culture, yet there is remarkable consistency (...) in the dominant shapes and sizes of Paleolithic beads over more than 25,000 years and across vast areas, even though they were made from diverse materials and, in the case of mollusc shells, diverse taxonomic families. Cultural and linguistic continuity cannot explain the meta-pattern. The evidence indicates that widespread adoption of beads of redundant form was not only about local and subregional communication of personal identity or group affinity, but also an expansion in the geographic scale of social networks. The conformity of the beads grew spontaneously and in a self-organizing manner from individuals’ interest in tapping into the network as a means for spreading social and environmental risk. (shrink)

My article utilizes the insights of F. W. J. Schelling’s work on aesthetics to explain the unique appeal of cave painting for people of the Upper Paleolithic,focusing mostly on the caves of Chauvet and Lascaux. Schelling argues that the unique value of artistic practices comes in the way they reconcile agents withtheir deepest ontological contradictions, namely, the tension between biological necessity and human freedom. I argue that the cave paintings of Chauvet andLascaux fit well with Schelling’s approach and (...) his insight that art seeks to reveal the contradictory capacities of self-conscious beings in a state of fundamentalattunement rather than in discordance and disharmony. My contention is that in taking this approach, whereby aesthetic practices engender an intuition of theabsolute identity between nature and mind, we can better explain why the practice of cave painting endured for over twenty-thousand years as one common styleof artistic practice. (shrink)

If one views humans’ creation and appreciation of art as grounded in our biological nature, it might be tempting to see art as a spandrel, as an adventitious by-product of some adaptation without adaptive significance in itself. Such a position connects art to our evolved human nature yet apparently avoids the demands of demonstrating how art behaviours enhanced the fitness of our ancestors in the Upper Paleolithic. In this paper I explore two arguments that count against the view (...) that art is a spandrel. The first rejects the idea that the spandrel option is somehow less demanding or controversial than the alternative view according to which art is an adaptation. The second argues that if art behaviours came to us as spandrels, they would not remain so; their occurrence in the usual manner would become normative because they would come to provide honest signals of fitness. (shrink)

In recent years, the research field of the evolution of art has witnessed contributions from a wide range of disciplines across the "three cultures". In this thesis, I make both a critical review of existing explanations, and try to do elucidate the evolution of art by employing insights, methods and concepts from different disciplines. First, I critically evaluate the evidentiary criteria from standard evolutionary psychology some accounts employ to demonstrate that art qualifies as a human biological adaptation. I argue that (...) these criteria do not suffice to make that claim. Furthermore, I make the case for a cultural evolutionary approach to the arts. One commonly used evidentiary criterion for art as adaptation is the “tight fit” between artnbsp;human cognition, which is interpreted as suggesting that cognition has undergone selection to produce and appreciate art. However, disentangling cultural and genetic evolution allows formulating thenbsp;hypothesis that art has evolved culturally to match human cognition. Second, I observe that in ancient and modern hunter gatherer societies, artistic activities are virtually alwaysnbsp;with ritual. I discuss what this implies for the adaptive significance of art. Specifically, if the arts have culturally evolved in function of ritualistic purposes, their adaptive value has depended on the adaptiveness of ritual. Third, because architecture is characterized by the combination of utilitarian and aesthetic aspects, it is particularly interesting from an evolutionary perspective and therefore I devote special attention to it. Employing the cross-species comparative approach, I investigate two main purposes human architecture has in common with nonhuman animal constructions: protection andnbsp;Based on the phylogenetic approach I establish that protection may have been the primary function of building aptitudes in humannbsp;and that building was later co-opted for signaling purposes. Subsequently, I comparatively evaluate thenbsp;of signaling models in the cultural evolution of architectural aesthetics. Furthermore I combine insights from environmental psychology, niche construction and cultural evolution theory to develop the hypothesis that a function of religious monumental architecture may have been to support nbsp;or even to galvanize nbsp;social learning. Finally, I connect the account I developed to the cognitive science of religion. I complement the frequently held view that religious monumental architecture is a costly signal with the mechanism of sensory exploitation. I attempt to demonstrate that by exploiting thenbsp;response of awe in religious followers, religious monumental architecture promotes and regulates prosocial behavior and creates in them an openness to adopt supernatural beliefs. Fourth, I dealnbsp;the evolution of visual art, paying again special attention to cultural evolution andnbsp;explanatory value of sensory exploitation. I assert that the relatively late appearance of figurative art in the course of human evolution may be attributed to an increase in the number of social learning opportunities within and between human populations at that time. I support this assertion with archaeological data that indicate overall population growth and increased population densities at that time. These demographic changes, I argue, have allowed the retention and accumulation of innovations required for figurative art making. Contrary to previous accounts, I furthermore aim to show that this process doesnbsp;require figurative art to have served adaptive purposes. Employing sensory exploitation, I establish that figurative art could have evolved by exploiting pre-existing biases of evolved psychology. The dominant themes of upper Paleolithic and late stone age figurative art, animals and humans, seem to support this contention. Fifth, I present a number of experimental studies I conducted to verify whether contemporary art experts would have socially learned to resist exploitation of evolved psychology. One aspect ofrsquo;s exploitative power may be that it elicits aesthetic pleasure by pushing “pleasure buttons” that evolved for other purposes. Consequently, spectators may trade-off rewards from indulging in art and biological activities, resulting in less effort being allocated to reproduction. I contend that, while the generalnbsp; may indeed be exploited, experts, who are typically being exposed to high doses of art, may have socially learned to resist exploitation by selectively preferring art from prestigious art contexts. The latter would be in line with the claim that prestige bias may trump content biases of evolved psychology. The results of three experimental studies supportnbsp;contention. I find that laypeople's art appreciation is positively affected by a content bias for attractive faces, mediated by aesthetic pleasure, whereas experts' appreciation is positively affected by prestige and mediated by admiration for the artist. Moreover, experts confer lower appreciation to attractive compared to moderately attractive content, which is consistentnbsp;the contention that expertise and the use of prestige are associatednbsp;resistance against beautiful content that exploits evolved preferences. This research thus suggests that expertise moderates content and context biases, which may be of relevance to an ongoing debate about their relative importance as drivers of cultural evolution. In addition, this study provides a tentative but novel explanation for the fact, famously established by philosopher Arthur Danto, that beauty lost its central position in Western art during the 20th century. However my findings cannot exclude alternative explanations for the fact that art expert appreciation deviates from evolved aesthetic preferences. Further research may experimentally assess the role of prestige bias and resistance as drivers of this deviation versus other, previously suggested, potential processes. For example, preferences of experts may deviate on account of the fact that art serves as a badge of elite group membership and thus expert art appreciation as a means to distinguish oneself from the masses. Alternatively, art experts may seek intellectual challenges instead of pushing pleasure buttons. Future research may experimentally verify the respective roles of these different hypothesized mechanisms. In addition, it may be investigated how insights from sexual selection research may help elucidating the different processes at play in cultural evolution and particularly in the cultural evolution of art appreciation, given the commonalities between sexual selection and cultural selection models. (shrink)

