Syncretism of primitive culture. Primitive art: how man became man - Syncretism And also other works that may interest you
One of the features of primitive culture is collectivism. From the very beginning of the human race, the community was the basis of its existence, and it was in the community that the culture of primitiveness arose. There was no place for individualism in this era. A person could only exist in a collective, using on the one hand its support, but on the other hand, being ready at any time to sacrifice everything for the sake of the community, even his life. The community was considered as a kind of single being, for which a person is nothing more than a component element, which, if necessary, can and should be sacrificed in the name of saving the entire organism.
The primitive community was built on the principles of consanguinity. It is believed that the first form of fixation of kinship ties was maternal kinship. Accordingly, the woman played a leading role in society and was its head. Such a social system is known as matriarchy. The customs of matriarchy influenced the characteristics of art, giving rise to a style of art designed to glorify the feminine principle in nature (its expression, in particular, are numerous sculptures of the so-called Paleolithic Venuses - female figurines with pronounced characteristics of gender).
One of the most important principles of the organization of the clan, which was preserved in all subsequent eras, was exogamy - the prohibition of sexual relations with representatives of one's own clan. This custom dictated that a marriage partner must be chosen outside the clan. In this way, it was possible to avoid the disastrous consequences of incest for the community, although the real reason why ancient people came to the conclusion about preventing incest is unclear, since modern research shows that existing primitive societies strictly observe the principle of exogamy, but are often not even aware of the connection between sexual act and birth of a child [Polishchuk V.I.].
Another feature of primitive culture is the practical nature of everything that was created by primitive man, both in the material and spiritual spheres. Not only the products of material production, but also religious and ideological ideas, rituals and legends served the main goal - the survival of the race, uniting it and indicating the principles by which it should exist in the surrounding world. And these principles also did not arise out of nowhere; they were formed by centuries of practical experience as indispensable conditions for the normal existence of the human community. “The peculiarity of primitive culture is, first of all, that it is, figuratively speaking, tailored to the standards of man himself. At the origins of material culture, people commanded things, and not vice versa. Of course, the range of things was limited, a person could directly observe and feel them, they served as a continuation of his own organs, in a certain sense they were their material copies. But in the center of this circle stood a man - their creator” [Polishchuk V.I.]. In this regard, we can highlight such an important feature of primitive culture as anthropomorphism - the transfer of inherent human properties and characteristics to the external forces of nature, which in turn gave rise to faith in the spirituality of nature, which underlay all ancient religious cults.
In the early stages of culture, thinking was intertwined with activity; it was itself an activity. Therefore, the culture had a united, undivided character. Such a culture is called syncretic. “Emotionality and likening a thing to itself, the fusion of the image of a thing with the thing itself, or syncretism - these are features of primitive thinking”
Mythology, religion, art, science and philosophy. In primitive culture, all these components of spiritual culture existed inextricably, forming the so-called syncretic unity
Cultural studies and art history
Syncretism of primitive culture. Syncretism is the main quality of culture that characterizes the process of transition from the biological form of existence of animals to the sociocultural form of existence of Homo sapiens. The syncretism of this first historical state of culture is natural and logical, since at the initial level the integrity of the system is manifested in its amorphous indivisibility. Associated with this identification is totemism, characteristic of primitive culture, from the language of the Ojibwe Indian tribe, its kind of belief in an ancestor who may be...
CULTURE OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) 40 thousand 12 thousand BC
Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) 12 thousand 8-7 thousand BC
Neolithic ( New Stone Age) 7 thousand 2 thousand BC
Bronze Age about 2 thousand BC
Syncretism of primitive culture.
Syncretism the main quality of culture that characterizes the process of transition from the biological form of existence of animals to the sociocultural form of existenceHomo sapiens. The syncretism of this first historical state of culture is natural and logical, since at the initial level the integrity of the system is manifested in its amorphousness and indivisibility.
Syncretism and synthesis are not the same thing, since synthesis is the merging of independently existing objects, and syncretism is a state that precedes the splitting of the whole into parts.
Firstly, syncretism manifests itself in the fusion of man and nature. Primitive man identifies himself with animals, plants, stone, water, sun, etc.
