Why art was originally syncretic. Primitive Art: How Man Became Human - Syncretism

Syncretism (art)

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The Wiktionary contains an article "syncretism" Syncretism (Latin syncretismus, from ... Wikipedia

In the broad sense of the word, the indivisibility of various types of cultural creativity, characteristic of the early stages of its development. Most often, however, this term is applied to the field of art, to the facts of the historical development of music, dance, drama and ... ... Literary encyclopedia

ART. The root of the word is trial experience, trial, attempt, trial, recognition; skilful who has come down to skill or knowledge by many experiences. All cognition is based on sensation, which is realized due to irritation, direct excitation ... ... Literary encyclopedia

Art- ART. The root of the word is trial experience, trial, attempt, trial, recognition; skilful who has come down to skill or knowledge by many experiences. At the heart of all cognition is a sensation that is realized thanks to irritation, direct ... ... Dictionary of literary terms

A; m. [from the Greek. synkrētismos association] 1. Book. Fusion, indivisibility, characterizing the initial, undeveloped state of what l. C. primitive art (in which dance, singing and music existed in unity). 2. Philos. ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Syncretism- (Greek synkretismos association) cultural category, meaning: 1) a combination within a certain undivided integrity of elements and properties, which will subsequently begin to stand out into independent subsystems and become ... ... Aesthetics. encyclopedic Dictionary

SYNCRETISM- (from the Greek synkrētismós - connection), in a broad sense - the initial fusion of various types of cultural creativity, characteristic of the early stages of its development; in relation to art means the primary indivisibility of different ... ... Literary encyclopedic dictionary

Hellenistic art is the art of Ancient Greece, the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean, Western Asia, the northwestern regions of the Central and southern regions of Central Asia in the fourth quarter of the IV 1st century. BC NS. Development… … Art encyclopedia

D. as a poetic genus Origin D. Eastern D. Antique D. Medieval D. D. Renaissance From Renaissance to Classicism Elizabethan D. Spanish D. Classical D. Bourgeois D. Ro ... Literary encyclopedia

ANCIENT GREECE- the territory in the south of the Balkan Peninsula (see also the articles Antiquity, Greece). The history of D. G. covers the period from the beginning. II millennium BC to the beginning. 1st millennium A.D. Geography and ethnography Phaistos disc. XVII century BC (Archaeological Museum in Heraklio, ... ... Orthodox encyclopedia

Books

• Introduction to the history of world culture in 2 volumes. Volume 1. Textbook for universities, Kagan MS .. The presented textbook sets out a new concept of the laws of development of world culture, which is based on their synergetic understanding. The book is presented in two volumes. In the first volume ...

Materials of the XIV International Conference of Young Scientists “Man in the World. The world in man: actual problems of philosophy, sociology, political science and psychology. " Perm, 2011

UDC 141.338 + 7

Syncretism of art

Perm State National Research University,

E-mail: ***** @ *** com

During the second half of the XX century. social reality is changing rapidly. The era of postmodernism is imbued with eschatologism, eclecticism and cruelty, in its traditional sense. The impulsively changing reality is reflected in the artistic activity of people. The contemporary art of postmodernism demonstrates to us the striking features of cultural syncretism. These traits in post-industrial society, in accordance with our hypothesis, are transformed into a new syncretism due to the progress of human universality. On the basis of new technologies and the development of human intelligence at the same time, the possibility of synthesizing all types of arts is currently being formed. In the future, art will acquire the quality of syncretic unity and fusion. We are witnessing emerging trends in the cultural space, where there is no border between art forms, spectator and author, art and everyday life.

During the second half of the 20th century, social reality, overcome by the economic crisis and environmental threat, is rapidly changing. This process finds expression in the artistic activity of people. In this regard, in order to realize our rather contradictory reality, people direct their gaze to contemporary art as its reflection.

Informatization and “learning of labor” in the leading sectors of the economy, the growth of the service sector and the systemic crisis of capitalism make humanity think about the “new” that is engulfing our society. In culture in general and in art in particular, there is a tendency to comprehend the "new" reality as an integrity in all its structural and functional diversity. The explosive nature of the social changes being made has come into clear conflict with the psychological, cognitive and cultural attitudes of people, which have a thousand-year history. The mixture of styles, genres and trends in contemporary art reflects the vacuum in which a modern person unexpectedly finds himself.

Postmodernism originally emerged as a visual culture that differs from classical painting and architecture in that it focuses not on reflection, but on modeling reality. The new state in which the culture found itself after the transformations experienced is usually called postmodernism; it touched all spheres of human life, such as the rules of the game in science, literature and art.

The contemporary art of postmodernism reveals to us the striking features of cultural syncretism. These traits in post-industrial society, in accordance with our hypothesis, are transformed into a new syncretism due to the progress of human universality. On the basis of new technologies and the development of human intelligence at the same time, the possibility of synthesizing all types of arts is currently being formed, which in the future will acquire the quality of syncretic unity and fusion. We are just witnesses of emerging trends in the cultural space, where there is no border between the types of art, spectator and author, art and everyday life. The fusion of various arts, the unity of types and genres - such syncretism is closely connected with the phenomenon of mixed technique, with various kinds of mixing and synthetism. Conscious mixing of various types of art generates redundancy of means and techniques of artistic expression. To create an artistic image, authors use all kinds of media devices, artists are attracted by new expressive means, the capabilities of a video camera, sound and musical design, the development of action in time, etc. There are many examples illustrating these trends that cannot be ignored. However, the question of whether artistic creation will follow the path of further syncretization, or choose a different path of development, remains open. It should not be forgotten that art is initiated in more fundamental layers of social life: in culture, social relations and, ultimately, in social life. That is why the outlines of new horizons of art depend on where the ship of social development turns.