L’art pariétal du Paléolithique supérieur présente, à côté d’un extraordinaire répertoire animalier bien diversifié, un grand nombre de signes qui ne trouvent pas d’équivalents dans la perception de la réalité sensible. Tandis que les images des humains ou des créatures mi-humaines mi-animales sont très rares, ces formes aniconiques, souvent géométrisantes et aisément classifiables, sont globalement plus nombreuses que les animaux. Si saisir l’intentionnalité qui a poussé les premiers artistes à peindre sur les parois représente un défi pour nos compétences interprétatives, (...) les « signes » constituent l’aspect le plus énigmatique de ce défi. Il y a trente ans, en 1988, dans la revue Current Anthropology, a été publié un article de James D. Lewis-Williams et Thomas A. Dowson, « The Signs of All Times. Entoptic Phenomena in Upper Paleolithic Art », ouvrant une nouvelle perspective sur l’origine des signes. En appliquant le modèle neuropsychologique à l’imagerie bidimensionnelle de l’art des grottes, il est possible d’identifier à des signes à valeur universelle, selon les auteurs, les apparitions entoptiques présentes, avec leurs diverses modalités combinatoires, dans l’art rupestre de « tous les temps ». Cette interprétation de l’art des sociétés préhistoriques, qui resitue la naissance des images dans les territoires visionnaires des cultures chamaniques, a soulevé en France des perplexités et des polémiques innombrables, parfois acerbes. Il est prioritaire alors de voir si le modèle neuropsychologique est effectivement en mesure d’offrir un cadre explicatif des données archéologiques des grottes ornées et de ses « constructions symboliques », en mesure d’intégrer tous les indices disponibles dans une construction théorique cohérente. The parietal art of the Upper Paleolithic shows, alongside with an extraordinary and highly diversified animalistic repertoire, a large number of signs which cannot be found in the perception of sensible reality. While images of humans or of anthropo-zoomorphic creatures are very rare, these aniconic forms—while often geometric and appropriate for classification—are globally more copious than animals. If understanding the intentions that prompted the first artists to paint on the walls represents a challenge for our interpretative skills, then the “signs” constitute the most enigmatic aspect of this challenge. Thirty years ago, in 1988, an article written by James D. Lewis-Williams and Thomas A. Dowson, and entitled “The Signs of All Times. Entoptic Phenomena in Upper Paleolithic Art”, was published in the Current Anthropology journal. This article opened up new perspectives on the origin of signs. According to its authors, by applying the neuropsychological model to the two-dimensional imagery of cave art, it is possible to identify universal signs ascribable to the entoptic appearances that can be found—in their different combined modes—in the rock art of all times. This interpretation of the art of prehistoric societies, which has led to the emergence of images within the visionary territories of shamanic cultures, has provoked countless—and sometimes harsh—disputes in France. It has therefore become a priority to evaluate whether the neuropsychological model is actually able to provide an explanatory picture of the archaeological evidence of historiated caves and their constructions symboliques that would be capable of integrating all the clues available into a coherent theoretical structure. (shrink)

The Paleolithic art interpretation is still a polemical subject. Nearly 300 caves covered with Paleolithic paintings have been discovered and more than 90% are located in Spain and in France. Surprisingly, more than half the painted illustrations are abstract patterns such as dots and lines. The high realism of naturalist figures also stands out. We will present the four groups of theories that have been formulated since the end of the XIXth century in order to interpret the (...) class='Hi'>Paleolithic art: the artistic theory from Lartet and Piette; the magical hunting theory from anthropologists such as Tylor and Frazer and archeologists like Breuil; the structuralist theory from Raphael, Leroi- Gourhan and Laming-Emperaire; and lastly the shamanist theory from Lewis-Williams and Clottes. We will also refer to the agglutinative theory gathering all of these from Ucko and Rosefeld. Afterwards I will offer my own thought. Paleolithic paintings are the expression the life led by every generation of the clan. The panels or the set of animals as much as the painted signs are their own History collection. (shrink)

A cultural change occurred roughly 40,000 years ago. For the first time, there was evidence of belief in unseen agents and an afterlife. Before this time, humans did not show widespread evidence of being able to think about objects, persons, and other agents that they had not been in close contact with. I argue that one can explain this transition by appealing to a population increase resulting in greater exoteric (inter-group) communication. The increase in exoteric communication triggered the actualization of (...) a dormant potential for greater syntactic computational power; specifically it triggered syntactic movement. Syntactic movement, in turn, made possible variable binding, which crucially figures into cognition by description, a naturalistic analogue of Russell’s knowledge by description. Cognition by description made possible the ability to conceive of things one had never experienced, such as mythological beings, places only visited by the dead, and so forth. The Amazonian Pirahã provide some corroboration for this hypothesis, since they exhibit the combination of traits here attributed to Middle Paleolithic individuals, namely exclusively esoteric (intra-group) communication, evident lack of syntactic movement, and a limitation to knowledge (cognition) by acquaintance. (shrink)

Among the cultural innovations by which the Upper Palaeolithic period is characterized, those relating to burial practices furnish the possibility of evaluating the profound changes which differentiated this era from the Middle Palaeolithic. The graves of the Upper Palaeolithic offer us a sometimes very compelling glimpse of the complexity of the symbolic, cognitive and social environment of those peoples, as well as of the evolution and diversification over time and space of their rituals associated with death. This article (...) considers the set of burials discovered to date within the boundaries of Italy as particularly representative of these features. Numerous, diverse and well-endowed, they provide important information about the peoples of the Upper Palaeolithic and of the way they responded to death. These graves also represent a significant body of evidence for the debate on the degree to which Palaeolithic man can be considered culturally fully human and the extent to which he intentionally buried his dead. (shrink)

The Upper Palaeolithic Revolution, sometimes called ‘the Creative Explosion’, is seen as the period when the forefathers of modern forager societies emerged. Similarly to the Industrial and Neolithic Revolutions, it represents a short time span when numerous inventions appeared and cultural changes occurred. The inventions were in the domain of technology, that is, shaping of new stone tool forms, longdistance exchange of raw materials, the use of bone, antler and ivory as well as rare minerals for the production of (...) domestic and ritual objects. Spatial analysis of ‘living floors’ indicates the presence of a kitchen area, sleeping grounds, storage facilities (in certain regions) and a discard zone. We can also detect a certain increase in social hierarchy and the presence of shamans. Body decorations indicate the appearance of personal individuality. Several hypotheses were offered as an explanation for the initiation of all these cultural changes often grouped under the term ‘modern behaviour’. It stands to reason that attributing the new successful technologies observed in the Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic to intrinsic social processes and economic innovations by local Middle Palaeolithic populations would need a better archaeological demonstration than that available today. For the time being, the emergence of Modern humans in sub-Saharan Africa, their socio-economic dynamism that caused their expansion through the Nile Valley into the Near East, and their migration along the ‘southern route’ of Asia as far as Australia, is the most plausible scenario though it still leaves much to be desired from future archaeological research. (shrink)

Among the cultural innovations by which the Upper Palaeolithic period is characterized, those relating to burial practices furnish the possibility of evaluating the profound changes which differentiated this era from the Middle Palaeolithic. The graves of the Upper Palaeolithic offer us a sometimes very compelling glimpse of the complexity of the symbolic, cognitive and social environment of those peoples, as well as of the evolution and diversification over time and space of their rituals associated with death. This article (...) considers the set of burials discovered to date within the boundaries of Italy as particularly representative of these features. Numerous, diverse and well-endowed, they provide important information about the peoples of the Upper Palaeolithic and of the way they responded to death. These graves also represent a significant body of evidence for the debate on the degree to which Palaeolithic man can be considered culturally fully human and the extent to which he intentionally buried his dead. (shrink)

The Upper Palaeolithic Revolution, sometimes called ‘the Creative Explosion’, is seen as the period when the forefathers of modern forager societies emerged. Similarly to the Industrial and Neolithic Revolutions, it represents a short time span when numerous inventions appeared and cultural changes occurred. The inventions were in the domain of technology, that is, shaping of new stone tool forms, longdistance exchange of raw materials, the use of bone, antler and ivory as well as rare minerals for the production of (...) domestic and ritual objects. Spatial analysis of ‘living floors’ indicates the presence of a kitchen area, sleeping grounds, storage facilities (in certain regions) and a discard zone. We can also detect a certain increase in social hierarchy and the presence of shamans. Body decorations indicate the appearance of personal individuality. Several hypotheses were offered as an explanation for the initiation of all these cultural changes often grouped under the term ‘modern behaviour’. It stands to reason that attributing the new successful technologies observed in the Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic to intrinsic social processes and economic innovations by local Middle Palaeolithic populations would need a better archaeological demonstration than that available today. For the time being, the emergence of Modern humans in sub-Saharan Africa, their socio-economic dynamism that caused their expansion through the Nile Valley into the Near East, and their migration along the ‘southern route’ of Asia as far as Australia, is the most plausible scenario though it still leaves much to be desired from future archaeological research. (shrink)

The artistic design stance is an important part of art appreciation, but it remains unclear how it can be applied to artworks for which art historical context is no longer available, such as Ice Age art. We propose that some of the designer's intentions can be gathered noninferentially through direct experience with prehistoric artworks.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the field of Paleolithic art was a source of intellectual ferment and innovative interpretation. This was in direct contrast to the first forty years immediately following the recognition of graphic representations in Upper Paleolithic contexts. In this early period, all “art,” from nineteenth-century impressionist landscapes to the Pleistocene painted bison of Altamira, was misguidedly viewed as “art for art's sake.” The only explanation required was the pursuit of aesthetic pleasure (...) and all that was needed was sufficient time to pursue artistic activities. (shrink)

