Primitive culture: syncretism and magic. Primitive art: how a man became a man - Syncretism Why did primitive art have a syncretic character

Syncretism (art)

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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 art is experience, trial, attempt, test, knowledge; skillful, having come to skill or knowledge by many experiences. At the basis of all cognition is sensation, which is carried out due to irritation, direct excitation ... ... Literary Encyclopedia

Art- ART. The root of the word art is experience, trial, attempt, test, recognition; skillful, having come to skill or knowledge by many experiences. At the basis of all cognition is sensation, which is carried out due to irritation, direct ... ... Dictionary of literary terms

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

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

SYNCRETISM- (from the Greek synkrētismós connection), in a broad interpretation the original fusion of various types of cultural creativity, characteristic of the early stages of its development; in relation to art, it means the primary inseparability 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 Central and southern regions of Central Asia of the fourth quarter of the 4th and 1st centuries. BC e. Development… … Art Encyclopedia

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ANCIENT GREECE- the territory in the south of the Balkan Peninsula (see also the articles Antiquity, Greece). The history of DG covers the period from the beginning. II millennium BC at the beginning. I millennium AD Geography and ethnography Phaistos disk. 17th century BC (Archaeological Museum in Heraklion, ... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia

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The concept of syncretism

Definition 1

Syncretism is the main quality of culture, which characterizes the process of transition from a biological animal being to socio-cultural forms of existence of a rational person.

Syncretism was also represented as a combination of cultural practices, religious outlook and systems of social and social symbols.

This term appeared in ancient culture, but they began to study this phenomenon only in the $19th century. This explains the fact that scientists have not yet come to a compromise about its meaning and its characteristics. But when it comes to analyzing the historical basis of culture, art, religious processes and the entire spiritual life of society, they turn to syncretism.

Remark 1

Syncretism is the core on which the understanding is based that all the activities of primitive people, their social and cultural life is something common for all modern people, uniting them into something common.

The syncretism of this historical state of culture is considered natural and logical, since at the primary level the systemic integrity manifests itself in an undivided and amorphous form.

Syncretism should be distinguished from synthesis, since synthesis is essentially a fusion of objects that exist on their own and have independence. Syncretism is a state that precedes the division of the whole into elements.

Characteristic features of syncretism

The characteristic features of syncretism are:

• Manifestations of the fusion of man with nature, where primitive man compares himself with animals, plants, natural phenomena. These identifications are interconnected with the phenomenon of totemism, which is special for ancient culture, which, translated from the Indian language of the Ojibwe tribe, means - its kind, is a belief in ancestors, which manifests itself in the form of an animal, bird, plant, tree, etc.
• The primitive phenomenon of animism is also associated with syncretism, which is translated from lat. means - the soul, is the animation of the natural world and natural phenomena that surround primitive man. All human activity relies on them as a product of nature. This stable worldview is called traditionalist.
• With the development of crafts, it was able to bring a person to a new level of understanding of the world, gave him a significant awareness of himself and nature, the originality of his being and the being of nature.

Syncretism manifests itself in the inseparability of subsystems of culture:

1. material,
2. spiritual,
3. artistic.

The spiritual (ideal) subsystem of primitive culture was presented at 2 levels of the work of human consciousness: mythological and realistic levels.

The mythological subsystem was the unconscious-artistic ability of the work of consciousness.

The realistic subsystem was elemental-material consciousness. With the help of this consciousness, primitive people could distinguish the properties of natural objects and phenomena. This is a common, practical way of thinking. This is the state of pre-science.

Artistic activity is a manifestation of primitive syncretism. It was legitimately included in the material and production processes.

Artistic activity turned the hunt into a poetically sublime action, and the game of hunting was realized as a bloodthirsty ritual. From this follows the practice of sacrifice. The value of the victim increased from the degree of complexity and danger of hunting.

Food became a collective meal and was an image of victory, strength, carrying a festive character. Morphological inseparability also refers to the manifestation of syncretism. This concept includes the indivisibility of the genus, type, genres of art.

Remark 2

Primitive artistic creativity was a song-tale-action-dance, as A.N. Veselovsky. The main unit of artistic thinking was born - a metaphor that represented the fusion of everything that exists.

Syncretism(lat. syncretismus - connection of societies) - a combination or merger of "incomparable" ways of thinking and views, forming a conditional unity. Most often, the term syncretism applied to the field of art, to the facts of the historical development of music, dance, drama and poetry. In the definition of A. N. Veselovsky, syncretism is “a combination of rhythmic, orchestic movements with song-music and word elements”.

The very concept of "syncretism" was put forward in science, in the middle of the 19th century, as opposed to abstract-theoretical solutions to the problem of the origin of poetic genera (lyrics, epic and drama) in their supposedly sequential emergence.