According to Castells, technology is a factor determining social development; in the 1980s, it was information technologies that provoked "social and practical restructuring." “At the end of the twentieth century, we are experiencing one of these rare moments in history. This moment is characterized by the transformation of our "material culture" through the work of a new technological paradigm, built around information technologies. " Thus, new media systems, telecommunications and the Internet are characterized by interactivity that is already changing culture. The interactivity of virtuality lies in the fact that the subject is able to influence virtual reality in real time in the process of its formation and perception. It is the tendency towards interactive creativity that allows us to talk about the blurring of boundaries between the author and the subject of perception, because the traditional holistic image of a work of art is giving way to co-authorship. It turns out that the whole world of art can be imagined as a space of virtual worlds, which is realized only in the process of aesthetic perception. In the process of forming a classical artistic image, a person actively experiences events that actually arise in his subjective world.

On the face of the second most significant trend in contemporary art: "blurring the boundaries of authorship" or the formation of the viewer as a creator, as a co-author, blurring of traditional hierarchies. This becomes possible due to the fundamental property of virtual reality - its interactivity. On the example of the "Active Fiction Show" project, one can clearly demonstrate the synthesis of traditional artistic means with high technologies, which forms a proto-virtual reality. It is realized on the stage of the theater, when the characters are looking for a way out of the labyrinth, and the audience in the hall, by analogy with a computer game, selects a character and watches him not only from the audience, but also from the depths of the stage.

For us, the most interesting are the attempts of modern authors to create a multi-component show based on computer technology. Dance, cinema, music and theater merge into a single whole and begin to move towards modern syncretism.

As society enters the post-industrial era, and culture - into postmodernity, the status of knowledge changes, as Jean-François Lyotard writes about in his book The State of Postmodernity. In the past 40 years, advanced sciences have dealt with language, and therefore the future society will be correlated both with Newtonian anthropology and with the pragmatics of language particles.

This tendency is manifested in the fact that nowadays a steady need for an intellectual spectator is often formed in the art environment. Modern "glass bead players" are able to freely navigate the problem and speak the languages ​​of different cultures, which frees the hands of artists who play with codes and meanings. The viewer is now required to be able to master these codes and styles of different cultures, for successful mixing and eclecticism.

"The death of the author", ascertained in the cultural environment since M. Foucault and R. Barthes, have become as natural a phenomenon as virtual reality. The erasure of the boundaries of authorship, as well as the general popularization of contemporary art with its basic axioms, does not at all formulate this phenomenon as a historical event, but rather reveals the hidden nature of human practice. Who has the right to bear this proud title of the author? Does Duchamp have the right to claim the authorship of his ready mades, because his "Fountain" was not created directly by him? Today, a stable understanding has been formed that the author is not only the one who “discovered” and created the thing, but also the one who demonstrated an individual understanding of this thing, who gave a completely different sound to the existing forms. The author loses the title of creator, now he is not at the base, but rather at the temporary end of the thing. Regardless of how you relate to this, the process of consuming what has already been created absorbs the creation function of art, since in the era of global communication this function cannot be performed alone. The question, however, is whether the contemporary viewer himself is ready to fulfill creative functions.

Thus, in the world of artistic discourse, it is not the signature of the author that matters now, but the signature of the consumer. Before us is the art of the era of global consumption. It is believed that a work of art itself does not carry value as an autonomous product, its value is revealed only in the process of consumption, in the process of aesthetic practice. As a result, in contemporary art museums, we see not so much the products of creativity, as options for its personal consumption. For example, Viktor Pushnitsky's composition "Light" uses canvas, oil, wire and an incandescent lamp, but in ten works created from these materials, he tried to express his original view of human life at a certain moment in his life. The light of truth in the composition is the connecting link that permeates it on this path. Here we see not so much a product as options for an individual way of consuming it.

Many authors call this feature "quotation" of the modern worldview. In the works of Bravo Claudio "Madonna" (), this feature takes on an essential character. The composition, the figures of people, the plot have long been familiar to the audience, the author only skillfully compiles them. Everything that could be created has already been created, so contemporary artists can only repeat the past with some arbitrary combinations.

In our opinion, the trend towards the synthesis of all types of arts, as well as towards the technologization of art, cannot be ignored. Virtual reality, the brainchild of HI-TEC, is taking on a fundamentally new meaning for modern aesthetics. It is thanks to the increasing rate of development of technologies that a person has the opportunity to visibly and clearly reproduce various situations of the past, as well as what he himself has not witnessed. A person is on the way to the moment when he will be able to unite time, synthesize space and overcome his materiality, making space-time boundaries more transparent. Technologies provide a means for expressing an author's view, which is directed both to the past and to the present and future. And the viewer here is no longer just a recipient of art, but a co-author who creates his own unprecedented fantastic world. On the basis of new technologies, in our opinion, the possibility of synthesis of all types of arts is being formed, which in the future will acquire the quality of syncretic unity and fusion.

In the Topology of the Moment project - the N + N Corsino project - the action is interactive. The attraction consists in the fact that a computer figure of a girl appears on a five-meter screen, she performs monotonous dance movements, moving along virtual labyrinths and platforms. Movement in general depends on the viewer: the viewer presses the buttons on the remote control, changing the space. Thus, the visitor to the exhibition becomes a choreographer himself. The dancer is already a graphic scheme that has come to life, existing on the screen as an independent life. Fusion and contrast, dance and environment - these are the oppositions that the authors persistently confront in their production.

Thus, experiments with 3D images and cloning of performers expand space and break the boundaries of perception, being on the way to another art, where research institutes become co-authors. In 2004, Nicole and Norbert Corsino were invited to the French Research Institute for Acoustics and Music (IRCAM) and Informatics (IRISA) as research choreographers. This indicates that art is rapidly becoming part of the scientific process. Modern sound and visual technologies turn out to be new means of expressing the author's artistic intention, and, according to P. Greenaway, an artist has no right to ignore the way of thinking and technical achievements of his generation.

Only with a sufficient level of development of science and technology, it became possible to erase the border between reality and virtuality, originality and secondary, etc. As a result of this step of humanity, the imaginary authenticity of virtual artifacts becomes the focus of modern art.

