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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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When you look at the linked cave you see animals drawn, painted. But in between the actual drawings, just with a little bit of imagination you can see more animals just by means of the light striking the unevennesses of the surface.
It's call pareidolia. I'm not saying that this disproves the idea but it suggests that our seeing animal shapes in natural features on the cave walls when our minds are primed by the paintings to see those shapes does not support it, either.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The caves in which these pictures (and most others like them) occur are extremely hard places to get into. In some cases they are in the farthest possible recesses, or on high ceilings hard to reach. They were not made in everyday places for common consumption. They were special, which probably indicates a religious significance. So even in prehistoric times, art was esoteric and inaccessible. Not that surprising, really.
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veteran
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veteran
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I have not done much reading on postmodernism beyond wiki. I have done some reading on deconstruction, none of which makes any remote sense to me. I cannot distinguish whether it is brilliant or just stupid. As with most things, I assume that reading about it is largely a waste of time and so I read a few things that were recommended to me by others - an essay or letter or something written by Derrida and some chapter of a book by a guy named Foucault. I don't remember details - only thinking that everything they wrote was (as Gauss apparently wrote about Kant) "either obvious or wrong."
In relation to art, etc., I think there are useful, interesting, and beautiful things to come of it, but that much of it's crap. Hopefully, we can - as with every other cultural digression - assimilate what's good and interesting and relegate the rest to the fail experiment graveyard. Some of the stuff you can barely look at without thinking about tulips and Holland.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The caves in which these pictures (and most others like them) occur are extremely hard places to get into. In some cases they are in the farthest possible recesses, or on high ceilings hard to reach. They were not made in everyday places for common consumption. They were special, which probably indicates a religious significance. So even in prehistoric times, art was esoteric and inaccessible. Not that surprising, really. Not easy to combine pre-history and post-history. Back to ThePook to agree that there seem to have been special worshipping caves (I already mentioned). They did live in caves in that region, but different caves. In the fifties Time-Life ran a series of articles called: The Epic of Man. I have the whole series in a special translated edition. 1963. Two illustration by Alton S.Tobey who, like it or not, did a great job. painters at work worshipping Most art,when taken over all the works created all through history is very accessible. It's only lately that artists seem to create a deliberate inaccessibiliy. "The Emperor's wardrobe" Esoteric has always been part of art. What's wrong with that? And the Falls'Feind's "Tulips and Holaland" must be a postmodern poetry line e.i. I don't get it.
Last edited by BranShea; 10/02/08 03:40 PM.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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When you look at the linked cave you see animals drawn, painted. But in between the actual drawings, just with a little bit of imagination you can see more animals just by means of the light striking the unevennesses of the surface.
pareidolia: I'm not saying that this disproves the idea but it suggests that our seeing animal shapes in natural features on the cave walls when our minds are primed by the paintings to see those shapes does not support it, either. Sorry for the separate post for clearness' sake. It has a name then: pariedolia. What I meant and try to imagine is how did this given capacity of the human brain result in the first drawings. ( The cave situation is not really the point) ThePook speaks of acid heads. I don't believe that. Even from early childhood I remember shaping mind-forms when staring at the fourties's wallpaper. We werent on any drugs, ThePook. Maybe only a bit hungry.
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veteran
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veteran
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And the Falls'Feind's "Tulips and Holaland" must be a postmodern poetry line e.i. I don't get it. The "value" of some Postmodern Art reminds me of tulipmania.
Last edited by TheFallibleFiend; 10/03/08 01:56 AM.
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old hand
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old hand
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I don't remember details - only thinking that everything they wrote was (as Gauss apparently wrote about Kant) "either obvious or wrong." ...or obviously wrong? In relation to art, etc., I think there are useful, interesting, and beautiful things to come of it, but that much of it's crap. ...and some of it is quite literally crap! (and other bodily excretions or secretions)
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old hand
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old hand
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You misunderstand me Bran, it wasn't my idea that the earliest rock art was psychedelic. That was just a TV show I saw. I think it is far-fetched too. I believe the simplest hypothesis, which is usually the right one, is that the earliest art was simply representational.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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O.K. I stop misunderstanding you right now. It's ancient history anyway.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I remember seeing a cave painting or sculpture of a wild pig that had been speared. The picture stayed in my mind but I was not that impressed with it as a work of art until I saw a movie in an anthropology class in college that included the spearing of a domestic pig. The cave artist had captured the experience exactly.
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