The theory of syncretism considers that both the opinion of Hegel, who asserted the sequence “epos - lyricism - drama”, and the constructions of J. P. Richter, Benard and others, who considered the original form of lyrics, are equally erroneous. From the middle of the XIX century. these constructions are increasingly giving way to the theory of syncretism, the development of which is closely connected with the successes of evolutionism. Carrière, who basically adhered to Hegel's scheme, was inclined to think about the original inseparability of poetic genera. G. Spencer expressed a similar opinion. The idea of ​​syncretism is touched upon by a number of authors and, finally, is formulated with complete certainty by Scherer, who, however, does not develop it in any broad way in relation to poetry.

The task of exhaustively studying the phenomena of syncretism and clarifying the ways of differentiating poetic genera was set by A. N. Veselovsky, who in his writings (mainly in “Three Chapters from Historical Poetics”) developed the most striking and developed (for pre-Marxist literary criticism) theory of syncretism, based on huge factual material. In this direction, G. V. Plekhanov went in explaining the phenomena of primitive syncretic art, widely using Bucher's work “Work and Rhythm”, but at the same time arguing with the author of this study.

In the works of the founder

Vladimir Kabo

(Based on Australian visual arts)

There are few scientific problems so debatable and far from a final solution as the question of the semantics of primitive art, of its social function. Whether this art carried a utilitarian load and served as a tool for achieving practical goals - hunting happiness, magical mastery of the world and the multiplication of its productive forces - or was it generated primarily by the aesthetic needs of society and served to satisfy them, was it associated with primitive religion or developed independently from her - these and similar questions are still the subject of ongoing controversy. Very often, however, these disagreements are explained by the fact that the supporters of one or another view of primitive art do not rely sufficiently on ethnographic materials relating to the most backward peoples of the world. Meanwhile, only a deep study of art and its role in the life of such peoples will make it possible to penetrate into the secrets of the art of distant, primitive antiquity.

The attempts to explain the mysterious monuments of primitive culture are almost always based in one way or another on ethnographic data. A well-known example is the Upper Paleolithic cave Tyuk d "Oduber, where, along with the clay figures of bison, there are footprints of adults and adolescents who came here, apparently to perform some rituals, obviously associated with images of bison. As is usually thought, we are talking about initiation rites of adolescents, although the connection with images of animals remains undisclosed. Such an interpretation would be impossible without knowledge of the initiation rites of modern backward peoples. And there are many such examples (see, for example, Abramova 1966).

The only question is how deeply we understand the spiritual life of contemporary backward peoples and the place of art in it.

A lot of research has been devoted to the spiritual culture of primitive peoples, but even the best of them often have one drawback. The authors of these works, dissecting the spiritual life of primitive society, revealing its structural elements, often forget that they are dealing with a phenomenon that is in reality something whole and indivisible - in a word, analysis is not followed by the necessary synthesis in this case. We read about totemism, shamanism, fetishism, magic, initiation rites, folk medicine and witchcraft, and much more, and an analysis of all these elements is, of course, necessary. But this is still not enough. For a correct understanding of primitive culture, one more chapter is needed, which would show how all these phenomena function as a single and integral system, how they are intertwined with each other in the actual life of primitive society.

Primitive art can be correctly understood only in a social context, only in connection with other aspects of the life of society, its structure, its worldview, taken as a single and integral system.

One of the features of primitive society is that, due to the low level of development of the productive forces, individual specialization in certain types of activity is still just beginning. This is one of the fundamental differences between primitive society and societies in which a developed division of labor already exists and where, in particular, there are people who have devoted themselves entirely to creative activity. In a primitive society, each person is both an artist and a spectator. The division of labor in primitive society is predominantly collective. This is, firstly, a natural, based on physiological differences between men and women and people of different ages, division of labor within the team and, secondly, intergroup, geographical division of labor, based on natural and geographical differences between regions inhabited by different teams.

The shaman may be the first professional in this field in time of appearance, and the relatively early emergence of such specialization is associated with the vital - from the point of view of the primitive collective - function that he performs. The shaman enjoys the privilege of completely surrendering to impulses of ecstatic inspiration at a time when everyone around him is devoted to worldly prose and everyday life. And people expect exactly this “inspiration” from him. Not only a Siberian shaman, but also an Australian primitive sorcerer - a distant forerunner of later prophets, tormented by "spiritual thirst", and even, to some extent, professional creators of later times. It is no coincidence that the initiation of a prophet, as depicted in Muslim tradition, resembles the initiation of a primitive sorcerer or shaman, not only in the main (death and rebirth), but also in details (“and he cut my chest with a sword, and took out my trembling heart, and coal, flaming fire, pushed open in the chest"). This is how the spirits “make” the Australian sorcerer: they pierce the tongue, head, chest, take out the insides and replace them with new ones, put magic stones into his body and then revive him again. And it is no coincidence that the image of a person called to prophetic activity is so close and understandable to a poet and composer of a different time, a different culture.

