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. 

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 7.55 and is filed under Paleolithic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.