Associated with this identification is the characteristic feature of primitive culture. totemism (from the language of the Ojibwe Indian tribe his family ) belief in an ancestor, which can be an animal, a bird, a tree, a mushroom, etc.
This explains the primitive animism (from Latin soul ) animation of everything that surrounds a person: things, natural objects, animals. What primitive man does (hunting, gathering, reproduction, intertribal wars) is thought of by him as a product of nature. This worldview was very stabletraditionalist. Only the development of crafts, which separated man from the animal world and gradually became a dominant feature of production, helped man to realize his significant difference from nature, but this already happens outside of primitive culture.
Despite the syncretism of the production activity of primitive man, the forms of this activity were different in their focus and methods of implementation. The cultural practice of primitive man is a tripartite systemic new formation that combines 1) hunting, 2) gathering, 3) making tools:
Practical activities of primitive man:
1. inherited from animalsways to consume nature: flora gathering; fauna hunting;
2. invented by manway of transforming nature craft .
Secondly, syncretism is manifested in the inseparability of the material, spiritual and artistic subsystems of culture.
Spiritual (ideal) in primitive culture is represented by two levels of the work of human consciousness: mythological and realistic.
Mythologicalthis is an unconsciously artistic way of working of consciousness. Mythological thinking was expressed in the practice of deification of animals ( totemism).
Realisticspontaneous materialistic consciousness. Thanks to him, primitive man distinguished the properties of natural realities (stone, wood, clay, useful and poisonous plants, etc.). This type of consciousness is also called practical, everyday. Some (B. Malinovsky, M. Shakhnovich, P. V. Simonov) believe that such consciousness can be called a scientific attitude towards the world, others ( V.P. Stepin ) is considered a pre-science.
Thus, primitive consciousness has a two-level structure, itpractical-pre-scientific (practical) And scientific-theoretical (mythological).
In epistemological (from Greek. cognition ) aspect, two types of consciousness oppose each other: mythological consciousness is dogmatic and conservative, it seeks to perpetuate cultural ideas about being, and practical consciousness contributes to the development of human cognitive (epistemological) abilities and moves it forward. But in the axiological aspect (from the Greek. valuable ) both varieties were identical: both the mythological and practical types of consciousness are antinomic, i.e. based on the contradictions (oppositions) of positive (useful) and negative (harmful).
The third manifestation of primitive syncretism is artistic activity, which was inextricably woven into material and production processes. Hunting turned into a poetic sublime action and vice versa hunting game turned into a bloody and cruel ritual. Hence the practicesacrifices. The more difficult and dangerous the hunt, the more valuable the prey is considered. It is precisely the risk that human hunting initially differs from animal hunting: an animal hunts a weaker one, and a person began to hunt an animal that is significantly stronger than him. In addition, people hunt collectively.
Food how a collective meal signified victory in the hunt and acquired a festive character. Precisely because meals and funeral feasts are the most important rituals in calendar, wedding and funeral ceremonies, in Russian “a word of high style” priest and a low style word grub one root, and the paintings of Greek tombs and sarcophagi depict funeral meals" ( E.E. Kuzmina ). The measure of a person's religious zeal and material expenditures had to be equal to the measure of gifts and benefits that God bestowed upon man. Therefore, it was necessary to share the most precious food (sacrifice) with God.
“Artistic and ritual packaging was a universal technology for all significant production processes” ( M.S. Kagan).
The most significant ritualspregnancy and childbirth, birth and childhood, initiations, engagement and wedding, funerals.
A symbolic designation of syncretism can be the image on the walls of Paleolithic caves hands as a bearer of physical and technical culture and acquiring increasing general cultural and aesthetic value. The image of a hand is at the origins of image formationcreative person.
The fourth manifestation of syncretism morphological indivisibility, i.e. undifferentiation of genera, types, genres of art. Primitive artistic creativity is a “song-tale-action-dance” ( A.N. Veselovsky).
The unity of all things, the identification of different things, has formed one of the main units of artistic thinking metaphor.