The syncretism of primitive art is usually understood as the unity, indivisibility in it of the main forms of artistic creativity - fine art, drama, music, dance, etc. But it is not enough to note only this. It is much more important that all these forms of artistic creativity are closely connected with the entire diverse life of the collective, with its labor activity, with initiation rites (initiations), with producing rites (rites of multiplying natural resources and human society itself, rites of "making" animals, plants and people), with rites that reproduce the life and deeds of totemic and mythological heroes, that is, with collective actions cast in a traditional form, playing a very important role in the life of primitive societies and imparting a certain social sound to primitive art. The same applies to other aspects of the spiritual culture of primitive society.

A typical example is totemism as one of the main forms of religion in early tribal society. The specificity of totemism as a syncretic form of religious consciousness lies in the fact that it reflects the structure of the early tribal society, that it is its ideological expression, being at the same time connected with it by inextricable bonds. While religions that reflect a higher level of social development - including world religions such as Christianity or Islam - are indifferent to the level of development of the society professing them and easily adapt to it, totemism outside the "totemic" society is unthinkable. In totemism, generated by the very structure of the archaic society, its socio-economic foundations are reflected, but it also crystallizes the concept of the sacred, sacred - that metaphysical core that will form the basis of more developed forms of religion. The economic, social and religious spheres, and at the same time art, in primitive society are intertwined and interdependent to a much greater extent than is characteristic of higher levels of social development. In the conception and practice of primitive man, labor and magic are almost equally necessary, and the success of the former is often unthinkable without the latter. That is why B. Malinovsky could, with a certain justification, speak of the "economic aspect" of the Australian producing rites of intichiuma (Malinovsky 1912, pp. 81-108), although arguments about the economic role of magical rites may seem paradoxical. But the recognition of this role only reflects the understanding of the historicity of human thinking and culture.

Primitive magic was also closely connected with the positive knowledge of primitive man - with what can be called "primitive science" with certain reservations. The personification of the fusion of these two principles - objective and subjective - in the consciousness and practice of primitive man is the characteristic figure of a healer.

These principles are also generalized in the activities of cultural heroes - the demiurges of the tribal era (for more details, see Meletinsky 1963). Prometheus's words in the tragedy of Aeschylus are clear evidence of the syncretism of thinking inherent in this stage of cultural development. Prometheus speaks of the arts he taught the people:

“... I am the sunrises and sunsets of the stars

Showed them first. For them I made up

The science of numbers, the most important of the sciences ...

I opened them ways

Mixed potions of painkillers

So that people could reflect all diseases.

I installed various fortune-telling

And explained what dreams come true

What - no, and prophetic words meaning

I opened it to people, and it will take on the meaning of the road.

Flight explained the birds of prey and claws,

Which ones are good ... "

Primitive mythology is a complex phenomenon, religion is intertwined in it with pre-scientific ideas about the origin of the world and human society, with primitive law and norms of behavior, primitive myths - often in a highly artistic form - reflect the creative activity of human society. The emergence and flourishing of the myth is characteristic of the era of primitive syncretism. Magic is the practice of syncretic consciousness, while myth is its theory. Only in the process of social development from this complex whole, reflecting the syncretic worldview of primitive society, will religion proper, and ethics, and art, and science, and philosophy, and customary law, gradually develop, differentiating. And then mythology as a system of ideas, as an encyclopedia of the spiritual values ​​of primitive society will disappear.

Religion, therefore, does not precede other forms of social consciousness, including art, but develops along with them. The evolution of culture, for all the conventionality of this concept, like evolution in nature, to a certain extent, comes down to differentiation, to the dismemberment of originally integrated forms and the development of differentiating functions. They are based, in the words of K. A. Timiryazev, “synthetic types”.

Syncretic thinking, which is being lost by humanity as a whole, is preserved by child psychology. Here, in the world of children's performances and games, you can still find traces of bygone eras. It is no coincidence that the artistic creativity of the child, as we shall see later, has features that bring it closer to primitive art. “The basis of a synthetic creative act in a child is usually an artistic embodiment of an action - a game accompanied by a word, sound, visual symbols. This is the starting point, the beginning, from which separate types of children's art develop, standing out. Their products, in turn, the child seeks to use synthetically, introducing, for example, a made thing into a game with words and musical accompaniment ”(Bakushinsky 1931, p. 651).

Primitive art lives according to the same laws of synthetic creativity, but what became a game for a child was in primitive times a rite, socially determined and mythologically interpreted. The same path - from elementary action to complex forms of conscious activity - goes through primitive art. This also applies to other forms of primitive social consciousness. “In the Act, the beginning of being,” says Faust.