We owe our first graphic experiences to Neanderthal Man, who introduced to the cultural baggage of the genus Homo two metaphorical behaviors that are fundamental in terms of their innovation: one concerns the preservation of the bodies of the dead through burial, the other is the making of signs, which in this stage of evolution do not yet represent recognizable subjects but only lines. This attests to the creation of a graphical tool that materializes and makes visible that which exists (...) in the mind, something that is other than itself, thus providing signs of a communication that unfortunately today we cannot define semantically. We cannot say whether these linear marks are a sort of «brand» or if they are carriers of meanings, however, we can observe that, with the Neanderthals, a conceptual, projectual plan exists that enables the measurement of space and the configuration of a regular rhythm, creating an original condition of movement and an association of potentially dynamic lines. (shrink)

Beads and other ‘body ornaments’ are very widespread components of the archaeological record of early modern humans (Homo sapiens). They appear first in the Middle Stone Age in Africa, and somewhat later in the Early Upper Paleolithic of Eurasia. The manufacture and use of ornaments is widely considered to be evidence for significant developments in human cognition. In our view, the appearance of these objects represents the interaction of evolved cognitive capacities with changing social and demographic conditions. Body (...) ornamentation is a medium or technology for communication, particularly of socially-relevant information. The widespread adoption of beads and other discrete objects as media for communication implies changes in the complexity and stability of social messages, as well as the scale of social networks. The relatively sudden appearance of beads in the Paleolithic archaeological record coincides with genetic and archaeological evidence for expansion of human populations. We argue that these changes reflect expanding scales of social interaction and more complex social landscapes resulting from unprecedentedly large and internally differentiated human populations. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that humans have specific abilities for cooperation and culture that evolved since their split with their last common ancestor with chimpanzees. Many uncertainties remain, however, about the exact moment in the human lineage when these abilities evolved. This article argues that cooperation and culture did not evolve in one step in the human lineage and that the capacity to stick to long-term and risky cooperative arrangements evolved before properly modern culture. I present evidence that Homo heidelbergensis (...) became increasingly able to secure contributions form others in two demanding Paleolithic public good games (PPGGs): cooperative feeding and cooperative breeding. I argue that the temptation to defect is high in these PPGGs and that the evolution of human cooperation in Homo heidelberngensis is best explained by the emergence of modern-like abilities for inhibitory control and goal maintenance. These executive functions are localized in the prefrontal cortex and allow humans to stick to social norms in the face of competing motivations. This scenario is consistent with data on brain evolution that indicate that the largest growth of the prefrontal cortex in human evolution occurred in Homo heidelbergensis and was followed by relative stasis in this part of the brain. One implication of this argument is that subsequent behavioral innovations, including the evolution of symbolism, art, and properly cumulative culture in modern Homo sapiens , are unlikely to be related to a reorganization of the prefrontal cortex, despite frequent claims to the contrary in the literature on the evolution of human culture and cognition. (shrink)

The vision of an art masterpiece is associated with brain arousal by neural processes occurring quite spontaneously in the viewer. This aesthetic experience may even elicit a response in the motor areas of the observers. In the neurorehabilitation of patients with stroke, art observation has been used for reducing psychological disorders, and creative art therapy for enhancing physical functions and cognitive abilities. Here, we developed a virtual reality task which allows patients, by moving their hand on a virtual canvas, to (...) have the illusion of painting some art masterpieces, such as The Creation of Adam of Michelangelo or The birth of Venus of Botticelli. Twenty healthy subjects and four patients with stroke performed this task and a control one in which they simply colored the virtual canvas. Results from User Satisfaction Evaluation Questionnaire and the NASA Task Load Index highlighted an appropriate level of usability. Moreover, despite the motor task was the same for art and control stimuli, the art condition was performed by healthy subjects with shorter trajectories and with a lower perception of physical demand. In experiment 2, only the patients treated with artistic stimuli showed a reduction in the erroneous movements performed orthogonally to the canvas. This finding reminds the so-called Mozart effect that improves the performance of subjects when they listen to classic music. Thus, we called this improvement in the performance when interacting with an artistic stimulus as Michelangelo effect. (shrink)

The article by Titov S. “Whether “vinuses” of paleolith are evidence of ancient religiosity” provides a comprehensive analysis of existing theories on origin and use of archeological artifacts known as “vinuses” of paleolith. Using comparative analysis as a method of research the author traces a genesis of female image in times of upper paleolith and its origin and transforming. The author examines cases that prove evidence in favor of religious and magical use of “vinuses”. Moreover some religious and anthropological (...) hypothesis that explain the way of believes are expound and analyzed. (shrink)

My paper utilizes the insights of F.W.J Schelling’s work on aesthetics to explain the unique appeal and power that aesthetic experience held for people of the Upper Paleolithic. This appeal is revealed most dramatically in the cave paintings of Chauvet and Lascaux. According to Schelling, genuine artistic activity expresses a fusion of the unconscious (der Bewußtlosen) and the symbolic (die Symbolik), which is irreducible to any other experience or product. This fusion creates a unique experience of self-transcendence and (...) reintegration that affirms the continuity between consciousness and the natural world. Consequently, genuine aesthetic products never have any simple pragmatic or utilitarian motive, but result from reconciling the deepest contradictions of the human experience. I argue that it is this experience of continuity and re-integration that is captured in the cave paintings of Chauvet and Lascaux, and which confirms the irreducible power of the aesthetic. (shrink)