One of the consequences of the introduction of new technologies into contemporary art was a change in the very image of the museum. Here, too, there is a tendency towards the disappearance of the border between individual works and the display space, which sometimes plunges the eternal day of the museum into impenetrable darkness. This phenomenon can be illustrated by the work of Yuri Vasiliev, who, within the framework of the “Clean Project”, presented the video “prayer of the deaf and dumb”. The peculiarity was that the video was projected onto the floor directly under the viewer's feet. Get around? Step over? Stay? Any action by the viewer reflects the inner position of everyone. In the project "So Zarathustra Did Not Say", Nietzsche's words "Man is a rope stretched between an animal and a superman - a rope over an abyss" is taken literally. The authors of the project built a rope stretching from the image of a monkey to the image of a person, and placed this exhibition in pitch darkness. The spectators, according to the idea of ​​the authors of the exposition, with flashlights in their hands, were supposed to illuminate the path themselves, connecting the two sides of the abyss. To the music of Mahler, the audience seemed to "draw" from the darkness the words of Nietzsche, merging with the corresponding picture. The uniform light is replaced by a beam of light that looks more like a trajectory of movement. Now light does not perform the function of illumination, now light is the images themselves.

All Western culture is based on the oppositions meaning - form, essence - randomness, literal - figurative, transcendental - empirical, and so on. The first concept is considered defining, and the second is a derivative, revealing the meaning of the first. This classical hierarchy is crumbling at the foot of postmodern philosophy. Derrida writes about this, wanting to demonstrate a revolution in traditional understanding. For modern metaphorical etymology, the quality of the first concept is just a variant of the second: that the literal is nothing but a special case of the figurative. Here there is a play of text against meaning, a change in traditional accents and values.

Thus, in the modern world, the world of global consumption, we observe non-trivial communication between the public and art, where the very binary of classical oppositions disappears - the author and the spectator, “high” and “low”, art and everyday life. Shocking, shock and destructiveness deliberately reveal all the ins and outs of the human soul and put it on display. It is not by chance that the alternative “theater without performance” brings to the fore the minor heroes of classical plays, paraphrasing on the theme of well-known plots. This allows you to unleash the creative potential of the audience, and destroy the canons associated with the perception of traditional works. The minority theater performed by C. Bene provokes Deleuze to revise the role of the theatrical figure: the retelling of the text on the stage is replaced by a surgical operation to amputate the limbs. The viewer is challenged to which it is necessary to give a worthy answer. The ability to give such an answer, in our opinion, is an important criterion characterizing the likelihood of "post-industrial transformation" in a given society.

Bibliographic list

1. Barsov Gustav Mahler. SPb., 2010.

2. Derrida J. Psyche: the invention of another. M., 1987.

3. Castells M. Information age. Economy, society and culture. M., 2000.

4. Lyotard J. The state of postmodernity. M., 1998.

5. Description of the "Active Fiction Show" project. URL: http: /// author / andreyi_ulyanovskiyi / marketingoviye_kommunikacii_28_instrumen / read_online. html? page = 2 (date of access: 09.08.2011).

6. Description of the project "So Zarathustra did not speak." URL: http: // www. / N20605 (date of access: 09.08.2011).

7., Vasilyeva Economics. Perm, 2005.

8. Official site of the project "N + N Corsino" .URL: http: // www. (date of access: 09.08.2011).

9. Soros J. The crisis of world capitalism. M., 1999.

syncretism of art

Oksana J. Gudoshnikova

Perm State National Research University, 15, Bukirev str., Perm, Russia

During the second half of XX century the social reality is changing rapidly. The era ofpostmodernism isimbued with eschatology, eclecticism and cruelty, in its traditional sense. Impulsively changing reality is reflected in people’s artistic activity. Contemporary art of postmodernism is displaying us features of culture of syncretism. These features of postindustrial society, in accordance with our hypothesis, transform into a new syncretism due to the progress of human universality. Based on new technologies and development together with the human intellect the possibility of synthesis of all arts is being formed. In the future quality of art will acquire a syncretic unity and fusion. We are the only witnesses to the emerging trends in the cultural space where there are no boundaries between art forms, the viewer and the author, art and everyday life.

on article Gudoshnikova Oksana Yurievna

"Syncretism of Art"

The work of the postgraduate student "Syncretism of Art" is devoted to a very important issue of contemporary art and a discussion of the specifics of modern artistic consciousness, which becomes especially relevant in the light of the sociocultural processes taking place in the Perm Territory. The author has demonstrated a sufficiently high theoretical and methodological level when discussing the current state of the issue. The disadvantages include the still insufficiently worked out question of the philosophical, general theoretical foundations of the work.

However, taking into account the remarks made in the future work, this article can be recommended for publication.

Protoculture is a culture that is characterized by the alternative and openness of modeling the development of man and society, high innovative and creative activity, which is characteristic of unstable cultural systems.

A specific feature of primitive culture is syncretism (inseparability), when the forms of consciousness, economic activities, social life, art were not separated and not opposed to each other.

Syncretism - 1) indivisibility characterizing the undeveloped state of any phenomenon (for example, art at the initial stages of human culture, when music, singing, poetry, dance were not separated from each other). 2) Mixing, inorganic fusion of dissimilar elements, for example. various cults and religious systems.

Any kind of activity contained other kinds. For example, in hunting, technological methods of making weapons, spontaneous scientific knowledge, about the habits of animals, social ties, which were expressed in the organization of hunting, were combined. Individual, collective connections, religious beliefs, magical actions to ensure success. They, in turn, included elements of artistic culture - songs, dances, painting. It is as a result of such syncretism that the characteristics of primitive culture provide for a holistic consideration of material and spiritual culture, a clear understanding of the conventionality of such a distribution.

The basis of this syncretism was ritual. Ritual (Latin rutis - a religious ceremony, solemn ceremony) is one of the forms of symbolic action, expressing the connection of the subject with the system of social relations and values. The structure of the ritual is constituted by a strictly regulated sequence of actions associated with special objects, images, texts in conditions of appropriate mobilization of the moods and feelings of the characters and groups. The symbolic meaning of the ritual, its isolation from everyday practical life is emphasized by the atmosphere of solemnity.