When an Australian hunter takes a wooden namatvinna horn for hunting as a magical means of ensuring hunting luck, he considers it as a tool that helps him in his work no less than a spear and a boomerang. Ornamentation of hunting weapons is often the same magical act that ensures the effectiveness of weapons. Maybe that's why in Queensland (Australia) an undecorated boomerang was considered unfinished. “These are usually the same designs as on the sacred symbols used in secret religious rites, and can only be reproduced by those fully consecrated men who know the songs and spells appropriate for the occasion ... Properly spoken, they give supernatural power to the instrument or weapon sent down by the world of spirits, cultural heroes and magic. A boomerang with such a pattern is not only a decorated weapon: thanks to artistic decoration, it has become perfect, reliable and hitting without a miss ... The economy, art and religion are interdependent, and an understanding of these other aspects of their life is also required to understand the hunting and gathering activities of the aborigines ”( Elkin 1952, pp. 32–33).

When primitive farmers accompany each important stage of agricultural labor - tillage, sowing, harvesting - with complex and lengthy rites, they do not spare either time or effort, since in their view the rites of agricultural magic are absolutely necessary in order for the work of the farmer to crowned with success. The hunter also looked at hunting magic. Religious rites and beliefs, and art along with them, were initially directly woven into material, labor activity, into the process of reproduction of human existence itself. “The production of ideas, ideas, consciousness is initially directly woven into material activity and into the material communication of people, into the language of real life. The formation of ideas, thinking, spiritual communication of people are here still a direct product of the material relationship of people.

To study primitive art in a social context, as already mentioned, it is necessary to turn to modern culturally backward peoples, because only here we will be able to see how art functions in the life of society. And the most important source for us will be ethnographic materials related to the natives of Australia, which brought to our days very archaic forms of culture and life. We will be mainly interested in the fine arts of the Australians, because through it we can most easily throw a bridge into that distant era, from which, apart from monuments of fine art, other objects of material culture and the bones of the people themselves, nothing has survived. And the art of the Australian aborigines is in many ways comparable to the monuments of art of the Stone Age.

Looking at the Australian continent, we find that it is divided into a number of cultural provinces, each of which has its own characteristics, including in the visual arts. The most important of these provinces are South East and East Australia, North East Queensland, Central Australia, Kimberley, Western Australia, South and South West Australia and the Arnhemland Peninsula with the nearest islands.

The outskirts of the continent - South and East Australia, Queensland, the Arnhemland Peninsula, Kimberley and Western Australia - are replete with rock art, gravitating towards a realistic display of objects of the surrounding world - people, animals, tools. The art of the central regions of Australia is dominated by conditional geometric compositions, abstract symbols embodying the abstract forms of things. But elements of conditionally geometric, or symbolic, art can also be found on the outskirts of the continent, while examples of primitive realist art are also found in the interior of the continent.

It is possible that this placement of the two leading styles of Australian art reflects the history of the settlement of the continent. The marginal regions of Australia were inhabited earlier than its interior regions, although both of them were mastered by man as early as the Pleistocene. In addition, the further development of the natives of the marginal and inland regions, due to various historical and geographical conditions, proceeded differently, and this also could not but affect the nature of their culture. As the latest radiocarbon studies show, the settlement of Australia began no later than 30 thousand years ago - that is, even in the era of the Upper Paleolithic, which includes the most remarkable achievements of the art of the Stone Age. Inheriting to a certain extent the anthropological type of their Upper Paleolithic ancestors and preserving in isolation some of the features of their culture, the Australian natives also inherited a number of achievements of this great era in the development of fine arts.

A very interesting example, pointing to the connection between the art of the Australians and the Upper Paleolithic art, is the motif of the labyrinth. It is known both in the west and in the east of Australia, along with a number of other cultural elements that testify to the ancient ethnic ties between the people of East and West, ties dating back to the era of the original settlement of Australia (Cabo 1966).

The motif of the labyrinth in its various variants, sometimes highly stylized, including one of the most characteristic and ancient ones - in the form of a meander, also known in Australia - dates back to the Upper Paleolithic, as evidenced by its image on the mysterious items from Mezin (Abramov 1962, pl. 31-35). The age of these products is approximately 20-30 thousand years. Similar forms of ornament are also known later, in the Madeleine era, and then in the Neolithic, Eneolithic and later, when they are widely distributed on the territory of the three great cultural and historical worlds of antiquity - in the Mediterranean and the Caucasus, in East Asia and Peru. One of the variants of the motif of the labyrinth is a checkered weave, which was called ulziy by the Mongols (“thread of happiness”) and became one of the elements of Buddhist symbolism. Ulziy “has its roots in very ancient times associated with hunting life; it is also possible that the term itself is the name of a totemic animal” (Vyatkina 1960, p. 271). Ulziy is always depicted in the center of the decorated object and “brings a person, according to the concept of the Mongols, happiness, prosperity, longevity” (Kocheshkov 1966, p. 97). The alkhan khee ornament, which is a Mongolian variety of the ancient meander, widespread in the adjacent territories of East Asia, has the same sacred meaning - “a linear attempt to convey eternal movement, eternal life” (Belsky 1941, p. 97). This ornament is depicted only on especially important objects: on sacred vessels, on the surface of a festive tent, etc. The sacred meaning of the meander and related motifs among the Mongols and other peoples of Asia sheds light on the meaning of these motifs among the ancient peoples of the Mediterranean. Undoubtedly, the sacred significance of these stylized forms of the labyrinth is due to the fact that in ancient times some magical representations were associated with them. And we can decipher these ideas, at least approximately, based on the Australian parallels known to us.