THE ART OF CAUSAL CONJECTURE Glenn Shafer Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction........................................................................................ ...........1 1.1. Probability Trees..........................................................................................3 1.2. Many Observers, Many Stances, Many Natures..........................................8 1.3. Causal Relations as Relations in Nature’s Tree...........................................9 1.4. Evidence............................................................................................ ...........13 1.5. Measuring the Average Effect of a Cause....................................................17 1.6. Causal Diagrams..........................................................................................20 1.7. Humean Events............................................................................................23 1.8. Three Levels of Causal Language................................................................27 1.9. An Outline of the Book................................................................................27 Chapter 2. Event Trees............................................................................................... .....31 2.1. Situations and Events...................................................................................32 2.2. The Ordering of Situations and Moivrean Events.......................................35 2.3. Cuts................................................................................................ ..............39 2.4. Humean Events............................................................................................43 2.5. (...) Moivrean Variables......................................................................................49 2.6. Humean Variables........................................................................................53 2.7. Event Trees for Stochastic Processes...........................................................54 2.8. Timing in Event Trees.................................................................................56 2.9. Intersecting Event Trees...............................................................................60 2.10. Notes on the Literature...............................................................................61 Chapter 3. Probability Trees...........................................................................................63 3.1. Some Types of Probability Trees.................................................................64 ii 3.2. Axioms for the Probabilities of Moivrean Events.......................................68 3.3. Zero Probabilities....................................................................................... ..70 3.4. A Sample-Space Analysis of the Event-Tree Axioms.................................72 3.5. Probabilities and Expected Values for Variables.........................................74 3.6. Martingales......................................................................................... .........79 3.7. The Expectation of a Variable in a Cut........................................................83 3.8. Conditional Expected Value and Conditional Expectation.........................87 Chapter 4. The Meaning of Probability...........................................................................91 4.1. The Interpretation of Expected Value..........................................................92 4.2. The Interpretation of Expectation................................................................95 4.3. The Long Run..............................................................................................98 4.4. Changes in Belief.........................................................................................101 4.5. The Empirical Validation of Probability......................................................106 4.6. The Diversity of Uses of Probability...........................................................108 4.7. Notes on the Literature.................................................................................110 Chapter 5. Independent Events.......................................................................................113 5.1. Independence........................................................................................ .......114 5.2. Weak Independence.....................................................................................118 5.3. The Principle of the Common Cause...........................................................121 5.4. Conditional Independence............................................................................128 5.5. Notes on the Literature.................................................................................133 Chapter 6. Events Tracking Events.................................................................................135 6.1. Tracking............................................................................................ ...........137 6.2. Tracking and Conditional Independence.....................................................142 6.3. Stochastic Subsequence...............................................................................143 6.4. Singular Diagrams for Stochastic Subsequence...........................................147 6.5. Conjunctive and Interactive Forks...............................................................149 Chapter 7. Events as Signs of Events..............................................................................153 iii 7.1. Sign................................................................................................ ..............154 7.2. Weak Sign................................................................................................ ....159 7.3. The Ethics of Causal Talk............................................................................160 7.4. Screening Off...............................................................................................16 2 Chapter 8. Independent Variables...................................................................................167 8.1. Unconditional Independence........................................................................170 8.2. Conditional Independence............................................................................175 8.3. Independence for Partitions.........................................................................177 8.4. Independence for Families of Variables......................................................182 8.5. Individual Properties of the Independence Relations...................................186 Chapter 9. Variables Tracking Variables........................................................................189 9.1. Tracking and Conditional Independence: A Summary...............................190 9.2. Strong Tracking............................................................................................ 192 9.3. Strong Tracking and Conditional Independence..........................................198 9.4. Stochastic Subsequence...............................................................................201 9.5. Functional Dependence................................................................................203 9.6. Tracking in Mean.........................................................................................204 9.7. Linear Tracking............................................................................................ 207 9.8. Tracking by Partitions..................................................................................210 9.9. Tracking by Families of Variables...............................................................212 Chapter 10. Variables as Signs of Variables...................................................................215 10.1. Sign................................................................................................ ............219 10.2. Linear Sign................................................................................................ .222 10.3. Scored Sign................................................................................................ 225 10.4. Families of Variables.................................................................................227 Chapter 11. AnTheory of Event Trees.............................................................229 11.1. Event Trees as Sets of Sets........................................................................230 11.2. Event Trees as Partially Ordered Sets........................................................232 iv 11.3. Regular Event Trees...................................................................................240 11.4. The Resolution of Moivrean Variables......................................................244 11.5. Humean Events and Variables...................................................................246 Chapter 12. Martingale Trees..........................................................................................247 12.1. Examples of Decision Trees......................................................................249 12.2. The Meaning of Probability in a Decision Tree.........................................253 12.3. Martingales......................................................................................... .......257 12.4. The Structure of Martingale Trees.............................................................261 12.5. Probability and Causality...........................................................................265 12.6. Lower and Upper Probability.....................................................................269 12.7. The Law of Large Numbers.......................................................................272 12.8. Notes on the Literature...............................................................................274 Chapter 13. Refining............................................................................................ ...........275 13.1. Examples of Refinement............................................................................277 13.2. A Constructive Definition of Finite Refinement.......................................281 13.3. Axioms for Refinement..............................................................................282 13.4. Lifting Moivrean Events and Variables.....................................................288 13.5. Refining Martingale Trees.........................................................................288 13.6. Grounding........................................................................................... .......294 Chapter 14. Principles of Causal Conjecture..................................................................299 14.1. The Diversity of Causal Explanation.........................................................302 14.2. The Mean Effect of the Happening of a Moivrean Event..........................305 14.3. The Effect of a Humean Variable..............................................................311 14.4. Attribution and Generality.........................................................................316 14.5. The Statistical Measurement of the Effect of a Cause...............................319 14.6. Measurement by Experiment.....................................................................320 14.7. Using Our Knowledge of How Things Work............................................322 v 14.8. Sampling Error...........................................................................................329 14.9. The Sampling Frame..................................................................................329 14.10. Notes on the Literature.............................................................................330 Chapter 15. Causal Models.............................................................................................3 31 15.1. The Causal Interpretation of Statistical Prediction....................................333 15.2. Generalizing to a Family of Exogenous Variables....................................337 15.3 Some Joint Causal Diagrams......................................................................339 15.4. Causal Path Diagrams................................................................................342 15.5. Causal Relevance Diagrams.......................................................................346 15.6. The Meaning of Latent Variables..............................................................352 15.7. Notes on the Literature...............................................................................357 Chapter 16. Representing Probability Trees...................................................................359 16.1. Three Graphical Representations...............................................................361 16.2. Skeletal Simplifications.............................................................................368 16.3. Martingale Trees in Type Theory...............................................................371 Appendix A. Huygens’s Probability Trees.....................................................................379 Huygens’s Manuscript in Translation..................................................................380 Appendix B. Some Elements of Graph Theory..............................................................385 B1. Undirected Graphs........................................................................................385 B2. Directed Graphs............................................................................................38 6 Appendix C. Some Elements of Order Theory...............................................................393 C1. Partial and Quasi Orderings.........................................................................393 C2. Singular and Joint Diagrams for Binary Relations.......................................394 C3. Lattices............................................................................................ .............395 C4. The Lattice of Partitions of a Set..................................................................396 Appendix D. The Sample-Space Framework for Probability.........................................399 D1. Probability Measures....................................................................................399 D2. Variables........................................................................................... ...........400 vi D3. Families of Variables...................................................................................401 D4. Expected Value............................................................................................402 D5. The Law of Large Numbers.........................................................................405 D6. Conditional Probability................................................................................406 D7. Conditional Expected Value........................................................................407 Appendix E. Prediction in Probability Spaces................................................................409 E1. Conditional Distribution...............................................................................411 E2. Regression on a Single Variable...................................................................412 E3. Regression on a Partition or a Family of Variables......................................415 E4. Linear Regression on a Single Variable.......................................................418 E5. Linear Regression on a Family of Variables................................................422 Appendix F. Sample-Space Concepts of Independence.................................................425 F1. Overview............................................................................................ ...........426 F2. Independence Proper.....................................................................................432 F3. Unpredictability in Mean..............................................................................434 F4. Simple Uncorrelatedness..............................................................................437 F5. Mixed Uncorrelatedness...............................................................................438 F6. Partial Uncorrelatedness...............................................................................440 F7. Independence for Partitions..........................................................................442 F8. Independence for Families of Variables.......................................................445 F9. The Basic Role of Uncorrelatedness.............................................................448 F10. Dawid’s Axioms.........................................................................................449 Appendix G. Prediction Diagrams..................................................................................453 G1. Path Diagrams............................................................................................ ..454 G2. Generalized Path Diagrams..........................................................................462 G3. Relevance Diagrams.....................................................................................466 G4. Bubbled Relevance Diagrams......................................................................475 Appendix H. Abstract Stochastic Processes...................................................................479 vii H1. Probability Conditionals and Probability Distributions...............................477 H2. Abstract Stochastic Processes......................................................................479 H3. Embedding Variables and Processes in a Sample Space.............................480 References.......................................................................................... ..............................491. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ovid, Art, and Eros PAUL BAROLSKY OVIDIO, AMORI, miti e altre storie or Ovid: Loves, Myths, and Other Stories is the copiously illustrated catalogue to the monumental exhibition mounted in 2008–2009 at the Scuderie del Quirinale, in Rome, in celebration of the great Roman poet and his world. This handsome tome is many books in one: a beautiful album of color plates illustrating a wide range of fascinating objects, (...) an overview of Ovid’s life, works and influences—a book for amateurs and specialists alike, a book to delight and instruct. The book includes paintings and sculpture but also pottery, coins, and jewelry. There is something for everybody here. Ovidio is divided into relatively brief sections written by numerous scholars who treat such topics as Ovid and myth, Ovid the love poet, Ovid in exile, Ovid and Augustan Rome, Ovid and the figurative arts, and Ovid in the seventeenth century. The book’s attention to illustrated editions of Metamorphoses, and especially the Ovide moralisé, is notable and refreshing. I think it fair to say that the exhibition and its catalogue are, not surprisingly, dominated by Metamorphoses and the ways in which artists illustrated its stories over the centuries. The myths of Venus and Adonis, Narcissus and Echo, Icarus and Daedalus, and Jupiter and Europa are among the numerous Ovidian stories that get extensive treatment here. We need to recall that no ancient author in the Hellenic tradition is so copiously illustrated as is Ovid—a fact that is Ovidio, amori, miti e altre storie, ed Francesca Ghedini et al. Rome 2018, 310 pages; isbn 9788856906486; €33.15. arion 27.2 fall 2019 easily taken for granted. A consummate story teller, Ovid inspired the pictorial tales of Poussin, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Velázquez, among other masters. Often in this book, works of mythological art are seen in the context of Ovid, even when there is no specific association between image and text. Such is the case when, for example, we encounter the well-known Praxitelean Aphrodite pudica in the Uffizi which inspired Botticelli’s similar Aphrodite now in the Musei Reali of Turin. There is nothing that links the statue and the painting to Ovid other than the fact that their makers, like the poet, write about the goddess of love. Ever so many mythological works suggest the arousal of desire. The Praxitelean Aphrodite modestly covers her body with both of her hands. Understandably, since according to an ancient tale, a young man was so aroused by the statue that he left a stain upon her. In short, we are in the realm of erotic art. The Hellenistic statue of Leda and the Swan in the archeology museum of Venice is an excellent example of erotic art featured in this book, even though Leda is mentioned only in passing in Metamorphoses. She seems to swoon in rapture as the bird (Jupiter in avian guise) slithers between her legs, beak seeking lips. Scarcely resisting, Leda reaches ambiguously downward as if in search of something, and we can well imagine what that might be. That her lower hand is invisible contributes to its suggestiveness. Leda’s upper hand is pressed against the swan’s sinuous neck, by no means a gesture of resist170 ovid, art, and eros Figure 1: Leda and the Swan. Venice, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, 2018. Eric Vandeville / akg-images. ance, I believe, even though in the myth she is taken by force. What we see is what the Ovid catalogue calls a “voluptuous amplexus.” The story of Leda and the Swan is forever told by painters in various erotic ways. When, later in the Renaissance, Correggio pictures the momentous event he shows the swan mounting Leda who, in this case, receives the bird in a seated position. As the bird engages the nymph, feathers pressed against her inner thigh, the swan, as in the ancient statue, seeks out her mouth with his beak—a juxtaposition as phallic as it is oral. The Leonardesque smile of Leda betokens not fear or violence but pleasure—a decidedly carnal pleasure. In a different context, Vasari wrote that Correggio painted not colors but flesh. When Leonardo himself pictured Leda, he delicately rendered the... (shrink)