Traditionality of primitive culture
Primitive culture the first historical form of traditional culture. Tradition dominates in all types of activities and in culture as a whole. Because of this, all structures of life and everyday life, tastes, rituals, etc. were stable and passed down from generation to generation as an absolute law. The problem that nature solves by genetic means is solved in primitive culture by tradition, thereby becoming a victory of culture over time. Submission to the norm, fixed by tradition, has become a cultural form of hereditary transmission of information. The tendency to get rid of the shackles of tradition increases as civilization progresses.
The traditionalism of primitive culture appears in the identification not only natural and human, but also social and individual. A member of a primitive community is equal to its whole. All members had one common group name, all wore the same tattoo or body paint, the same hairstyle, and sang a common song. Psychologists call this situation identity me and us . Even much later, in Ancient Egypt, the word People denotes only Egyptians, and in Russian the word Germans for a very long time meant all foreigners (not us = dumb). It is significant that a stranger is designated as they, and nature like you, i.e. like yours.
From the identity of one and all, the custom of blood feud and vendetta is born, which later develops into national conflicts.
Identity between me and us gives grounds to characterize primitive culture ascollectively anonymous.
There are two reasons for the emergence of identity me and us:
1) the mythological nature of thinking, in which a single worldview is imposed on all members of the community, the absolute truth of which is guaranteed by its divine origin;
2) identification of cultural and public (social).Sociality will begin to separate from culture when the structures that organize the life of society begin to acquire independence (institutionalize): the state, the court, marriage, etc.
The traditional nature of primitive culture determined its long existence, longer than all subsequent historical types of culture. Subsequently, forces began to emerge that turned out to be more powerful than the power of tradition.
The main features of the culture of nomadic pastoralists.
The problem of the transition from ancient cultures to civilization is one of the least studied.
A new way of organizing the existence of different peoples is a non-linear process. It is determined by the objective possibilities that each population has (from French. population ) located in a given natural and climatic environment. The specific set of these possibilities depended on the material and production practices of the primitive collective (for example, the “choice” of cattle breeding or agriculture).
Archeology has evidence of the slow but steady development of technology and technology of material production during the period of collapse of primitive culture. This process is proceeding unevenly: gathering changes the least, hunting changes the most (from attacking animals with clubs and torches to using spears, bows and arrows), craft changes the most profoundly (not only changes its technical and technological structure, but also ensures gathering and hunting with digging tools, spears, shovels, etc.). The development of craft provokes the development of thinking and imagination. This process is called “ideal”, i.e. "constructing in the head" an object before actually building it ( K.Marx ), "creating models of the required future" ( N.A. Bernshtein ), "advanced reflection" ( P.K. Anokhin ). The main thing is that the productive industry (craft) is ahead of the consuming industries (gathering and hunting) in development, and the force that ensures this process is human intelligence.
These changes led to radical changes in all life - culturalNeolithic revolution(approx. 7 thousand BC). As a result, gathering and hunting are gradually being replaced by cattle breeding and agriculture . The “Iron Age” (began around 1000 BC) has a turning point in the history of material culture.
Pastoral nomadic cultureplayed a huge role in the culture of the Ancient World. Ethnographers consider the culture to be a nomadic type of culture Scythians and Sarmatians (Sauromatians), Jews, Mongols, Kazakhs, Turkmens, Arabs and many other ancient peoples. For a long time, the Scythians included the tribes that lived in the steppes of the Black Sea region. Now the boundaries of the “Scythian world” are defined more broadly: it is a “conglomerate of different tribes” that had economic and cultural similarities and lived in the vast territory of the Northern Black Sea region, the Azov region, and the North Caucasus ( B. Piotrovsky).
Archaeologists find the first traces of cattle breeding at the turn of the 1st-Uth millennium BC. in the territory of Southern Egypt and among the inhabitants of the Fayum oasis.
The main difference between nomadic and agricultural cultures is in their relation to space and time.
G. Gachev : “A nomadic collective differs from an agricultural one, just as an animal that has self-movement and is free from the environment differs from a plant that is forever chained to its place.”