Ritual plays a very important role in the culture of primitive society. Through his prism, nature and social life are examined, an assessment is given of the actions and actions of people, as well as various phenomena of the surrounding world. The ritual actualizes the deep meanings of human existence; he maintains the stability of the social system, such as the tribe. The ritual carries information about the laws of nature, obtained during the observation of biocosmic rhythms. Thanks to the ritual, a person felt himself inextricably linked with space and cosmic rhythms.

At the heart of ritual activity was the principle of imitation of natural phenomena, they were reproduced by means of appropriate ritual symbolic actions. The central link of the ancient ritual - sacrifice - corresponded to the idea of ​​the birth of the world from chaos. As chaos at the birth of the world is dismembered into parts, from which the primary elements arise: fire, air, water, earth, etc., so the victim is dismembered into parts and then these parts are identified with parts of the cosmos. Regular, rhythmic reproduction of the basis of the eventual elements of the past connected the world of the past and the present.

In the ritual, prayer, chant, and dance were closely intertwined. In the dance, a person imitated various natural phenomena in order to cause rain, plant growth, and unite with a deity. Constant mental stress caused by the uncertainty of fate, attitude to the enemy or deity found a way out in the dance. The dancing participants in the ritual were inspired by the consciousness of their tasks and goals, for example, the war dance was supposed to increase the feeling of strength and solidarity of the tribe members. It is also significant that all members of the collective participated in the ritual. In the primitive era, the ritual is the main form of human social life and the main embodiment of the human ability to act. From it subsequently developed production-economic, spiritual-religious and social activities.

Syncretism of society and nature. The clan, the community were perceived as identical to the cosmos, repeated the structure of the universe. Primitive man perceived himself as an organic part of nature, feeling his kinship with all living things. This feature, for example, manifests itself in such a form of primitive beliefs as totemism, when there is a partial self-identification of people with a totem or a symbolic assimilation to it.

Syncretism of the personal and the public. Individual sensation in primitive man existed at the level of instinct, biological feeling. But on the spiritual level, he identified himself not with himself, but with the community to which he belonged; found himself in a sense of his own belonging to something extra-individual. Man initially became just a man, displacing his individuality. His own human essence was expressed in the collective "we" of the race. And today, in the language of many primitive peoples, the word "I" is absent altogether, and these people speak of themselves in the third person. This means that primitive man has always explained and evaluated himself through the eyes of the community. Integration with the life of society led to the fact that the worst punishment, after the death penalty, was exile. To leave in a community a person who does not want to follow its norms meant to destroy the social order to the ground, to let chaos into the world. Therefore, everything that happened to each member of the tribe was important for the entire community, which was presented as an inextricable link between people. For example, in many archaic tribes, people are convinced that the hunt will not be successful if the wife who remains in the village cheats on her husband, who has gone hunting.

Syncretism of various spheres of culture. Art, religion, medicine, production activities, food procurement were not isolated from each other. Objects of art (masks, drawings, figurines, musical instruments, etc.) have long been used mainly as magical means. The treatment was carried out with the help of magical rites. And even practical activities were associated with magical rituals. For example, hunting. A modern man needs only objective conditions for the success of a hunt. For the ancients, the art of throwing a spear and silently wading through the forest, the right wind direction and other objective conditions were also of great importance. But all this is clearly not enough to achieve success, because the main conditions were magical actions. Magic is the very essence of the hunt. The hunt began with magical actions over the hunter (fasting, cleansing, inflicting pain on oneself, tattooing, etc.) and over the game (dancing, spells, dressing, etc.). The purpose of all these rituals was, on the one hand, to ensure the power of man over future prey, and on the other hand, to ensure the presence of game during the hunt, regardless of its will. At the very moment of the hunt, certain rituals and prohibitions were also observed, which were aimed at establishing a mystical connection between man and animal. But even after the successful capture of the animal, a whole series of rituals were carried out, which were aimed at preventing revenge on the part of the animal's spirit.

Syncretism as a principle of thinking. In the thinking of primitive man, there were no clear oppositions between such categories as subjective - objective; the observed is the imaginary; external - internal; alive - dead; material - spiritual; one - many. In the language of the concept of life - death or spirit - the body is often denoted by one word. An important feature of primitive thinking was also syncretic perception of symbols, i.e. fusion of a symbol and what it stands for. For example, an object belonging to a person was identified with the person himself. Therefore, by harming an object or image of a person, it was considered possible to cause him real harm. It was this kind of syncretism that made possible the emergence of fetishism - the belief in the ability of objects to possess supernatural power. The fusion of symbol and object also led to the identification of mental processes and external objects. Many taboos stemmed from this. For example, one should not look into the mouth of a person who is eating and drinking, since the gaze is able to extract the soul from the mouth. And the custom of hanging mirrors in the house of the deceased goes back to the fear that the reflection of a living person (his soul) may be stolen by the spirit of the deceased. The word was a special symbol in primitive culture. The naming of a phenomenon, an animal, a person, a mystical creature in magical rituals was at the same time evoking it, and the words escaping from the lips of the shaman, who at the moment of ecstasy became the container of the spirit, created the illusion of his actual presence. Names were perceived as part of a person or thing. Therefore, the pronunciation of names in a certain context could conceal a danger to their owner. In particular, the name of the totem animal was not named in everyday communication. Instead, a different designation was used. So, among the Slavs, the word "bear" is an allegorical naming ("knowing honey"), and the forbidden form of the name of this animal was probably close to Indo-European (cf. German Bar), the echo of which is the word lair ("ber's lair").

Introduction

Definition

Fine art of primitive people

Primitive syncretism

Magic. Rituals

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The origins and roots of our culture are in primitiveness.

Primitiveness is the childhood of mankind. Most of the history of mankind falls on the period of primitiveness.