The emergence of cave art in Europe about 30,000 years ago is widely believed to be evidence that by this time human beings had developed sophisticated capacities for symbolization and communication. However, comparison of the cave art with the drawings made by a young autistic girl, Nadia, reveals surprising similarities in content and style. Nadia, despite her graphic skills, was mentally defective and had virtually no language. I argue in the light of this comparison that the existence of the cave (...) art cannot be the proof which it is usually assumed to be that the humans of the Upper Palaeolithic had essentially ‘modern’ minds. The article includes peer commentary by Paul Bahn, Paul Bloom, Uta Frith, Ezra Zubrow, Steven Mithen, Ian Tattersall, Chris Knight, Chris McManus and Daniel Dennett , with response by Nicholas Humphrey. [Owing to the number of illustrations, the full text for this file is in excess of 1 Mb. .]. (shrink)

'Art and Adaptability' argues for a co-evolution of theory of mind and material/art culture. The book covers relevant areas from great ape intelligence, hominin evolution, Stone Age tools, Paleolithic culture and art forms, to neurobiology. We use material and art objects, whether painting or sculpture, to modify our own and other people's thoughts so as to affect behavior. We don't just make judgments about mental states; we create objects about which we make judgments in which mental states are inherent. (...) Moreover, we make judgments about these objects to facilitate how we explore the minds and feelings of others. The argument is that it's not so much art because of theory of mind but art as theory of mind. (shrink)

The human urge to represent the three-dimensional world using two-dimensional pictorial representations dates back at least to Paleolithic times. Artists from ancient to modern times have struggled to understand how a few contours or color patches on a flat surface can induce mental representations of a three-dimensional scene. This article summarizes some of the recent breakthroughs in scientifically understanding how the brain sees that shed light on these struggles. These breakthroughs illustrate how various artists have intuitively understand paradoxical properties (...) about how the brain sees, and have used that understanding to create great art. These paradoxical properties arise from how the brain forms the units of conscious visual perception; namely, representations of threedimensional boundaries and surfaces. Boundaries and surfaces are computed in parallel cortical processing streams that obey computationally complementary properties. These streams interact at multiple levels to overcome their complementary weaknesses and to transform their complementary properties into consistent percepts. The article describes how properties of complementary consistency have guided the creation of many great works of art. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 101-107 [Access article in PDF] Art Education in Lower Secondary Schools in Japan and the United Kingdom This essay compares the system and practice of art education in Japan and the United Kingdom at the lower secondary school level. Three surveys on how art is taught form the basis of this research. I conducted the first survey in 1992, distributed to 156 (...) art teachers in Japan on their "real" curricula and compared them with syllabus samplers of nationally authorized textbooks. From 1993 to 1994, I studied in the United Kingdom the newly introduced National Curriculum and performed a survey on its impact on classroomteaching in 49 art departments in secondary schools, mostly in England. Since 1994, I have participated in a joint study project on craft education in secondary schools in Japan and Britain, in which 717 Japanese schools are cooperating via a questionnaire survey. The issues common to these surveys are how art teachers respond to the national standards in their own teaching practice, and what these responses suggest for the future development of this subject. This essay identifies survey findings in both countries, together with overviews on the systems and cultural factors affecting the state of Art and its implementation in curricula. Japan and the United Kingdom: An Overview Let us look briefly at the historical background of the national curricula in Japan and the United Kingdom. The education system in Japan was established by the central government and has maintained its unity. After World War II, a new national Course of Study was recommended but was not compulsory. But in the legislation of 1958, this Course of Study became binding and a new subject called "Technology and Home Economics" was introduced. A new term, "design" was adopted in Art, "craft" was removed, and the time allocated to Art was drastically reduced. In the 1969 revision, five main areas of Art study were established: drawing (painting), sculpture, design, craft, and art appreciation. In 1977, a recommended time allocation for each area in Art was eliminated, and the five areas were reorganized into two fields: "expression" and "appreciation." Between 1969 and 1977, lower secondary schools in Japan allotted two compulsory hours per week for Art in grades 7 and 8, one compulsory hour and one non-compulsory hour in grade 9. However, after the revisions of 1989 and 1998, the time allotted for Art has gradually decreased. [End Page 101]In the United Kingdom, different educational systems developed concurrently, and through political and ideological conflicts, the involvement of central government gradually grew until an integrated school system was established. 1 The National Curriculum, first introduced through the Education Act of 1988, clearly indicates Art as compulsory from Years 1 to 9 in state schools. 2 The Courses of Study in Japan are separated into primary, lower, and upper secondary levels, however, the consistency of Art as a subject is not as clear. 3 In England, the content is not differentiated into the areas of art, craft, and design, but is organized as a series of processes common to these areas including investigation, creation, and evaluation, based upon knowledge and understanding.The United Kingdom has no national system for authorizing textbooks, but the examination board syllabus for the General Certificate ofSecondary Education (GCSE), for example, has influenced the school curriculum. Art departments of each secondary school function as fairly independent entities, taking responsibility for curriculum and study resources. In Japan, in most cases, lower and upper secondary schools are separated, with only about one art teacher per school, which means improving the curriculum is determined by the efforts of the individual teacher in a limited environment.We also need to consider the cultural background. The United Kingdom has made a notable effort to incorporate a multicultural perspective, based upon the urgent recognition that the country has become a multi-ethnic society. There is also a growing awareness in Western societies that individual expression should be approved in relation to the culture of a given social group. In Japan, it has... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 101-107 [Access article in PDF] Art Education in Lower Secondary Schools in Japan and the United Kingdom This essay compares the system and practice of art education in Japan and the United Kingdom at the lower secondary school level. Three surveys on how art is taught form the basis of this research. I conducted the first survey in 1992, distributed to 156 (...) art teachers in Japan on their "real" curricula and compared them with syllabus samplers of nationally authorized textbooks. From 1993 to 1994, I studied in the United Kingdom the newly introduced National Curriculum and performed a survey on its impact on classroomteaching in 49 art departments in secondary schools, mostly in England. Since 1994, I have participated in a joint study project on craft education in secondary schools in Japan and Britain, in which 717 Japanese schools are cooperating via a questionnaire survey. The issues common to these surveys are how art teachers respond to the national standards in their own teaching practice, and what these responses suggest for the future development of this subject. This essay identifies survey findings in both countries, together with overviews on the systems and cultural factors affecting the state of Art and its implementation in curricula. Japan and the United Kingdom: An Overview Let us look briefly at the historical background of the national curricula in Japan and the United Kingdom. The education system in Japan was established by the central government and has maintained its unity. After World War II, a new national Course of Study was recommended but was not compulsory. But in the legislation of 1958, this Course of Study became binding and a new subject called "Technology and Home Economics" was introduced. A new term, "design" was adopted in Art, "craft" was removed, and the time allocated to Art was drastically reduced. In the 1969 revision, five main areas of Art study were established: drawing (painting), sculpture, design, craft, and art appreciation. In 1977, a recommended time allocation for each area in Art was eliminated, and the five areas were reorganized into two fields: "expression" and "appreciation." Between 1969 and 1977, lower secondary schools in Japan allotted two compulsory hours per week for Art in grades 7 and 8, one compulsory hour and one non-compulsory hour in grade 9. However, after the revisions of 1989 and 1998, the time allotted for Art has gradually decreased. [End Page 101]In the United Kingdom, different educational systems developed concurrently, and through political and ideological conflicts, the involvement of central government gradually grew until an integrated school system was established. 1 The National Curriculum, first introduced through the Education Act of 1988, clearly indicates Art as compulsory from Years 1 to 9 in state schools. 2 The Courses of Study in Japan are separated into primary, lower, and upper secondary levels, however, the consistency of Art as a subject is not as clear. 3 In England, the content is not differentiated into the areas of art, craft, and design, but is organized as a series of processes common to these areas including investigation, creation, and evaluation, based upon knowledge and understanding.The United Kingdom has no national system for authorizing textbooks, but the examination board syllabus for the General Certificate ofSecondary Education (GCSE), for example, has influenced the school curriculum. Art departments of each secondary school function as fairly independent entities, taking responsibility for curriculum and study resources. In Japan, in most cases, lower and upper secondary schools are separated, with only about one art teacher per school, which means improving the curriculum is determined by the efforts of the individual teacher in a limited environment.We also need to consider the cultural background. The United Kingdom has made a notable effort to incorporate a multicultural perspective, based upon the urgent recognition that the country has become a multi-ethnic society. There is also a growing awareness in Western societies that individual expression should be approved in relation to the culture of a given social group. In Japan, it has... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 32-41 [Access article in PDF] Does Art Education Dream of Disneyland? [Figures] Introduction What image can we present when challenged to illustrate art education in the form of a scheme? The word "illustration" literally means to build understanding through an explanatory diagram. In art education or anything [End Page 32] else, the use of a visual image to understand a certain system (...) can be interpreted as a question of human sensitivity and recognition. Translating minute nuances or peculiarities of information into a vibrant image is, however, a confusing and difficult exercise. In this essay, I attempt to portray those elements crucial to the teaching and learning process of art education using Disneyland as a structural as well as a functional metaphor. The Happiest Place on Earth? Disneyland is depicted as "a dream world" and "the happiest place on earth." As described in various incisive essays, Disneyland is a symbol of modern American culture, an ultimate form of the consumer society or the hegemony of entertainment. 1 To start with, the structural elements of this epitome of Walt Disney's vision are outlined.Walt Disney created Main Street USA (the World Bazaar) to make all visitors feel as if they are the leading character in a Disney film, walking through the main street of life. He attempted to remove the ugliness of everyday life from his dream space by eradicating the back streets of the real world. The design of the buildings along Main Street originates from Walt Disney's hometown. The sense of distance within the Disney complex is enhanced by using a smaller scale for the upper stories of buildings and a progressively narrowing street.Sleeping Beauty's Castle (or Cinderella Castle at Tokyo Disneyland) lies beyond Main Street and is modeled on Neuschwanstein Castle in Fussen,South Bayern, Germany. The road leading to the castle ascends slightly which amplifies the anticipation factor for visitors. Sleeping Beauty's Castle is the centerpiece of Disneyland and functions as the hub to guide visitors to various lands. Several attractive spaces radiate from this hub, forming a total of six areas.On the extension line from the Entrance via Sleeping Beauty's Castle lies Fantasyland where Walt Disney has reproduced the world of animation based on European legends and fables. Toontown lies beyond Fantasyland. This is a world of familiar characters, such as Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy. Traveling clockwise, Tomorrowland is next where all kinds of imaginary worlds await visitors. Adventureland, on the opposite side of Main Street, offers worlds of different cultures and spaces for adventure. Beyond Adventureland lies Westernland, designed to invite visitors to return to the Wild West.It is possible to form a hypothesis that there are three axes connecting the six lands. Those axes run through Sleeping Beauty's Castle that acts as the hub and two opposing areas on the same axis with the Castle being the point of symmetry.The first axis could be the axis of "reality." If Main Street is considered to be the "crawling approachway" from the everyday sphere to dreamland,Fantasyland, offering playful space of extraordinary imagination, is set [End Page 33] against the ordinary space for everyday life. The second axis is the axis of "relationship" which connects individual persons to society. Toontown presents a world of fraternity and is a place where people bonded by kinship or friendship can trust each other and feel at ease. Frontierland, located on the opposite side of this axis creates a solitary space where people leave family and friends for the adventure of traveling to unknown lands. The third and final axis is that of "time" from the past to the future. Tomorrowland is a future world based on fantasy and imagination where prophecies becomereality. On the opposite side of this axis lies Westernland embodying the history and traditions of the American past.It is possible to regard each area of Disneyland, structured by these different worlds, as a metaphor to reflect the basic content and structure of art education in the context of the general curriculum. In fact... (shrink)