But the freedom of the nomadic people is at the same time Not freedom and slavery. He moves because he has nothing. This is movement in space and not in time, i.e. displacement, not development. Therefore, agricultural life turned out to be more progressive than pastoral life. The nomads defeated sedentary peoples, but, having won and remaining in the conquered territory, they adopted the lifestyle of the vanquished, assimilated into sedentary peoples and retained their nomadic lifestyle only in the army.
Characteristic features of the culture of pastoral nomads:
1. In the lifestyle of nomads, the model of life, consciousness, and behavior that developed in primitive culture is firmly preservedzoocentric and zoomorphic (an animal for a nomad is like the sun for a farmer). It is characterized by syncretism, polysemanticism, belief in magical actions and rituals, fetishistic worship of individual objects and animals.
2. Technology communication with animals was extremely simple . The thinking of a nomadic pastoralist in organizing the “human-animal” relationship is conservative and does not require developed intelligence. Communication skills with animals can be transmitted orally, which is why writing did not originate in them.
3. Visual forms of artistic and craft creativity expanded the scope of their presence in culture.Aestheticization of the entire subject environmenta universal feature of all nomadic pastoralists.
4. The structure of the home had to provide mobility yurt, hut, wigwam. The Scythians lived in carts and wagons.
5. Sculpture existed in miniature forms (jewelry and applied art), and was used in the design of weapons, warrior clothing, and horse harnesses.
6. Dominance of military lifeover peaceful conditions determines the relative aggressiveness of nomadic peoples. The impossibility of an isolated existence led to regular military raids on agricultural oases. Hence the huge role of the horse as a means of transportation and, therefore, an object of worship (ritual burials of horses). The relic of the totemistic relationship with the horse lasts for a very long time. The horse is the most revered sacrifice.
The formation of civilization in agricultural societies
The second path that peoples took in the conditions of the crisis of the primitive communal system is the transformationagriculture as the basis of production activities. Conditions most favorable for this have developed in Mesopotamia, India, China, Indonesia, and South and Central America. The main determinants of the process of formation of agricultural crops are the state of material culture, practical production activities of people.
Characteristic features of agricultural crops.
1. If nomadic peoples were focused on mastering the animal world, then agricultural peoples were focused onmastery of the plant world. Irrigated agriculture required the combined physical strength of a huge number of people. This could be achieved by 1) slavery and 2) new forms of rigid social organization. Thus, two mechanisms arosestate-political and cult.
2. In this regard, a new type of legal form has arisen written laws , which were not of a religious nature, but secular
3. The need for such legal and ethical actions is connected with the fact that a large city , which was a “concentrate” of various types of activity: state-bureaucratic, religious, craft, trade, scientific, educational.
4. The city was a carriernew attitude of farmers to nature: 1) the nature of mythology changed and 2) forms appeared outside mythological relationship to reality. The central place in consciousness was no longer occupied by the beast, but by the deified Sun (Surya - in Indo-Iranian mythology; Utu - in Sumerian, Shaman - in Akkadian, Ra and Aten - in Egyptian). The sun played not only the abstract role of the general condition of life, but also the concrete, utilitarian-practical, economic role of the force that ensures the harvest, i.e. life. In connection with the cult of the Sun, an extensive solar-meteorological mythology will be formed in the future, and cyclic concepts will develop.
5. Due to the fact that agricultural cultures have a different psychological model of attitude towards nature, theyless belligerent and aggressive. Participation in war is not a spiritual need, but a social duty. This also explains the fact that if in the culture of nomads the ritual of sacrifice is preserved, then in agricultural cultures one of the moral commandments will be “Thou shalt not kill!”
6. The layer of realistic consciousness is changing. Changes occur at three levels: theoretical-scientific, emotional-aesthetic, artistic-figurative. The development of practice required the deepening of practical, everyday knowledge. Henceformation of scienceas a fundamentally different way of cognition from mythology. Science in different regions develops in different “proportions”: in India, humanities (grammar) predominate, in China - natural sciences (astronomy, medicine), in Babylon and Egypt - mathematics, medicine, geography, practical chemistry, in the culture of the ancient Mayans the most complex counting system and the concept of zero.
7. A change in the way of thinking led to the invention of a new way of storing and transmitting information writing , which should be considered one of the attributes of that stage in the history of culture called “civilization.”