In eastern Australia, images in the form of a labyrinth were carved on tree trunks surrounding graves or places forbidden to the uninitiated, where initiation rites were performed. Obviously, these images were sacred symbols associated with initiation rites and funeral ritual. Indeed, it is known that the content of myths related to initiation rites was encrypted in conditional symbolic images on trees (dendroglyphs). These images played an important role in the ritual life of the indigenous population, their meaning was esoteric, they could not be seen by the uninitiated. Similar symbols associated with initiation rites were depicted on the ground. The surviving photographs show how the initiated teenagers are led with their eyes closed along the path, on which figures resembling the image of a labyrinth are inscribed. This is how the aborigines imagined the path of the great cultural heroes and totemic ancestors through the earth and through the “land of dreams”. Sometimes, next to the image of the labyrinth, one could also see the contours of an animal that the natives struck with spears during rituals (Mountford 1961, p. 11). Such images were also an integral part of a complex religious and magical ritual. And until now, the people of the Walbiri tribe, in Central Australia, make ritual drawings on the ground with blood and dyed fluff, schematically depicting the "land of dreams" - the sacred land of the ancestors, where the events of mythology unfolded, where they once came from and where they left again, completing their earthly way, the ancestors of present generations (Meggit 1962, p. 223).

Rock carvings of the labyrinth are also known - for example, in the west of New South Wales. The labyrinth is combined here with the image of animal tracks, a hunting scene or dancing people, as if performing a ritual dance (A. and K. Lommel 1959, p. 115, fig. 40; McCarthy 1965, pp. 94 - 95). At the other end of the continent - in the extreme west of Australia - mother-of-pearl shells, ornamented with the image of a labyrinth, were used in initiation rites. Through inter-tribal exchange, these shells spread thousands of kilometers from the place of their manufacture, almost throughout Australia. And everywhere they were treated as something sacred. They were allowed to wear only men who had passed the rite of passage. With their help, they caused rain, they were used in love magic. Undoubtedly, the mysterious images inscribed on the shells increased their magical power in the eyes of the natives. The labyrinth churingas were used only during initiation ceremonies (Davidson 1949, p. 93).

The antiquity, deep traditionality and at the same time the sacred, esoteric meaning of the images of the labyrinth on the shells is also confirmed by the fact that the production of these images was accompanied by the performance of a special song-spell of mythological content and itself turned into a ritual. A drawing could only be done by someone who knew the song (Mountford and Harvey 1938, p. 119). Before us is another vivid example of primitive syncretism, the synthesis of fine art, singing-spell, sacred rite and the esoteric “philosophy” associated with it, into the depths of which, unfortunately, no ethnographer has yet penetrated.

The connection of the image of the labyrinth with the rites of initiation and, at the same time, with the funeral ritual is not accidental - after all, the rite of initiation itself is interpreted as the death of the initiate and his return to a new life. Similar symbolism of the labyrinth is given by ethnographic materials on some other peoples. Thus, the Chukchi depicted the abode of the dead as a labyrinth (Bogoraz 1939, p. 44, fig. 36). Structures in the form of a labyrinth, sometimes underground, in ancient Egypt, in ancient Greece and Italy also had religious and cult significance.

The connection of the labyrinth with ideas about the world of the dead and initiation rites sheds light on the origin of the mysterious stone structures in the form of a labyrinth, common in northern Europe - from England to the White Sea. Similar structures are known among the Australians. They served for the rites of initiation that were performed here even in the memory of the present generation, and each line of them was given a special, esoteric meaning (Idris 1963, pp. 57, 63).