The author of handbooks that reflected the Victorian emphasis on bettering one's prospects, Charles Eyre Pascoe addressed the topic of female education in this work of 1879, at a time when the Cambridge colleges of Girton and Newnham were in their infancy. 'Chiefly designed for the use of persons of the upper middle class', the guide aims to assist parents in making informed choices about their daughters' education. The coverage extends from kindergarten through to university, before focusing on career (...) options for women in the late nineteenth century, in fields such as teaching, the arts and medicine. Throughout, Pascoe's recommendations are based on consideration of the breadth of the curriculum, the qualifications of the teaching staff and the results achieved in examinations. For higher education, details of entrance examinations are provided, together with information on the subjects and lectures that were open to women at that time. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 32-41 [Access article in PDF] Does Art Education Dream of Disneyland? [Figures] Introduction What image can we present when challenged to illustrate art education in the form of a scheme? The word "illustration" literally means to build understanding through an explanatory diagram. In art education or anything [End Page 32] else, the use of a visual image to understand a certain system (...) can be interpreted as a question of human sensitivity and recognition. Translating minute nuances or peculiarities of information into a vibrant image is, however, a confusing and difficult exercise. In this essay, I attempt to portray those elements crucial to the teaching and learning process of art education using Disneyland as a structural as well as a functional metaphor. The Happiest Place on Earth? Disneyland is depicted as "a dream world" and "the happiest place on earth." As described in various incisive essays, Disneyland is a symbol of modern American culture, an ultimate form of the consumer society or the hegemony of entertainment. 1 To start with, the structural elements of this epitome of Walt Disney's vision are outlined.Walt Disney created Main Street USA (the World Bazaar) to make all visitors feel as if they are the leading character in a Disney film, walking through the main street of life. He attempted to remove the ugliness of everyday life from his dream space by eradicating the back streets of the real world. The design of the buildings along Main Street originates from Walt Disney's hometown. The sense of distance within the Disney complex is enhanced by using a smaller scale for the upper stories of buildings and a progressively narrowing street.Sleeping Beauty's Castle (or Cinderella Castle at Tokyo Disneyland) lies beyond Main Street and is modeled on Neuschwanstein Castle in Fussen,South Bayern, Germany. The road leading to the castle ascends slightly which amplifies the anticipation factor for visitors. Sleeping Beauty's Castle is the centerpiece of Disneyland and functions as the hub to guide visitors to various lands. Several attractive spaces radiate from this hub, forming a total of six areas.On the extension line from the Entrance via Sleeping Beauty's Castle lies Fantasyland where Walt Disney has reproduced the world of animation based on European legends and fables. Toontown lies beyond Fantasyland. This is a world of familiar characters, such as Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy. Traveling clockwise, Tomorrowland is next where all kinds of imaginary worlds await visitors. Adventureland, on the opposite side of Main Street, offers worlds of different cultures and spaces for adventure. Beyond Adventureland lies Westernland, designed to invite visitors to return to the Wild West.It is possible to form a hypothesis that there are three axes connecting the six lands. Those axes run through Sleeping Beauty's Castle that acts as the hub and two opposing areas on the same axis with the Castle being the point of symmetry.The first axis could be the axis of "reality." If Main Street is considered to be the "crawling approachway" from the everyday sphere to dreamland,Fantasyland, offering playful space of extraordinary imagination, is set [End Page 33] against the ordinary space for everyday life. The second axis is the axis of "relationship" which connects individual persons to society. Toontown presents a world of fraternity and is a place where people bonded by kinship or friendship can trust each other and feel at ease. Frontierland, located on the opposite side of this axis creates a solitary space where people leave family and friends for the adventure of traveling to unknown lands. The third and final axis is that of "time" from the past to the future. Tomorrowland is a future world based on fantasy and imagination where prophecies becomereality. On the opposite side of this axis lies Westernland embodying the history and traditions of the American past.It is possible to regard each area of Disneyland, structured by these different worlds, as a metaphor to reflect the basic content and structure of art education in the context of the general curriculum. In fact... (shrink)