8. Consequence of the appearance of writing school development (Sumerian culture).
9. Aesthetic perceptionbegins to separate from the utilitarian-mythological attitude to things, the concept of “beauty” appears, which is associated with the concepts of “joy”, “pleasure” and is interpreted in the aspect of selflessness.
10. Art becomes the self-awareness of agricultural culture.
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Syncretism in art
An excerpt characterizing Syncretism (art)
As soon as the curtain rose, everything in the boxes and stalls fell silent, and all the men, old and young, in uniforms and tails, all the women wearing precious stones on their naked bodies, turned all their attention to the stage with greedy curiosity. Natasha also began to look.On the stage there were even boards in the middle, painted paintings depicting trees stood on the sides, and a canvas on boards was stretched behind. In the middle of the stage sat girls in red bodices and white skirts. One, very fat, in a white silk dress, sat separately on a low bench, to which green cardboard was glued to the back. They were all singing something. When they finished their song, the girl in white approached the prompter's booth, and a man in tight-fitting silk trousers on thick legs, with a feather and a dagger, approached her and began to sing and spread his arms.
The man in tight trousers sang alone, then she sang. Then both fell silent, the music began to play, and the man began to finger the hand of the girl in a white dress, apparently again waiting for the beat to begin his part with her. They sang together, and everyone in the theater began to clap and shout, and the man and woman on stage, who were portraying lovers, began to bow, smiling and spreading their arms.
After the village and in the serious mood in which Natasha was, all this was wild and surprising to her. She could not follow the progress of the opera, could not even hear the music: she saw only painted cardboard and strangely dressed men and women, moving, speaking and singing strangely in the bright light; she knew what all this was supposed to represent, but it was all so pretentiously false and unnatural that she felt either ashamed of the actors or funny at them. She looked around her, at the faces of the spectators, looking for in them the same feeling of ridicule and bewilderment that was in her; but all the faces were attentive to what was happening on the stage and expressed feigned, as it seemed to Natasha, admiration. “This must be so necessary!” thought Natasha. She alternately looked back at those rows of pomaded heads in the stalls, then at the naked women in the boxes, especially at her neighbor Helen, who, completely undressed, with a quiet and calm smile, without taking her eyes off, looked at the stage, feeling the bright light poured throughout the hall and warm, crowd-warmed air. Natasha little by little began to reach a state of intoxication that she had not experienced for a long time. She didn’t remember what she was, where she was, or what was happening in front of her. She looked and thought, and the strangest thoughts suddenly, without connection, flashed through her head. Either the thought came to her to jump onto the ramp and sing the aria that the actress sang, then she wanted to hook the old man sitting not far from her with her fan, then she wanted to lean over to Helen and tickle her.
One minute, when everything was quiet on the stage, waiting for the start of the aria, the entrance door of the stalls creaked, on the side where the Rostovs’ box was, and the steps of a belated man sounded. “Here he is Kuragin!” Shinshin whispered. Countess Bezukhova turned to the newcomer, smiling. Natasha looked in the direction of Countess Bezukhova’s eyes and saw an unusually handsome adjutant, with a self-confident and at the same time courteous appearance approaching their bed. It was Anatol Kuragin, whom she had seen for a long time and noticed at the St. Petersburg ball. He was now in an adjutant uniform with one epaulette and a bracelet. He walked with a restrained, dashing gait, which would have been funny if he had not been so handsome and if there had not been such an expression of good-natured contentment and joy on his beautiful face. Despite the fact that the action was going on, he, slowly and slightly rattling his spurs and saber, smoothly and high holding his perfumed beautiful head, walked along the carpet of the corridor. Looking at Natasha, he walked up to his sister, put his gloved hand on the edge of her box, shook her head and leaned over and asked something, pointing at Natasha.
- Mais charmante! [Very sweet!] - he said, obviously about Natasha, as she not so much heard as understood from the movement of his lips. Then he walked to the front row and sat down next to Dolokhov, giving a friendly and casual elbow to Dolokhov, whom the others were treating so ingratiatingly. He smiled at him with a cheerful wink and rested his foot on the ramp.