Under the primitive culture it is customary to understand the archaic culture, which characterizes the beliefs, traditions and art of peoples who lived more than 30 thousand years ago and died long ago, or those peoples (for example, tribes lost in the jungle) that exist today, preserving the primitive Lifestyle. Primitive culture predominantly encompasses the art of the Stone Age, it is pre - and non-written culture.

Together with mythology and religious beliefs, primitive man developed an ability for artistic-figurative perception and reflection of reality. A number of researchers believe that the artistic creation of primitive people could be more accurately called "pre-art", since it had more magical, symbolic meaning.

It is difficult now to name the date when the first artistic abilities inherent in human nature appeared. It is known that the very first works of human hands discovered by archaeologists are tens and hundreds of thousands of years old. Among them are various products made of stone and bone.

Anthropologists associate the true emergence of art with the appearance of homo sapiens, who is otherwise called Cro-Magnon man. Cro-Magnons (as these people were named after the place of the first discovery of their remains in the Cro-Magnon grotto in the south of France), which appeared 40 to 35 thousand years ago.

Most of the products were intended for survival, so they were far from decorative and aesthetic purposes and performed purely practical tasks. People used them to increase their safety and survival in a difficult world. However, even in those prehistoric times, there were attempts to work with clay and metals, scratch drawings or write on cave walls. The same household utensils that were in the dwellings already had noticeable tendencies towards describing the world around them and developing a certain artistic taste.

culture primitive society magic

1. Definition

· Syncretism is the indivisibility of various types of cultural creativity, characteristic of the early stages of its development. (Literary encyclopedia)

· Syncretism is a combination of rhythmic, orchestical movements with song-music and word elements. (A.N. Veselovsky)

· Syncretism - (from Greek synkretismos - compound)

o Indivisibility characterizing the undeveloped state of any phenomenon (for example, art at the initial stages of human culture, when music, singing, dancing were not separated from each other).

o Mixing, inorganic fusion of dissimilar elements (for example, various cults and religious systems). (Modern encyclopedia)

· Magic is a symbolic action or inaction aimed at achieving a specific goal in a supernatural way. (G.E. Markov)

Magic (witchcraft, sorcery) is at the origins of any religion and is a belief in the supernatural human ability to influence people and natural phenomena.

Totemism is associated with the belief in the kinship of the tribe with totems, which are usually certain types of animals or plants.

Fetishism is a belief in the supernatural properties of certain objects - fetishes (amulets, charms, talismans) that can protect a person from harm.

Animism is associated with ideas about the existence of the soul and spirits that affect the life of people.

2. Fine art of primitive people

During excavations, we often come across images of the head of a rhinoceros, deer, horse and even the head of a whole mammoth carved into ivory. These drawings breathe some wild mysterious force, and in any case, an undeniable talent.

As soon as a man has provided himself even a little, he hardly feels himself in the slightest degree safe - his gaze is looking for beauty. He is amazed by the bright colors of paints - he paints his body with all sorts of colors, rubs it with fat, wears necklaces of berries, fruit seeds, bones and roots strung on a string, even drills his skin to fix jewelry. Dense nets of vines teach him how to weave his bunks for the night, and he weaves a primitive hammock, equalizing the sides and ends, taking care of beauty and symmetry. Elastic branches give him the idea of ​​onions. A spark is produced by rubbing one piece of wood against another. And, along with these necessary discoveries of extraordinary importance, he takes care of dancing, rhythmic movements, tufts of beautiful feathers on his head and careful painting of his physiognomy.

Paleolithic

The main occupation of the Upper Paleolithic man was the collective hunt for a large game (mammoth, cave bear, deer). Its production provided society with food, clothing, and building materials. It was on the hunt that the efforts of the oldest human collective were concentrated, representing not only specific physical actions, but also their emotional experience. The excitement of hunters ("excessive emotions"), reaching its climax at the moment of the destruction of the animal, did not stop at the same second, but continued further, causing a whole complex of new actions of primitive man in the animal carcass. "Natural pantomime" is a phenomenon in which the beginnings of artistic activity were focused - a plastic action played out around an animal carcass. As a result, the originally naturalistic "excess action" gradually turned into such human activity, which created a new spiritual substance - art. One of the elements of "natural pantomime" is the animal carcass, from which the thread stretches to the origins of the fine arts.

Artistic activity was also syncretic in nature and was not divided into genera, genres, types. All her results were of an applied, utilitarian nature, but at the same time they retained their ritual and magical significance.

The technique of making tools and some of its secrets were passed from generation to generation (for example, the fact that a stone heated on a fire, after cooling, is easier to process). Excavations at the sites of the Upper Paleolithic people testify to the development of primitive hunting beliefs and witchcraft among them. They sculpted figures of wild animals from clay and pierced them with darts, imagining that they were killing real predators. They also left hundreds of carved or painted images of animals on the walls and vaults of the caves. Archaeologists have proved that the monuments of art appeared immeasurably later than the tools of labor - almost a million years.

Historically, primitive fine art became the first artistic-figurative expression of man's ideas about the world. Its most significant manifestation is rock painting. Drawings consisted of compositions of military struggle, hunting, cattle corral, etc. Cave paintings try to convey movement, dynamics.

Rock paintings and paintings are varied in the manner of execution. The reciprocal proportions of the animals depicted (ibex, lion, mammoths and bison) were usually not respected - a huge tour could be depicted next to a tiny horse. Failure to comply with the proportions did not allow the primitive artist to subordinate the composition to the laws of perspective (the latter, by the way, was discovered very late - in the 16th century). Movement in cave painting is conveyed through the position of the legs (crossing legs, for example, depicted an animal on a raid), tilt of the body or turn of the head. There are almost no fixed figures.