The subject of the study is the epistemological specificity of art through the «prism» of the Paleolithic and modern eras. The focus of the research is aimed at analyzing the phenomenon of «eidetism», which is a link between modern and primitive art. The purpose of the article is to comprehend the epistemological specifics of art, which began with the «psychophysiology» of the primitive world and developed into forms of «practical philosophizing» of the modern era. The research methodology includes a (...) review of literary sources, a dialectical approach to historical and art historical reconstruction, analysis of paleopsychological data, comparative analysis, elements of systems psychology and sociology. An element of novelty is the author's position that already in the lower, early layers of its evolution, the status of art «as one of the most ancient forms of human activity» is enriched by the status of «a form of practical philosophizing». The generalization is made that the art of the XX-XXI centuries, on the one hand, abandoned both mimesis and humanism, on the other – it continued the path of «practical philosophizing» begun in ancient times, based on the perceptual-empirical method of cognition of reality. The evolution of art from its primitive origins through archaic, classical to its modern state is, at the same time, the transformation of human consciousness, and the comprehension through artistic and creative activity of one's being and place in the universe, etc. - the development of its «depth» (the content of art). This is the development of art «in breadth» (the development of artistic form): the proliferation of its types and genres, the growth of stylistic and technological polyphony, etc. As a result, «art has come a long way from its purely psychophysiological hypostasis to «practical philosophizing». Artistic and creative activity itself as a whole continues to be the most important component of the global «mechanism» of mastering reality. (shrink)

Since the stone age humankind has created masterworks which possess a mysterious quality of solidity and grandeur or monumentality. A Paleolithic Venus and a still life by Cezanne both share this monumentality. Michelangelo likened monumentality to sculptural relief, Braque called monumentality 'space', and Hans Hoffman, himself one of the masters, called monumentality 'pictorial depth.' The masters agreed on the import of monumentality, but none of them left a clear explanation of it. In 1943 Earl Loran published his classic book (...) on Cezanne's pictorial structure but, as I demonstrate, his explanation was misleading. This book provide a clear explanation, as did an earlier book by Robert Casper. This book also traces some history of monumentality with reproductions. It also explains how some painters achieved monumentality and how a student can attempt it. Pictorial space is created in the tension between pairs of opposing planes. Opposing planes pull against each other, each containing the other, paradoxically, within the flat surface of the canvas. Sculpture also can be 'plastic': opposing masses pull against each other, each containing the other and creating tension in the space which lies between them. Painting has other aspects like subject matter, expression, style and technique but pictorial space does not depend on these. Monumentality moves us profoundly and apparently has done so since the Paleolith. Using patients' vignettes, I show that there are profound parallels between the structure of a monumental work of art and the structure of an evolving personality. In Winnicott's words, such a personality has 'depth ... an interior space to put beliefs in ... an inside ... a space where things can be held ... the capacity to accept paradox [to contain opposites] ... room and strength ... and originality and the acceptance of tradition as the basis for invention'. A monumental painting also meets this description. I argue that monumental art provides a visual portrait of an evolving personality just as myth, as Freud and Jung both showed, provides a narrative portrait of an evolving personality. An evolving personality is perhaps humankind's most important creation; an underlying purpose of both myth and art is to help us achieve it. I demonstrate in this book that monumental art represented the evolving personality since at least 35,000 BC. Thus to understand monumentality is to better understand the personality and its history. (shrink)

In this article, focusing on the building blocks of art with its concomitant role and meaning, we commence with a brief evolutionary overview of the origin of land vertebrates, which culminated in the rise of our species as we view it. We then review three iconic phases of human evolution, colloquially designated as the Neanderthals, the San and the Cro-Magnons, as manifested by their artistic endeavours. We are well aware that the Cro-Magnons are currently regarded as not sufficiently distinct from (...) modern Homo sapiens to be separately designated. Therefore, the terms ‘anatomically modern humans’ or ‘early modern humans’ are suggested for these inhabitants of the Upper Palaeolithic as they shared an anatomical resemblance with us but still lacked the full complement of behavioural attributes that typify ourselves. This particular selection was chosen because these groups have partially overlapped historically, yet each represents a distinctive approach to the artistic impulse. Subsequently, we consider more contemporary developments regarding human art intertwined with our interpretation of art’s role and meaning. Then, we briefly discuss a broader account of the evolution of art in which these three phases are firmly based and through which our understanding of and engagement with the evolutionary development of these stages are elucidated and complemented. In conclusion, particular views about language and the role and meaning of art are confirmed. Particular views about language and the role and meaning of art are endorsed and supplemented by an extensive body of relevant literature.Contribution: This article explores the evolution of art and its accompanying role and meaning in an intersectional and interdisciplinary manner that fits well with the intention of this unique collection on the building blocks of our past, present and future and with the nature of this journal and our ongoing engagement with HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies. (shrink)

In his book Byzantine Art in the Making; Main Lines of Stylistic Development in Mediterranean Art 3 rd–7 th Century, Ernst Kitzinger describes three types of subjects represented in a group of ivory plaques most likely executed in the same Roman workshop c. 400. He begins with the famous pair of ivory panels inscribed with the names Nicomachi (Paris, Musée Cluny) and Symmachi (London, Victoria and Albert Museum), two of the old Roman senatorial families known for their efforts and actions (...) to preserve and protect pagan rites during the final decades of the fourth century in Rome [fig. 1]. Each of the two panels shows a priestess performing a rite before an altar. Kitzinger's main interest was in the classicistic style of the settings and figures, recruited to emphasize the patrons' purposes. He compares the priestess diptych with the official ivory diptych of Rufius Probianus. There in each part Probianus, vicarius of the city of Rome, is seen seated on a throne flanked by two notaries [fig. 2]. Below, two patricians stand in acclamation pose. The devotional pair of ivories and the official one, says Kitzinger, are closely related. The borders of the first diptych, made of “delicately wrought palmette ornament” are identical with the frames of the second one, including the borders dividing the Probianus panels into upper and lower zones. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 3-11 [Access article in PDF] A Historical Overview of Art Education in Japan Introduction The stage of art education in Japan that was given its form by "imports" from overseas — mainly Western countries — is now over. Recently, even at international art education conferences and similar venues, a wide range of dynamic presentations and speeches were heard representing Japan's unique perspective. (...) There is, however, a rather long and involved history leading up to this shift.In this essay, I present a general outline and an overview of art education in Japan, by looking back at the transitions this system of education has undergone. My hope is to increase understanding of the unique features of art education in Japan, examining the characteristics ofmodern art education, and determining the form that art education should take in the future. The Birth of Art Education: 1872-1910 Art education in Japan began in 1872 with the promulgation of the "Gakusei" as a formal system for school education. 1 It was in this same year that Germany introduced a similar system, an indication that Japan was more or less in step with advanced Western nations. Moreover, from the end of the Tokugawa shogunate through to the Meiji era (1868-1912), the seeds of Westernization had clearly taken root. Although the term "art education" is used, for many years the emphasis in art education was on drawing.The first curriculum was established at this time. In the context of art education, Kikagaku Keiga Taii [Introduction to Geometrical Line Drawing] (renamed Keiga the following month) was introduced as a compulsory subject in upper elementary grades (students 10 to 13 years of age) at ordinary elementary schools. Keiga referred to a method of copying pictures from a copybook using graph paper — a method that was extremely restrictive and emphasized practicality.By 1887, under the new government's policy, Westernization was being promoted in all aspects of society, including politics and culture. Art education was no exception, as Western style education began to focus on pencil drawings. During this period, a liberal system for issuing and selecting textbooks was in place, and a consequently a large number of art-related texts were issued. The first drawing textbook in Japan was Seiga Shinan [Guide to [End Page 3] Western Pictures] (1871), a translation of "The Illustrated Drawing Book" by English author Robert Scott Burn, with selected figure quotations from"The American Drawing-Book" by American author John G. Chapman. 2 In addition to these texts, many other books on drawing and the natural sciences were quoted. These textbooks adopted a pragmatic approach, using a "progressive method" in which students were taught to draw easy subjects and gradually moved to more difficult ones.The next significant change came in the form of calls for nationalism, as a reaction to the wave of Westernization early in the Meiji period. Educationalcircles underwent a shift toward nationalist education, and the art worldexperienced a resurgence in traditional Japanese art led by the American Ernest Fenollosa and Tenshin Okakura, among others. Reflecting this trend, a large number of brush painting textbooks were written, and an authorization system similar to the one currently in effect was adopted. The ZugaTorishirabe Gakari [the Committee for the Study of Drawing] was launched in 1885, and then reorganized in 1887, at which time it was renamed the Tokyo Fine Arts School (currently the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music). The education offered at this new institution placed a strong emphasis on purely Japanese elements.In 1903, the Elementary School Order was revised and government-designated textbooks were issued. This system remained in force from 1904 until 1947. The debate surrounding pencil drawing and brush painting continued, and two types of texts were issued — a Enpitsuga Tehon [pencil drawing copybook] and a Mohitsuga Tehon [brush painting copybook] — either of which could be used by the instructor. Both copybooks had similar configurations, with copying as the basic theme, and using a progressive study method. Drawing was still an optional subject in ordinary elementary schoolsat the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.4 (2003) 3-11 [Access article in PDF] A Historical Overview of Art Education in Japan Introduction The stage of art education in Japan that was given its form by "imports" from overseas — mainly Western countries — is now over. Recently, even at international art education conferences and similar venues, a wide range of dynamic presentations and speeches were heard representing Japan's unique perspective. (...) There is, however, a rather long and involved history leading up to this shift.In this essay, I present a general outline and an overview of art education in Japan, by looking back at the transitions this system of education has undergone. My hope is to increase understanding of the unique features of art education in Japan, examining the characteristics ofmodern art education, and determining the form that art education should take in the future. The Birth of Art Education: 1872-1910 Art education in Japan began in 1872 with the promulgation of the "Gakusei" as a formal system for school education. 1 It was in this same year that Germany introduced a similar system, an indication that Japan was more or less in step with advanced Western nations. Moreover, from the end of the Tokugawa shogunate through to the Meiji era (1868-1912), the seeds of Westernization had clearly taken root. Although the term "art education" is used, for many years the emphasis in art education was on drawing.The first curriculum was established at this time. In the context of art education, Kikagaku Keiga Taii [Introduction to Geometrical Line Drawing] (renamed Keiga the following month) was introduced as a compulsory subject in upper elementary grades (students 10 to 13 years of age) at ordinary elementary schools. Keiga referred to a method of copying pictures from a copybook using graph paper — a method that was extremely restrictive and emphasized practicality.By 1887, under the new government's policy, Westernization was being promoted in all aspects of society, including politics and culture. Art education was no exception, as Western style education began to focus on pencil drawings. During this period, a liberal system for issuing and selecting textbooks was in place, and a consequently a large number of art-related texts were issued. The first drawing textbook in Japan was Seiga Shinan [Guide to [End Page 3] Western Pictures] (1871), a translation of "The Illustrated Drawing Book" by English author Robert Scott Burn, with selected figure quotations from"The American Drawing-Book" by American author John G. Chapman. 2 In addition to these texts, many other books on drawing and the natural sciences were quoted. These textbooks adopted a pragmatic approach, using a "progressive method" in which students were taught to draw easy subjects and gradually moved to more difficult ones.The next significant change came in the form of calls for nationalism, as a reaction to the wave of Westernization early in the Meiji period. Educationalcircles underwent a shift toward nationalist education, and the art worldexperienced a resurgence in traditional Japanese art led by the American Ernest Fenollosa and Tenshin Okakura, among others. Reflecting this trend, a large number of brush painting textbooks were written, and an authorization system similar to the one currently in effect was adopted. The ZugaTorishirabe Gakari [the Committee for the Study of Drawing] was launched in 1885, and then reorganized in 1887, at which time it was renamed the Tokyo Fine Arts School (currently the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music). The education offered at this new institution placed a strong emphasis on purely Japanese elements.In 1903, the Elementary School Order was revised and government-designated textbooks were issued. This system remained in force from 1904 until 1947. The debate surrounding pencil drawing and brush painting continued, and two types of texts were issued — a Enpitsuga Tehon [pencil drawing copybook] and a Mohitsuga Tehon [brush painting copybook] — either of which could be used by the instructor. Both copybooks had similar configurations, with copying as the basic theme, and using a progressive study method. Drawing was still an optional subject in ordinary elementary schoolsat the... (shrink)

