Caves to Cathedrals

While the earliest art in Africa should figure centrally in a survey taught from a global perspective, this stone offers too little with which to work.  Rather than present a token African object before the meatier material from Western Europe, the prehistoric material from Gardner’s Chapter 15 - Africa before 1800 - should be integrated with with its paleolithic and neolithic, Ancient Near Eastern and Western European counterparts in Chapter 1, in order to create a truly global perspective on prehistoric art. 

Gardner’s chapter on African art only covers one rock painting from Tassili n’Ajjer in Algeria, ca. 6000-4000 BCE (Fig. 15-2), but Stokstad also includes an incised ocher plaque, ca. 70,000 BCE, from the Blombos Cave in South Africa (Fig. 13-2), in its chapter on African Art.  Adams’ Art Across Time does not take a global perspective, but includes small sections throughout the text, called “Windows on the World”, which actually facilitate meaningful chronological connections between western and non-western civilizations.  To accompany the prehistoric chapter, Adams offers three pages on the rock paintings of Australia. The potential for a truly global treatment of prehistoric art is entirely within reach.

As a rule, however, I did not present monuments or objects in class that Gardner’s did not also cover.  I wanted the students to have a point of reference in the textbook for any image that I showed in class. So, sadly, this rock from the Apollo 11 Cave in Namibia remained a token, for to incorporate more meaningfully the Paelolithic art of Africa would require more monuments and objects than Garnder’s provides.

For those who do not adhere to this rule, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has published on-line the text of a lecture on the earliest African art by Ian Tattersall, “Africa: Continent of Origins,” from which an effort to incorporate the earliest African art could begin.  This lecture accompanied the exhibition, Genesis: Ideas of Origin in African Sculpture. 

At first, I strongly disliked the opening of the first chapter in Gardner’s with the Makapansgat Pebble.  When I taught the class, I just skipped over it.  In my mind, we may as well have discussed how children can see shapes in clouds passing overhead.  Also, the need to compare the found pebble to the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp felt to me like pandering.

Now, many months later, I may have a change of heart.  First, an archaeological context permits us to speculate that some creature actually preserved the pebble.  Perhaps, rather than describing it as the ante-type of Duchamp’s ready-mades, one could pose the question of how this pebble does in fact differ from the recognition of a familiar shape in a cloud formation, for this pebble does not represent some universal timeless phenomenon, but has an archaeological context that reveals its use, and a discussion of this discovery of meaning through the reconstruction of context creates an ideal prelude to the study of ancient and medieval art.  Furthermore, the findspot of the pebble, South Africa, opens our mind to the existence of paleolithic art beyond Europe.

Web resources include material on the website of Jeffrey K. McKee, a professor of Anthropology at Ohio State University.  A page of the website of the Australian Rock Art Research Association, headed by Robert Bednarik, also provides useful analysis.   In each instance, appearance belies its authority.

On a side note, that the caption in Gardner’s does not identify the Natural History Museum in London as the holder of this pebble surprises me.

Gardner’s Art through the Ages will provide a starting point for my comments, but I will also refer to the other major survey texts.  For each period, I will first list the monuments and objects reproduced in Gardner’s in a table that compares Gardner’s choice with those of the other major survey texts.  Please remember that the other major survey texts include other images that are not on the list.  My vantage point is that of someone who has taught with Gardner’s, for better or worse…

Click on chart for clear view:

I will also set up a photo gallery, but will password protect it, so as to avoid problems with copyright.  Please email me if you are teaching Caves to Cathedrals and could use some images.

Once a post goes into the archives, I will copy the material to the Wiki, the link to which you see under “Associated Pages” to the right.  Access to this wiki requires registration. 

I will refer to all of the major textbooks that approach the first part of the two-semester art history survey from a global perspective. 

My course used Gardner’s Art through the Ages, 12th edition, but I will also consult the 13th edition, Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: A Global History (with ArtStudy Printed Access Card and Timeline) (Gardner’s Art Through the Ages), for any improvements.

I will also refer to Marilyn Stokstad’s Art History, Combined (3rd Edition) and Laura Schneider Adams’ Art across Time 3/e Hardcover, as well as Hugh Honour and John Fleming’s The Visual Arts: A History (Combined) (7th Edition).

Just as I will critique my syllabus, I will also critique these surveys. 

History of Art I, A Syllabus

Here I offer to you the syllabus that I created when I taught ‘Caves to Cathedrals’ in the fall of 2007.   Please be cautioned – this particular class met four days each week, for a total of 55 class meetings over the course of the semester.  Most courses would not meet this often or this much.   We covered a lot of material and had time to go into some depth for each and every period studied.

My guiding principle as I developed this syllabus was to look at works of art that date to the same historical moment in close proximity to one another.  As anyone familiar with the standard survey texts knows, most do not facilitate such an approach.  I therefore needed to cut and paste the pages, virtually-speaking. 

My postings to this blog will describe how I taught this syllabus.  As I go along, I will offer some critique of the syllabus and ideas on how to improve it.

Welcome to my new-site, Caves to Cathedrals.  Through this site, I aim to provide resources for the teaching of the first part of the traditional two-semester art history survey course, affectionately called ‘Caves to Cathedrals.’   This site will take the global perspective and cover ancient and medieval India, China, and Mesoamerica alongside the civilizations that constitute the “western” tradition (i.e. Ancient Near East through Medieval Europe, including Islam) and prioritize publically-accessible resources on the world wide web, but will, at times, include Jstor-available articles and not-too-rare books and journals.