When creating rock paintings, primitive man used natural dyes and metal oxides, which he either used in pure form, or mixed with water or animal fat. He applied these paints to the stone with his hand or with brushes made of tubular bones with tufts of hairs of wild animals at the end, and sometimes he blew colored powder through the tubular bone onto the damp cave wall. Paint not only outlined the contour, but painted over the entire image. To make rock carvings using the deep cut method, the artist had to use rough cutting tools. Massive stone incisors have been found at the site of Le Roc de Ser. The drawings of the Middle and Late Paleolithic are characterized by a more subtle elaboration of the contour, which is conveyed by several shallow lines. Paintings, engravings on bones, tusks, horns or stone tiles are made in the same technique.

Archaeologists have not found landscape drawings in the ancient stone age. Why? Perhaps this once again proves the primacy of the religious and the secondary nature of the aesthetic function of culture. Animals were feared and worshiped, trees and plants were only admired.

Both zoological and anthropomorphic images suggested their ritual use. In other words, they performed a cult function. Thus, religion (the veneration of those who were portrayed by primitive people) and art (the aesthetic form of what was portrayed) arose almost simultaneously. Although, for some reason, it can be assumed that the first form of reflection of reality originated earlier than the second.

Since the images of animals had a magical purpose, the process of their creation was a kind of ritual, therefore, such drawings are mostly hidden deep in the bowels of the cave, in underground passages several hundred meters long, and the height of the vault often does not exceed half a meter. In such places, the Cro-Magnon artist had to work lying on his back in the light of bowls with burning animal fat. However, more often rock carvings are located in accessible places, at a height of 1.5-2 meters. They are found both on the ceilings of caves and on vertical walls.

The person is rarely portrayed. If this happens, then a clear preference will be given to the woman. The female sculpture “Venus of Willendorf” found in Austria can serve as a magnificent monument in this regard. This sculpture has remarkable features: a head without a face, limbs are only outlined, while sexual characteristics are sharply emphasized.

Paleolithic Venuses are small sculptures of women who were depicted with pronounced signs of gender: large breasts, bulging belly, powerful pelvis. This gives grounds to draw a conclusion about their connection with the ancient cult of fertility, about their role as cult objects.

It is very interesting that in one and the same site of the Late Paleolithic, female figurines are usually presented, not of the same type, but different in style. A comparison of the styles of Paleolithic art along with technical traditions revealed striking and, moreover, specific features of similarity of finds between distant regions. Similar "venus" are found in France, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Russia and in many other regions of the world.

In addition to the images of animals on the walls, there are images of human figures in frightening masks: hunters performing magical dances or religious rites.

Both rock paintings and figurines help us to capture the most essential in primitive thinking. The spiritual forces of the hunter are aimed at comprehending the laws of nature. The very life of primitive man depends on this. The hunter studied the habits of a wild beast to the smallest detail, which is why the Stone Age artist was so convincingly able to show them. Man himself did not enjoy as much attention as the outside world, which is why there are so few images of people in cave painting in France and so faceless in the full sense of the word, Paleolithic sculptures.

The composition "Fighting Archers" is one of the brightest Mesolithic compositions (Spain). The first thing to pay attention to is the content of the image related to the person. The second point is the means of representation: one of the episodes of life (the battle of archers) is reproduced with the help of eight human figures. The latter are variants of a single iconographic motive: a person in rapid movement is depicted in somewhat zigzag-like dense lines, slightly swelling in the upper part of the “linear” body and a rounded speck of the head. The main regularity in the arrangement of the iconographically uniform eight figures is their repetition at a certain distance from each other.

So, we have before us an example of a clearly expressed new approach to solving a plot scene, due to an appeal to the compositional principle of organizing the depicted material, on the basis of which an expressive-semantic whole is created.

A similar phenomenon is becoming a characteristic feature of the Mesolithic rock paintings. Another example is Dancing Women (Spain). The same principle prevails here: the repetition of the iconographic motif (the female figure in a conditionally schematic manner is depicted in silhouette with an exaggerated narrow waist, triangular head, bell-shaped skirt; repeated 9 times).

Thus, the considered works testify to a new level of artistic understanding of reality, expressed in the emergence of a compositional "design" of various plot scenes.

The culture continues to develop, religious ideas, cults and rituals become much more complicated. In particular, belief in the afterlife and the cult of ancestors is growing. The burial ritual takes place by burying things and everything necessary for the afterlife, complex burial grounds are being built.

The fine arts of the Neolithic era are enriched with a new type of creativity - painted ceramics. The earliest examples include ceramics from the settlements of Karadepe and Geoksyur in Central Asia. Ceramic products are distinguished by their simplest form. The painting uses a geometric ornament placed on the body of the vessel. All signs have a certain meaning associated with the emerging animistic (animated) perception of nature. In particular, the cross is one of the solar signs denoting the sun and moon.

The transition from matriarchy to patriarchy also had serious consequences for culture. This event is sometimes referred to as the historical defeat of women. It entailed a deep restructuring of the entire way of life, the emergence of new traditions, norms, stereotypes, values ​​and value orientations.

As a result of these and other shifts and transformations, profound changes are taking place in the entire spiritual culture. Along with the further complication of religion, mythology appears. The first myths were ritual ceremonies with dances, in which scenes from the life of the distant totemistic ancestors of a given tribe or clan, which were depicted as half-humans, half-animals, were played out. Descriptions and explanations of these rituals were passed down from generation to generation, gradually separated from the rites themselves and turned into myths in the proper sense of the word - legends about the life of totemistic ancestors.

3. Primitive syncretism

Initially, the boundaries between artistic and non-artistic (life-practical, communicative, religious, etc.) spheres of human activity were very vague, vague, and sometimes just elusive. In this sense, they often speak of the syncretism of primitive culture, bearing in mind the diffuseness characteristic of it in different ways of practical and spiritual development of the world.

The peculiarity of the initial stage of the artistic development of mankind is that we also do not find there any definite and clear genre-specific structure. Verbal creativity has not yet been separated in it from the musical, the epic from the lyrical, historical and mythological from the everyday. And in this sense, aesthetics has long been talking about the syncretism of early forms of art, while the morphological expression of such syncreticity is amorphism, that is, the absence of a crystallized structure.

