[colechristensen]

But also one of the most human things to do. What are precivilization cave paintings but graffiti? Leaving a mark on the world is a basic human instinct. That some things are better left intact is something that has to be learned.

[c420]

Pre agricultural revolution pictographs and petroglyphs are almost certainly not graffiti. Religious function, navigation, resource marking, animal migration records, record keeping... these are some of the more likely functions.

Tbf, sometimes graffiti is a territorial marking and this is also a likely function.

[wyre]

I read in an art history book that cave paintings were used as a form of magic/manifestation and the farther down into the cave the more powerful it became.

[colechristensen]

A lot of these kinds of things are historians/anthropologists/whatever making things up. If something doesn’t have an obvious purpose then it is labeled as ceremonial or religious. A single artifact gets turned into an elaborate story with very shaky justification. These “just so” stories make good tales, but that’s it. The question ends up being “how could they possibly know this!?” And the answer is, they couldn’t.

Definitely the kind of thing you’d read in an art history book.

[wyre]

Ya, I’m aware of all that. It’s an interesting theorem, nonetheless.

I also have no credence for this forum to not be hypercritical of art history literature, but here I am talking about it.

[colechristensen]

I have heard artists critical of art history in the same way tech people are critical of tech journalists. Something along the lines of folks who don’t really understand a subject because they don’t/can’t do it writing from a position of authority about it and doing it badly.