On one of the rocks in Norway (in Romsdal), a drawing of a labyrinth is visible, and above - deer in the so-called "X-ray" style, with a "life line" schematically depicting the esophagus. The petroglyph refers to approximately the 6th - 2nd millennium BC. e. and, apparently, is an image of the “lower world”, from where, through magical rites, animals killed during the hunt return to a new life (A. Lommel 1964, pp. 362–363, fig. 17). Much earlier, in the cave of Altamira and other caves of the Madeleine time, complex interweaving of triple lines, the so-called "pasta", the meaning of which has not yet been unraveled, was depicted. In one case, a bull's head is woven into this complex pattern. Are these drawings also labyrinths, similar in their meaning to the labyrinth with deer from Romsdal, in other words, images of the underworld, where animals killed by primitive hunters go and come back to life as a result of rituals? After all, the sources of food, on which the very life of people depended, had to be systematically replenished, and this purpose was served by producing rites, rites of fertility, of which these images could also be a necessary accessory. Fertility rites were intended not only to increase hunting prey, but also to increase human society itself, and here they came into contact with rites of initiation. Was not the New South Wales labyrinth rock painting mentioned above with human beings woven into it (some of them armed with boomerangs or clubs), a pictorial representation of hunters returning from the "lower world" to a new life? And the labyrinths of Paleolithic and Neolithic hunters, consisting of meanders, concentric rhombuses or a complex interweaving of lines, and images of animals in the "X-ray" style - all this we still find in the art of Australians, and one can think that these motifs are based on similar presentations and ideas. It is possible that the northern labyrinths also served as models of the "lower world", where magical rites of multiplication of game fish were performed. It is no coincidence that almost all of these structures are located along the shores of the seas or at the mouths of rivers. Their connection with the rituals performed to ensure the success of the fishing industry is also admitted by the researcher of these structures, N. N. Gurina, although she interprets them differently (Gurina 1948).

Our hypotheses do not contradict each other. Ethnography knows examples when the rites of multiplication of animals or plants are performed simultaneously with the rites of initiation, as if intertwined with them. Obviously, in the view of primitive people, the producing rites, through which animals and plants return to a new life, and the rites of initiation, through which the initiates are reborn after a temporary death, are connected by a deep inner meaning. And art plays an important role in these rituals, expressing in visual forms the deep, intimate meaning of what is happening. Art is firmly woven into rituals, the significance of which in the life of the primitive collective is very great, and through them into this life itself with its labor, with its ritual actions, no less important for primitive man than labor, with the philosophical understanding of it by man.

So, the motif of the labyrinth, sometimes stylized, arose in the era of the Upper Paleolithic. Caves with Paleolithic paintings preserved on their walls are generally difficult to access, making them well suited for performing rites that required seclusion and secrecy, rites that the uninitiated were forbidden to see, as in Australia. Sometimes the path to the depths of these caves is a real underground labyrinth with many obstacles (Kastere 1956, p. 161).

It may be that the motif of the labyrinth in Paleolithic art was originally a schematic representation of such underground labyrinths, leading the initiates and initiates to the underground sanctuary, and at the same time it was also a symbol of the “lower world”, the “land of dreams”, with which mysterious, deep grottoes were associated. The caves of Paleolithic man were the prototype of this world. Perhaps, the path of cultural heroes and totemic ancestors was also associated with the underground labyrinth, and in the depths of the caves, rituals of multiplication of animals were performed, images of which cover the walls of the caves, and initiation rites. And then the sanctuary in the cave Tyuk d "Auduber, which I mentioned at the beginning of the article, was a place where initiation rites, closely related in the worldview of primitive people, and rites of multiplication of game animals - bison, were performed, and the connection of initiation rites with images of bison becomes clear. Clay figures of bison and numerous images of animals on the walls of Paleolithic caves were probably an integral part of a complex system of productive rites.The great role of these rites in the life of Australians, their connection with images of animals - all this suggests that their role in the life of people of the Upper Paleolithic era was no less great.

What explains the stability of the labyrinth motif over many millennia? The fact that initially it was not just an ornament, as it sometimes became later, the fact that religious and magical semantic content was invested in it. This content, like everything related to the field of religious beliefs and magic, has a significant degree of stability and conservatism. And even if one content is replaced by another over time, the form as part of something sacred continues to be preserved. That is why the image of the labyrinth could be inherited by the peoples of the Mediterranean, East Asia and Australia, and through East Asia and the peoples of America, ultimately from their distant Paleolithic ancestors. We already know that for some of these peoples it was undoubtedly a sacred symbol.

The ancient analogue of the ornament, consisting of meanders, was a spiral - a motif also well known since the Upper Paleolithic era (it is found in Madeleine ornaments on bone and horn) and characteristic of Australian art, but common only in Central Australia. Given the Paleolithic origin of this motif, there is no reason, following F. McCarthy, to link its appearance in Australia with the Bronze Age (McCarthy 1956, p. 56). The spiral appears much earlier and, after the Upper Paleolithic, was depicted on Egyptian Neolithic ceramics. The religious and magical significance of the spiral motif among the Australians is confirmed by the fact that they depicted it on churingas - sacred objects made of stone or wood. Churings were deeply revered by the Australians, the souls of ancestors and living members of the tribe were associated with them, the churings were, as it were, their counterparts, the second body, they were depicted by means of spirals, concentric circles and other abstract symbols of the deeds of mythical heroes and totemic ancestors, they were kept in hiding places and shown only young men who had reached maturity and passed the rites of initiation, and their loss was considered as the greatest misfortune for the tribe. Churinga is, in essence, a sacred image of a particular person, an image not of his appearance, but of his totemic essence. Australian society, with its magical thinking, did not yet know otherwise. If you rub the churinga with fat or ocher, it will turn into a totemic animal - another hypostasis of a person. The images on the churingas had the same esoteric meaning as the dendroglyphs of Eastern Australia.