– How similar brother and sister are! - said the count. - And how good they are both!
Shinshin began to tell the count in a low voice some story of Kuragin's intrigue in Moscow, to which Natasha listened precisely because he said charmante about it.
The first act ended, everyone in the stalls stood up, got confused and began to walk in and out.
Boris came to the Rostovs' box, very simply accepted congratulations and, raising his eyebrows, with an absent-minded smile, conveyed to Natasha and Sonya his bride's request that they be at her wedding, and left. Natasha talked to him with a cheerful and flirtatious smile and congratulated the same Boris with whom she had been in love before on his marriage. In the state of intoxication in which she was, everything seemed simple and natural.
Naked Helen sat next to her and smiled equally at everyone; and Natasha smiled at Boris in the same way.
Helen's box was filled and surrounded from the stalls by the most distinguished and intelligent men, who seemed to be vying to show everyone that they knew her.
Throughout this intermission, Kuragin stood with Dolokhov in front of the ramp, looking at the Rostovs’ box. Natasha knew that he was talking about her, and it gave her pleasure. She even turned around so that he could see her profile, in her opinion, in the most advantageous position. Before the start of the second act, the figure of Pierre appeared in the stalls, whom the Rostovs had not seen since their arrival. His face was sad, and he had gained weight since Natasha last saw him. Without noticing anyone, he walked into the front rows. Anatole approached him and began to say something to him, looking and pointing at the Rostovs’ box. Pierre, seeing Natasha, perked up and hurriedly, along the rows, went to their bed. Approaching them, he leaned on his elbow and, smiling, spoke to Natasha for a long time. During her conversation with Pierre, Natasha heard a man’s voice in Countess Bezukhova’s box and for some reason learned that it was Kuragin. She looked back and met his eyes. Almost smiling, he looked straight into her eyes with such an admiring, affectionate look that it seemed strange to be so close to him, to look at him like that, to be so sure that he liked you, and not be familiar with him.
In the second act there were paintings depicting monuments and there was a hole in the canvas depicting the moon, and the lampshades on the ramp were raised, and trumpets and double basses began to play, and many people in black robes came out to the right and left. People began to wave their arms, and in their hands they had something like daggers; then some other people came running and began to drag away that girl who had previously been in a white, and now in a blue dress. They didn’t drag her away right away, but sang with her for a long time, and then they dragged her away, and behind the scenes they hit something metal three times, and everyone knelt down and sang a prayer. Several times all these actions were interrupted by enthusiastic screams from the audience.
During this act, every time Natasha glanced at the stalls, she saw Anatoly Kuragin, throwing his arm over the back of the chair and looking at her. She was pleased to see that he was so captivated by her, and it did not occur to her that there was anything bad in this.
When the second act ended, Countess Bezukhova stood up, turned to the Rostovs' box (her chest was completely bare), beckoned the old count to her with a gloved finger, and, not paying attention to those who entered her box, began to speak kindly to him, smiling.
“Well, introduce me to your lovely daughters,” she said, “the whole city is shouting about them, but I don’t know them.”
Natasha stood up and sat down to the magnificent countess. Natasha was so pleased by the praise of this brilliant beauty that she blushed with pleasure.
“Now I also want to become a Muscovite,” said Helen. - And aren’t you ashamed to bury such pearls in the village!
Countess Bezukhaya, rightly, had a reputation as a charming woman. She could say what she did not think, and especially flatter, completely simply and naturally.
- No, dear Count, let me take care of your daughters. At least I won't be here for long now. And you too. I will try to amuse yours. “I heard a lot about you back in St. Petersburg, and I wanted to get to know you,” she told Natasha with her uniformly beautiful smile. “I heard about you from my page, Drubetsky. Did you hear he's getting married? And from my husband’s friend Bolkonsky, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky,” she said with special emphasis, thereby hinting that she knew his relationship to Natasha. “She asked, in order to get to know each other better, to allow one of the young ladies to sit in her box for the rest of the performance, and Natasha went over to her.