Syncretism prevailed in various spheres of life of primitive people, mixing and connecting seemingly unrelated things and phenomena:

· syncretism of society and nature. Primitive man perceived himself as an organic part of nature, feeling his kinship with all living things, without separating himself from the natural world;

· syncretism of personal and social. Primitive man identified himself with the community to which he belonged. "I" replaced the existence of "we" as a kind. The emergence of man in his modern form was associated with the repression or replacement of individuality, which manifested itself only at the level of instincts;

· syncretism of various spheres of culture. Art, religion, medicine, agriculture, cattle breeding, crafts, food procurement were not isolated from each other. For a long time, objects of art (masks, drawings, figurines, musical instruments, etc.) were used mainly as objects of everyday life;

· syncretism as a principle of thinking. There was no clear opposition between the subjective and the objective in the thinking of primitive man; observed and imagined; external and internal; alive and dead; material and spiritual. An important feature of primitive thinking was the syncretic perception of symbols and reality, a word and an object that was designated by this word. Therefore, by harming an object or image of a person, it was considered possible to cause real harm to them. This led to the emergence of fetishism - the belief in the ability of objects to possess supernatural power. The word was a special symbol in primitive culture. Names were perceived as part of a person or thing.

Magic. Rituals

The world for primitive man was a living being. This life manifested itself in "personalities" - in man, beast and plant, in every phenomenon that a person encountered - in a thunderclap, in an unfamiliar forest glade, in a stone that unexpectedly struck him when he stumbled on a hunt. These phenomena were perceived as a kind of partner with their own will, "personal" qualities, and the experience of a collision subjugated not only the actions and feelings associated with this, but, no less, the accompanying thoughts and explanations.

The most ancient forms of religion in their origin include: magic, fetishism, totemism, erotic rituals, funeral cult. They are rooted in the conditions of life of primitive people. We will dwell on magic in more detail.

The most ancient form of religion is magic (from the Greek megeia - magic), which is a series of symbolic actions and rituals with spells and rituals.

Magic, as one of the forms of primitive beliefs, appears at the dawn of human existence. It was to this time that the researchers attribute the appearance of the first magical rituals and the use of magical amulets that were considered to be an aid in hunting, for example, necklaces from the fangs and claws of wild animals. The complex system of magical rituals that developed in the most ancient era is now known from archaeological excavations and from descriptions of the life and everyday life of peoples living in a primitive system. It is impossible to perceive it apart from other primitive beliefs - they were all closely related.

For many peoples, magicians, sorcerers often acted as community "leaders", or even recognized tribal leaders. They were associated with the idea of ​​a special, usually inherited, witchcraft power. Only the owner of such power could become a leader. Ideas about the magical power of the leaders and their extraordinary involvement in the spirit world are still found on the islands of Polynesia. They believe in the special power of the leaders, which is inherited - mana. It was believed that with the help of this power, the leaders gain military victories and directly interact with the world of spirits - their ancestors, their patrons. In order not to lose mana, the leader observed a strict system of prohibitions and taboos.

Primitive magical rites are difficult to restrict from instinctive and reflex actions associated with material practice. Based on this role that magic plays in people's lives, the following types of magic can be distinguished: harmful, military, sexual (love), therapeutic and protective, commercial, meteorological and other, secondary types of magic.

One of the most ancient are magical rites that ensured a successful hunt. Among many primitive peoples, community members, under the leadership of their communal magician, turned to totem spirits for help in hunting. Often the ceremony included ritual dances. Images of such dances are carried to our days by the art of the Stone Age of Eurasia. Judging by the surviving images, in the center of the ritual was a sorcerer-spellcaster, who dressed in the "disguise" of one or another animal. At this moment, he seemed to be likened to the spirits of the most ancient ancestors of the tribe, half-humans, half-animals. He was going to enter the world of these spirits.

Often such ancestral spirits had to be won over. Traces of the "coaxing" ritual were discovered by archaeologists on one of the Carpathian mountains. There, primitive hunters kept the remains of animals for a long time. The rite, apparently, contributed to the return of the souls of animals that died at the hands of man to the heavenly abode of spirits. And this, in turn, could convince the spirits not to be angry with people who were destroying their children.

Prayer is a ritual. On the Papuan island of Tanna, where the souls of deceased ancestors are the gods, who patronize the growth of fruits, the leader says a prayer: “Compassionate father. Here is food for you; eat it and put it on us. " In Africa, the Zulu think that it is enough to call the ancestors, without mentioning that the prayer needs: "The fathers of our house" (they say). When they sneeze, it is enough for them to hint at their needs, if they stand next to the spirit: "Children", "cows." Further, prayers that were previously free take on traditional forms. It is hardly possible to find a prayer among savages in which moral good or forgiveness for an offense would be begged. The rudiments of moral prayer are found among the semi-civilized Aztecs. Prayer is an appeal to the deity.

The sacrifice appears next to the prayer. Distinguish between the theory of gift, chewing or sacrifice. At first the valuable, then little by little less valuable, was sacrificed, until it came to worthless symbols and signs.

Gift theory is a primitive form of offering, with no idea what the gods do with the gifts. North American Indians make sacrifices to the earth by burying them in it. Sacred animals, including humans, are also worshiped. So, in Mexico, a young prisoner was worshiped. A large proportion of the offerings belongs to the priest as a servant of the deity. It was often believed that life is blood, so blood is sacrificed even to disembodied spirits. In Virginia, the Indians sacrificed children and thought that the spirit was sucking blood from their left breast. Since the spirit in early Acmeism was considered as smoke, this idea can be traced in the rites of smoking.

Countless images of sacrificial ceremonies in the temples of Ancient Egypt show the burning of smoking balls in incense burners in front of images of the gods.