Painted pebbles, reminiscent of the well-known pebbles from the Mas d'Azil cave, were revered by Australians as eggs and kidneys of totemic animals. They were a special type of churinga. In Tasmania, the same pebbles were considered images of missing tribesmen. geometric representations were found in Dordogne, Madeleine and other Paleolithic sites (Graziosi 1956, pl. 96).The carved bones from Pshedmost are very similar to churingi - the same oval shape, the same concentric circles.Probably based on Australo-Tasmanian and Paleolithic artifacts lay a similar set of ideas.

Similar sacred symbols depicting the mythical creatures of antiquity were relief or painted compositions on the ground, which were made by the natives of Central and Eastern Australia for totemic rites (Spencer and Gillen 1904, pp. 737 - 743). They not only served as the center around which episodes of the totemic mystery unfolded, but their very manufacture was part of a complex ritual.

Great was the role in the religious and ceremonial, esoteric life of the natives of Australia and rock carvings, many of which were made in ancient times. Modern natives do not know anything about their origin, and therefore often attribute their manufacture to the legendary totemic ancestors or mysterious creatures that live in the crevices of rocks. The role played by these images in public and religious life in the past is evidenced by the fact that even today in very few places in Australia, however, there are petroglyphs that have retained all their former significance. For example, in the Western Desert, in one of In the most isolated and remote places of Australia, where the Aborigines still lead their ancient, traditional way of life of itinerant hunters and gatherers, a totem sanctuary dedicated to the bird emy "dreaming time" still revered by the Aborigines has been preserved. Aborigines continue to hunt emu, and the rituals performed here should contribute to the reproduction of this bird. The large rounded stone symbolizes the emu egg, and the emu footprints engraved on the surface of the stone symbolize the chicks emerging from the egg. When asked about the origin of engravings, the natives answer that they "have always been", that they were created "in the time of dreams", in the distant times of creation. And still these engravings, being part of the sanctuary, play an important role in the ritual life of the tribe (Edwards 1966, pp. 33-38).

The Wangina mythical creature gallery caves in the Kimberley, as well as some petroglyphic totem galleries in Central Australia and the Arnhemland peninsula, are still sacred and meaningful to the local tribes. Particularly interesting are Wanjina, depicted with radiance around their heads, with faces devoid of mouths. The lights, according to the natives, depict a rainbow, and the Vanjina themselves are associated with fertility rites, so a rainbow snake is depicted next to them, also symbolizing the productive forces of nature. In the dry season, on the eve of the rainy season, the natives renew these ancient images with fresh colors to ensure rainfall and increase the amount of moisture in nature and so that the souls of unborn children, leaving the body of the rainbow snake, incarnate into living human beings. Thus, drawing or updating ancient drawings here is in itself a magical act. It is curious that on the dolmens of Spain there are images of faces devoid of a mouth and thus reminiscent of the Australian Wangina. On the megaliths of France, one can see a system of arcs and other symbols similar to the images on Australian petroglyphs (Kuhn 1952, pl. 74, 86, 87). The caves of Europe, starting from the Paleolithic, are replete with negative handprints - the hand was pressed against the wall and the surrounding space was covered with paint. Precisely the same handprints cover the walls of many caves in Australia, and in this way they vividly resemble the ancient caves of Europe. As it was found, each print is a kind of "signature" of a person who came to the cave to perform the ceremony.

Known in Australia and images of human feet. Such images are often found here both among petroglyphs (see, for example, Spencer and Gillen 1927, pl. 3) and on ritual objects. Such, for example, is the magic bone point for "damage" in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in Leningrad (collection No. 921-79). It is enclosed in a case made of bark, on the surface of which the imprints of the hands and feet of a person are depicted (Kabo 1960, p. 161). For Australians, hunters and trackers, able to recognize any person by a footprint, a footprint and its image were inextricably linked with a person's personality. Images of traces of a person, an anthropomorphic creature or an animal, as it were, depicted themselves.

A. A. Formozov writes in one of his works: “Images of human feet are especially characteristic not for the art of Paleolithic and Mesolithic hunters”, but for later eras, “when hunting, and after it, tracking lost its meaning.” “In the Paleolithic painting of France,” he writes further, “there are no or almost no images of people in the Neolithic Siberian inscriptions, in early Bushmen art” (Formozov 1965, p. 137). He connects this phenomenon with the evolution of primitive thinking, with the fact that hunters have not yet developed an interest in man (he repeats the same idea in his book: Formozov 1966). Numerous images of people and anthropomorphic creatures, human hands and feet in the art of Australians - primitive hunters, whose culture was at the Mesolithic level - show that the opinion about the lack of interest in humans at this level of development is open to discussion.