A special type of synthesis of arts - syncretism was the form of existence of ancient art. This form of synthesis was characterized by an undifferentiated, organic unity of different arts that had not yet split off from a single original historical trunk of culture, which included in each of its phenomena not only the rudiments of various types of artistic activity, but also the rudiments of scientific, philosophical, religious and moral consciousness.
The worldview of ancient man was syncretic in nature, in which there was a mixture of fantasy and reality, realistic and symbolic. Everything that surrounded a person was thought of as a single whole. For primitive man, the supernatural world was closely connected with nature. This mystical unity was based on the fact that the supernatural is common to both nature and man.
Primitive syncretism is the indivisibility and unity of art, mythology, and religion. Ancient man comprehended the world through myth. Mythology, as a branch of culture, is a holistic view of the world, transmitted in the form of oral narratives. The myth expressed the worldview and worldview of the era of its creation. The first myths were ritual ceremonies with dances in which scenes from the life of the ancestors of a tribe or clan, who were depicted as half-humans and half-animals, were played out. Descriptions and explanations of these rituals were passed down from generation to generation, gradually becoming isolated from the rituals themselves - they turned into myths in the proper sense of the word - tales about the life of totemic ancestors. Later, the content of myths consists not only of the deeds of ancestors, but also of the actions of real heroes who accomplished something exceptional. Along with the emergence of belief in demons and spirits, religious myths began to be created. The most ancient monuments of art testify to the mythological relationship of man to nature. In his quest to master the forces of nature, man created apparatus of magic. It is based on the principle of analogy - the belief in gaining power over an object through mastery of its image. Primitive hunting magic is aimed at mastering the beast, its goal is a successful hunt. The center of magical rituals in this case is the image of an animal. Since the image is perceived as reality, the depicted animal is perceived as real, then actions performed with the image are thought of as occurring in reality. The principle on which primitive magic is based underlies the witchcraft widespread among all peoples. The first magical images can be considered handprints on cave walls and stones. This is a deliberately left sign of presence. Later it will become a sign of possession. Along with hunting magic and in connection with it, there is a cult of fertility, expressed in various forms erotic magic. The religious or symbolic image of a woman, the feminine principle, which is found in the primitive art of Europe, Asia, Africa, in compositions depicting hunting, occupies an important place in rituals aimed at the reproduction of those species of animals and plants that are necessary for nutrition. Research has shown that most of the female figurines were placed in a specially designated area near the hearth.
Image of people in animal masks. These drawings indicate that the magical disguise of a person, camouflage, was an essential part of both the hunt itself and the magic associated with it. Magical rituals, which often featured characters reincarnated as animals, may also have been associated with some mythological heroes in the appearance of an animal. Various rituals, which included dancing and theatrical performances, had the goal of attracting the beast, mastering it, or enhancing its fertility.
In modern traditional art, as well as in primitive art, art serves as a universal instrument of magic, while at the same time performing a broader – religious function. Rock carvings of the Bushmen's rain bull, the Australian Wonjina, symbolic signs of the Dogon, statues of ancestors, masks and fetishes, decoration of utensils, painting on bark - all this and much more has a special cult purpose. Everything plays an important role in rituals aimed at ensuring a military victory, a good harvest, successful hunting or fishing, protection from disease, etc.
The connection between art and religion, which was discovered already in the Paleolithic era and can be traced right up to the modern era, was the reason for the emergence of the theory according to which art is derived from religion: “religion is the mother of art.” However, the syncretic nature of primitive culture and the specific forms of primitive art give reason to assume that even before religious ideas were formed, art was already partially performing those functions that would only later constitute certain aspects of magical-religious activity. Art appeared and was already quite developed when religious ideas were just emerging. Moreover, there is enough reason to assume that it was the development of visual activity that stimulated the emergence of such early cults as hunting magic. The objective existence of religion is unthinkable outside of art. All major religious cults and rituals everywhere and at all times have been closely associated with various types of art. From the most ancient forms of traditional rituals, which use sculpture and painting (masks, statues, body paintings and tattoos, drawings on the ground, rock painting, etc.), music, singing, recitative, and where the whole complex as a whole is a special a kind of theatrical action, to the modern church, which is a real synthesis of strictly canonized art - everything is so permeated with art that in these collective actions it is almost impossible to distinguish religious ecstasy from that caused by the actual rhythms of painting, plastic arts, music, singing.