This paper examines three ancient traits of religion whose origins likely date back to the Upper Paleolithic: ancestor worship, shamanism, and the belief in natural and animal spirits. Evidence for the emergence of these traits coincides with evidence for a dramatic advance in human social cooperation. It is argued that these traits played a role in the evolution of human cooperation through the mechanism of social scrutiny. Social scrutiny is an effective means of reducing individualism and enhancing prosocial (...) behavior. Religion’s most ancient traits represent an extension of the human social world into the supernatural, thus reinforcing within-group cooperation by means of ever-vigilant spiritual monitors. Believing that the spirits were always watching may have helped reduce the number of non-cooperators within a group while reinforcing group behavioral norms, thus allowing humanlike levels of cooperation to emerge. (shrink)

The discourse on kitsch has changed tone. The concept, which in the early 20th century referred more to pretentious pseudo-art than to cute everyday objects, was attacked between the World Wars by theorists of modernity (e.g. Greenberg on Repin). The late 20th century scholars gazed at it with critical curiosity (Eco, Kulka, Calinescu). What we now have is a profound interest in and acceptance of cute mass-produced objects. It has become marginal to use the concept to criticize pseudo-art. Scholars who (...) write about kitsch are no longer against it (Anderson, Olalquiaga). And since the 2000s, art students have been telling us that they “love kitsch”. The contemporary concept is strongly attached to certain colors (pink) and materials (porcelain). In this article I aspire to find some keys on how to view the history and contemporary state of the concept. My hypothesis is that the change in the use of the concept has at least partly to do with changes in the concept of art, which has lately, this is my hypothesis, become sufficiently decentralized from its original roots and boundaries (upper class, male, ethnically Central European). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.1 (2003) 143-150 [Access article in PDF] Species Nova [To See Anew]Art as Ecology David Haley Looking Back From space, looking back at earth, we may see three key issues: the accelerating increase of the human species, the accelerating decrease of other species, and the accelerating effects of climate change. We might ask, how are we to cope with these changes creatively?That our societies tend (...) to value economics over ecology, and monoculture and agro-industry over diversity and permaculture, is certainly worthy of ethical attention. Here I want to invoke a call for integrating art as a necessary contribution to ecological intervention. I consider how artists may engage uncertainty, and how art may be used to develop new ways of seeing and "drawing." This is art for evolutionary survival, not commodification. Art that practices care, shared responsibility, and diversity in the pursuit of eco-centric cultures. Although this paper mainly references visual art forms, this should not be taken to exclude others. Here I am primarily concerned with identifying some of the possible forms of ecological or eco-art. This is art practiced by artist and inventors in the manner of the archetype of Daedalus and worthy of the name implied by the root of the word art. Rt, an ancient term from the Rg Vedas, refers to the virtuous, continuing creation of the cosmos. [End Page 143] Seeing is Believing/ Uncertainty in View The suffix species nova is ascribed by scientists to a new bacterium species, prior to the confirmation of its existence in the appropriate academic journals. The word species means "to look" and "a class of things, living organisms capable of exchanging genes, classified as a taxonomic rank below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial." It also refers to "the visible form of each of the elements of consecrated bread and wine in the Eucharist." Nova refers to the mistaken sighting of a new star, a flash of brightness that quickly dims. Something novel is a new kind of nature, something strange or previously unknown, and novelty refers to invention. Species nova: two words that evoke ideas about innovations of visual experience and belief.I use the phrase to denote the potential for understanding a new order and evolutionary change—"to see anew." I am also aware that species nova could mean a mistaken religious experience, or a class of living things that flashes brightly and quickly dims. Uncertainty is embedded in the richness of meanings.It is ten years since the Earth Summit in Rio popularized the notion of sustainable development and introduced Agenda 21 as a strategy to achieve it. Sadly, culture and art, two of the systems that define humanity, were not mentioned among the necessary tools for building a better future.But what is sustainable development? Is it about conservation, restoration, or regeneration? Will it stop global warming and feed the poor, or is it like candyfloss—a confection of transient comfort, with no real meaning? Has it become a corrupt cultural construct, an anthropocentric myth in the vain pursuit of hope?Recently the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed that "most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities." However, the projections and models that have been developed for policy makers to envisage climate change scenarios demonstrate the limits of our ability to understand the situation, let alone adapt to it. A recent review in Nature, comparing two twenty-year forecasts ironically concluded: Uncertainties therefore remain that are beyond the statistical uncertainties described in the two papers. But both sets of authors point out that the upper bound on the potential warming for 2100 may well be [End Page 144] above the IPCC figure of 5.8K under 'heavy emissions' scenarios. So policy-makers should not discount the possibility of a very warm climate considering long-range policy options. (Funnel 2001, 5) A subsequent article in Nature's Climate Change Review reveals even more concern about communicating scientific uncertainty, because models that simulate long-term climate changes cannot be tested using real... (shrink)