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In the following pages you will find the word quattrocento. It means
four hundred in Italian. Here it refers to the fifteenth century (1400s)
in Italy.
Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to MLN.
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A RT AS A CULTURAL SYSTEM
CLIFFORD GEERTZ ^
t
1.
Art is notoriouslyhard to talk about. It seems, even when made
of words in the literaryarts,all the more so when made of pigment,
sound, stone, or whatever in the non-literaryones, to exist in a
world of itsown, beyond the reach of discourse. It not only is hard
to talk about it; it seems unnecessaryto do so. It speaks, as we say,
foritself:a poem mustnot mean but be; ifyou have to ask whatjazz
is you are never going to get to know.
Artistsfeel this especially. Most of them regard what is written
and said about theirwork,or worktheyadmire as at best beside the
point,at worsta distractionfromit."Everyonewantsto understand
art," Picasso wrote,"whynot tryto understand the song of a bird?
... People who tryto explain picturesare usually barkingup the
wrong tree."1 Or if that seems too avant garde, there is Millet,
resistingthe classificationof himselfas a Saint-Simoniste:"The
gossip about myMan Witha Hoe seems to me all verystrange,and I
am obliged to you for lettingme know it, as it furnishesme with
another opportunityto wonder at the ideas people attributeto me
... My criticsare men of taste and education, but I cannot put
myselfin theirshoes, and as I have never seen anythingbut fields
since I was born, I tryto say as best I can what I saw and feltwhen I
was at work."2
But anyone at all responsive to aesthetic forms feels it as well.
Even those among us who are neithermysticsnor sentimentalists,
nor given to outburstsof aestheticpiety,feel uneasy when we have
talkedverylong about a workof art in whichwe thinkwe have seen
somethingvaluable. The excess of whatwe have seen, or imaginewe
have, over the stammeringswe can manage to get out concerningit
is so vast thatour words seem hollow, flatulent,or false. Afterart
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1474 CLIFFORD GEERTZ
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M L N 1475
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1476 CLIFFORD GEERTZ
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M L N 1477
6 R.F.
Thompson, "Yoruba ArtisticCriticism,"in W.L. d'Azaredo, ed., The Tradi-
tionalArtistin AfricanSocieties(Bloomington, Ind., 1973), pp. 19-61.
7
Ibid., pp. 35-36.
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1478 CLIFFORD GEERTZ
The intense concern of the Yoruba carver with line, and with
particularformsof line, stemsthereforefromrathermore than a
detached pleasure in its intrinsic properties, the problems of
sculpturaltechnique,or even some generalized culturalnotionone
could isolateas a nativeaesthetic.It growsout of a distinctivesensi-
bilitythe whole of life participatesin forming-one in which the
meanings of thingsare the scars that men leave on them.
This realization,thatto studyan art formis to explore a sensibil-
ity,that such a sensibilityis essentiallya collectiveformation,and
thatthe foundationsof such a formationare as wide as social exis-
tence and as deep, leads away not only fromthe view thataesthetic
power is a grandiloquence for the pleasures of craft.It leads away
also from the the so-called functionalistview that has most often
been opposed to it: that is, that works of art are elaborate
mechanisms for defining social relationships, sustaining social
rules, and strengtheningsocial values. Nothing very measurable
would happen to Yoruba societyif carvers no longer concerned
themselveswiththe finenessof line, or, I daresay, even withcarv-
ing. Certainly,it would not fall apart. Just some thingsthat were
feltcould not be said-and perhaps, afterawhile,mightno longer
even be felt-and lifewould be the greyerfor it. Anythingmay,of
course, play a role in helping societywork,paintingand sculpting
included; just as anythingmay help it tear itselfapart. But the
central connection between art and collectivelife does not lie on
such an instrumentalplane, it lies on a semioticone. Matisse'scolor
jottings (the word is his own) and the Yoruba's line arrangements
don't, save glancingly,celebrate social structureor forwarduseful
doctrines.They materializea way of experiencing;bringa particu-
lar cast of mind out intothe worldof objects,where men can look at
it.
The signs or sign elements-Matisse's yellow, the Yoruba's
slash-that make up a semiotic systemwe want, for theoretical
purposes, to call aestheticare ideationallyconnected to the society
in whichtheyare found,not mechanically.They are, in a phrase of
Robert Goldwater's,primarydocuments; not illustrationsof con-
ceptionsalready in force,but conceptionsthemselvesthatseek-or
forwhichpeople seek-a meaningfulplace in a repertoireof other
documents,equally primary.8
8 R. Goldwater,"Art and
Anthropology:Some Comparisons of Methodology,"in
A. Forge, ed., Primitive
Artand Society(London, 1973), p. 10.
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M L N 1479
9 A.
Forge, "Styleand Meaning in Sepik Art,"in Forge, ed., op. cit.,pp. 169-192.
See also, A. Forge, "The Abelam Artist,"in M. Freedman, ed., Social Organization
(Chicago, 1967), pp. 65-84.
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1480 CLIFFORD GEERTZ
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M L N 1481
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1482 CLIFFORD GEERTZ
13
Ibid., p. 34.
14
Ibid., p. 40.
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M L N 1483
15
Quoted Ibid., p. 41.
16
Ibid., p. 48.
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1484 CLIFFORD GEERTZ
17 Ibid.
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M L N 1485
19Ibid., p. 80.
20
Ibid., p. 76.
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1486 CLIFFORD GEERTZ
21Ibid., 86.
p.
22
Ibid.
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M L N 1487
23
Ibid., pp. 87-9, 101.
24
M. Baxandall, Giottoand theOrators(Oxford, 1971).
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1488 CLIFFORD GEERTZ
25
Paintingand Experience,op. cit., p. 152.
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M L N 1497
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1498 CLIFFORD GEERTZ
28
N. Goodman, LanguagesofArt(Indianapolis, 1968), p. 260.
29J.Maquet, "Introductionto AestheticAnthropology," A Macaleb Module in An-
thropology(Reading, Mass, 1971), p. 14.
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M L N 1499
forAdvancedStudy
The Institute
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