Even if the food is not touched, it may mean that the perfume has taken its essence. The soul of the victim is transferred to the spirits. The transfer of sacrifices by fire also takes place. Motives: to get benefits, to avoid bad things, to seek help or forgiveness of an offense. Along with the fact that the gifts are gradually turning into signs of reverence, a new teaching arises, according to which the essence of sacrifice is not that the deity should receive the gift, but that the worshiper should sacrifice it. (Theory of deprivation)

Rituals - fasts - painful excitement for religious purposes. One of such excitement is the use of medicinal substances. Ecstasy and fainting are also caused by increased movements, singing, and screaming.

Customs: burial of the body from east to west, which is associated with the cult of the sun. In none of the Christian ceremonies has the custom of turning to the east and west reached such fullness as in the rite of baptism. The one who was baptized was placed facing the west and forced to renounce Satan. The orientation of the temples to the east and the appeal of the silent ones there were preserved both in the Greek and in the Roman churches.

Other rites of primitive magic were aimed at ensuring fertility. Since ancient times, various images of spirits and deities made of stone, bone, horn, amber, and wood have been used for these rituals. First of all, these were statuettes of the Great Mother - the embodiment of the fertility of the earth and living beings. In the most ancient era, after the ceremony, statuettes were broken, burned or thrown away. Many peoples believed that long-term preservation of the image of a spirit or deity leads to its unnecessary and dangerous revival for people. But gradually such revival ceases to be considered something undesirable. Already in the ancient Paleolithic settlement of Mezin in Ukraine, one of such statuettes in the so-called house of the sorcerer is fixed in the earthen floor. She probably served as the object of constant incantations.

The widespread among many peoples of the world magic rituals of making rain served to ensure fertility. They are still preserved among some peoples. For example, among Australian tribes, the magical rite of making rain goes like this: two people take turns scooping up enchanted water from a wooden trough and sprinkling it in different directions, at the same time making a slight noise with bunches of feathers in imitation of the sound of falling rain.

It seems that everything that came into the field of vision of the ancient man was filled with magical meaning. And any important, significant for the clan (or tribe) action was accompanied by a magical ritual. Rituals were also accompanied by the manufacture of common, everyday objects, such as pottery. This order can be traced both among the peoples of Oceania and America, and among the ancient farmers of central Europe. And on the islands of Oceania, the manufacture of boats turned into a real festival, accompanied by magical rites under the leadership of the leader. The entire adult male population of the community took part in it, chanting incantations and praises for the long service of the ship. Similar, albeit less large-scale, rituals existed among many peoples of Eurasia.

Rites, incantations and performances dating back to primitive magic have survived for centuries. They have become part of the cultural heritage of many peoples of the world. Magic continues to exist today.

Conclusion

The culture of primitive society - the most ancient period of human history from the appearance of the first people to the emergence of the first states - covers the longest in time and, perhaps, the least studied period of world culture. But we are all firmly convinced that everything that ancient man did, all trial and error, all served the further development of society.

Until now, we use, albeit improved, techniques that our ancestors invented (in sculpture, painting, music, theater, etc.). And also there are still rituals and rituals that were performed by ancient people. For example, they believed in God-Heaven, who watches over everyone and can interfere in the life of ordinary mortals - isn't this the “ancestor religion” of Christianity? Or the Goddess who was worshiped - this religion is the forerunner of modern Wicca.

Everything that happened in the past always finds echoes in the future.

Primitive culture against the background of all human activity is characterized by indivisibility and syncretism, which led to the creation of a certain image of the surrounding nature. This direction of activity implies the presence in that period of complete unity of man and the sphere of habitation, which they had just begun to master.

The lack of developed forms of self-awareness at the social level due to the underdevelopment of the organization, which was based solely on feelings and subconscious perception, had a huge impact.

The main features of primitive culture are considered to be its inseparability from man, who had direct opportunities to observe and feel the nature around him. The circle of simple things served as an extension of his own consciousness, copies of the surrounding world created by him. Syncretism of primitive art means the indivisibility and indivisibility of a given era in the field of culture.

At this stage of his development, man personified himself with nature, feeling a kinship with all living organisms, which was expressed in primitive totemism. Household items were perceived as components of magical rituals associated with obtaining food and protecting their territory.

Syncretism at this stage of the cultural state of primitive man is a manifestation of regularity and natural existence, which is clothed in the form of indivisibility and amorphousness. This is a kind of transition from the definition of an animal biological image to the image of the presence of Homo sapiens.

Syncretism is a kind of omen of disintegration into parts of something whole. At this stage, the culture of primitive man can be characterized by new formations directed simultaneously on several sides:

• hunting;
• gathering;
• the production of primitive tools.

Primitive culture - the longest stage of development

Primitive tools, the history of which goes back several million years, can be considered evidence of the emergence of man as such on our planet. It is at this stage that the formation of human society begins. Syncretism can be called a distinctive milestone of primitive culture, its indissoluble human perception of the characteristics of the environment against the background of human properties.

Primitive man strove to define his “I” as inseparable from the living beings that surrounded him. He considered himself a constituent part of the natural environment, of the community. Human individuality at this stage manifested itself exclusively at the level of instincts.

Primitive thinking and art could not boast of a contrasting opposition of objective and subjective, material and spiritual. At this period, it was the norm for a person to syncretically perceive the relationship of certain symbols with the surrounding reality, words and objects. That is why a characteristic feature of that stage of development is the infliction of harm on a drawing or object in reality. Further, this attitude to the environment became the reason for the development of fetishism - the possession of objects with unreal power.

There was no politics in primitive society

The most important characteristics of primitive culture can be considered the complete absence of any manifestations of individual property and inequality in property. In this society, there was a complete absence of political groupings, and social relations were based on social traditionalism. The lack of writing required close contact between members of the community. The older members of the tribe were cultural bearers.

The syncretic nature of primitive art was manifested in the inseparability of the artistic, material and spiritual parts of the culture of that period. A spiritual or ideal concept in primitive culture is manifested at two stages in the development of the consciousness of primitive man: mythology and reality.

The mythological level of development found its expression in the unconscious and artistic way of displaying the surrounding space. Whereas the realistic beginning allowed primitive man to see the natural properties and differences of the surrounding nature: stones, trees, dangerous plants, and so on.