Syncretism of primitive art: unity in all respects
When they talk about syncretism in art, they mean the fusion and interpenetration of various properties, qualities and objects, which often have different or even opposite characteristics. And in this regard, primitive art is not just an example of syncretism in art, it represents a standard - because art has never been more syncretistic than in the era of the “youth of mankind.”
Unity of image and subject
The syncretism of primitive art is a phenomenon that is very difficult to divide into components and such a division will be very conditional - since in this art unity covers all components, all factors, all means and all images. But if we try to identify the main vectors, then we should name, of course, the unity of the artistic image and the depicted object, creature. For primitive man, any image was not a work of art - it was alive. This is manifested, first of all, in the technical features of creating a particular work. If a bone or stone is taken to create a miniature sculpture, then the source material is selected in a shape that best matches the final image. The shape of a bone or stone should resemble the creature being depicted; it seems to be “sleeping” inside the material, and a person should only help it a little with his artistic treatment so that this image becomes more clear. If an animal is depicted on the walls of a cave, then the surface relief follows the natural curves of this creature.
But the unity of image and object does not end there, but moves to a deeper and more complex level. This unity means an inextricable connection in the consciousness of primitive man between the image, for example, of a mammoth, and the mammoth itself. It was thanks to this side of syncretism that the initial religious ideas of mankind developed, according to which the influence on the image of an animal, on its image, has exactly the same or very similar effect on a real bull, deer or wild boar. There are finds that indicate that the heads of real bears were attached to the painted bodies of bears - thereby people seemed to complement a single picture, and in their minds there was no contradiction between the fact that the head was real and the body was drawn.
Unity of image and world
Another aspect of primitive art lies in the unity of the artistic image and the surrounding world. And the point is not only that, since man considered the depicted animals to be almost alive, then he identified the world inhabited by them as artificial. The syncretism of primitive art also lies in the fact that for humans it was exactly the same tool for understanding the world as practical activity. Practice and art were inseparable: just as with the help of hunting, observing animals, natural phenomena, celestial bodies, building dwellings, making clothes and tools, man learned about the material part of the world, so with the help of art he tried to formulate an idea of the world generally.
This idea also included an understanding of certain patterns in the relationships between nature and man, man and animals, some natural phenomena with others. In addition, it was in art, which was indistinguishably combined with religion, that primitive man tried to form an idea of the structure of the universe, the laws by which it exists, the dangers that could threaten a person in it and his place in the overall system. Art was the only way to express these ideas, and due to its inseparability from religion, it also became a way of human interaction with the world. Primitive art simultaneously contained a way of understanding the world, the world itself, and ways of expressing one’s ideas about it.
Unity of image and person
One of the most popular questions regarding primitive art goes something like this: “Why did primitive people rarely depict themselves, and when they did, they did not create portraits, although from an artistic point of view they were capable of this?” This problem is truly one of the most interesting in the study of primitive art and is still a subject of debate among scientists. Initially, it was assumed that primitive artists simply could not draw a portrait without mastering perspective, the correct correlation of scales, and so on. However, numerous examples of amazingly beautiful and accurate images of animals made us think: if artists could create such a delicate drawing of a bull, then they could create an accurate human portrait, but they didn’t do this - why?
There is no clear answer. From the point of view of considering the syncretism of primitive art, the most likely answer seems to be the one according to which man did not need portrait likeness in the images. He already felt his own unity with the image of a person in a drawing or sculpture, and the functions of such images were purely utilitarian - to depict this or that scene, which should either be repeated in life, or be a reminder of certain events. It is also possible that the person was simply afraid to give the image individual features - because he believed that his image and himself were a single whole, which means that if someone gains control over his image, he will be able to control the person. This feature of primitive consciousness persisted until quite civilized times: for example, in Ancient Egypt they firmly believed that a person’s name was directly connected with him and if certain actions were performed on the name, one could harm the person or his soul. So primitive man had no problems associating himself with those images in which people are sometimes depicted in the form of almost geometric figures.
Alexander Babitsky