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N.V. Zhilina (Moscow) – Aesthetics of Primitive Art. Art as Resistans to Nature

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Abstract

The order refl ected by quantitative relationships – rhythm – serves as the basis for all human activity. The tools of the Acheulean period have a regular, aesthetically perceived form. Abstract images with a regular rhythmic organization of the Mousterian period refl ect an image of order. Primitive art opposes nature, having no other predecessor. Art grows out of a syncretic cultural complex, where the rhythmically correct organization of works demonstrates the growth of the aesthetic component or beauty that gives a person rest, joy and pleasure. In the Upper Paleolithic era, simple regular compositions were created in rock painting. The image of an animal with a specific recognizable rhythmic pattern is developed in rock painting, mobile art, diagrams, texts and ornaments (rhythm of the image). Decorative images create an artificial rhythm, simpler or more complex relative to the natural one. They fit into the shape and surface of objects or complement it, connecting with the construction. Various forms of artificial rhythmic combinations arise. The creation of an ornament is based on the ability of a person to build a correct rhythmic order or structure of an image and composition (rhythm of an ornament). Ornament is formed at diff erent levels of creative activity and in diff erent ways: mastering rhythm in elementary outlines, simplifying or complicating figurative images and texts, completing the “unfinished” natural forms. This is an increase in the meaning of all natural forms and materials for a person. In creating the beauty of art, harmonious new forms with artificial rhythm, man, pushing off from nature, resists its element, overcomes the qualities of materials and the unfinished beauty of natural forms.

Keywords

Primitive art, aesthetics, rhythm, symmetry, ornament, text, diagram.

Natalya V. Zhilina

Institute of Archeology Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

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