Symbolism is a characteristic feature of Australian art. The traditional forms of this art, especially often geometric motifs - spirals, concentric circles, semicircles, wavy lines, meanders - in each individual case are filled with content known only to the artist and people initiated into the mythology of the tribe. The forms of this art are limited, the number of options is small, but the more diverse and richer the content invested in them by the natives. The same variant, for example, a spiral or a semicircle, which is also widespread over a vast territory, among many tribes of Central Australia, in each individual case, in each group, means a variety of things, concepts, ideas, but most often it tells about the deeds of the totemic ancestors of a given tribe or group of tribes. The same geometric motif can mean any plant or animal, person, stone, mountain, pond, mythical creature or totem, and much more, according to the meaning of the entire complex of images, the context and depending on which totemic group, genus, phratry this the complex is used to whom it belongs as a sacred, inalienable property. A very common U inside U usually symbolizes seated people or animals. It can depict a whole totemic group, a tribe, a group of hunters in a camp or during a corroboree, a flock of resting animals or birds sitting on the ground. The motifs of conditionally geometric art are passed down from generation to generation, they are deeply traditional and, according to the natives, originated in the distant mythical times of Altira. It is all the more convenient to put various content into these images, since there is often no visible connection between an abstract motif and any specific natural phenomenon that it depicts. The connection between the one and the other often exists only in the minds of the creators, and the complex relationship between reality and artistic thinking can only be explained by the psychology of primitive creativity.

The development of primitive symbolic art may have been driven by the needs of a developing cult. Symbolic, conventionally schematic images are a kind of cipher that hides from the uninitiated the content of what is depicted. So, for example, the zigzag motif may be a stylized image of a snake, which plays a large role in the beliefs of the Australians. Many other motifs, if they are a stylized representation of some realities, are much more difficult to decipher.

Behind the symbolism of Australian art, a whole system of abstract concepts, the worldview of the tribe, can be hidden. According to one author, he managed to find out the meaning of the system of concentric circles in one of the tribes. It was "a sacred image of the whole tribe and all its beliefs... The inner circle was the tribe itself. The outer concentric circles depicted the life cycle of its members, from the first initiation in youth to full initiation in maturity ... They were covered by the Circle of the Old Men, the highest council of the tribe, the center of all its wisdom ... Then came other circles, totemic and sacred, linking the tribe in a single whole, surrounding it with life continuing on earth and in the universe ... One of the outer circles was the sun; the last circle, embracing everything, was the sky itself and everything that the universe personifies ”(Idris 1955, pp. 67 - 68).

Images of the same symbols on vanings - sacred emblems, large structures made of poles or spears, decorated with down and feathers - and on brightly painted ritual headdresses play an important role in totemic mysteries that reproduce the dramatic events of the "time of dreams" - altira, when there were still the creators of the universe and of human society itself are alive - the totemic ancestors of the tribe. In these rites, which played a great religious, magical and social role, not only the syncretism of various types of art - fine art, drama, dance, music and singing - is remarkable, first of all, the significance of art itself in the religious, ritual and social life of the tribe is remarkable. The role of art here is not auxiliary, not decorative or illustrative - art is the most necessary component of the action itself, without it the action will not make sense and will not lead to the desired results.

With the help of abstract, abstract symbols, the Aborigines of Australia tell whole stories that once happened to the heroes of mythology and totemic ancestors. Looking at the churinga, which depicts several concentric circles or semicircles connected by wavy lines, an Australian, initiated into the mythology of his group, into its symbolism, will tell you a story full of drama from the life of his ancestors, half-humans, half-animals. And without his help, you would never have comprehended the meaning of these images, because in the neighboring group you saw exactly the same ones, but their meaning was completely different there. This is how art develops into pictography, standing at the origins of writing. Before us is another function of primitive art - communicative, consisting in the transfer of information from person to person, from group to group, from generation to generation. The social and cultural role of primitive art in this function can hardly be overestimated. And it arises, as we see, stage by stage very early.

Among the neighbors of the Australians, the Papuans of New Guinea, N. N. Miklukho-Maclay discovered this function of art. He wrote: “Many drawings made with colored clay, charcoal or lime on wood and bark, and representing crude images, lead to the startling discovery that the Papuans of the Maclay Coast have reached ideographic writing, albeit a very primitive one ... In the neighboring village of Bongu I found on the pediment of the buambramra (men's house. - V.K.) a row of shields ... These shields were decorated with rough drawings like hieroglyphs depicting fish, snakes, the sun, stars, etc. ... In other villages, I also saw on on the walls of some huts, drawings made with red and black paint; I met similar figures on tree trunks in the forest, carved on the bark, but due to their simplicity and at the same time diversity, even less understandable ... All these images did not, apparently, serve as ornaments in the narrow sense of the word; however, their meaning remained unclear to me until one day, many months later, I received an unexpected solution to the riddle during one of my visits to Bili Bili. Here, on the occasion of the launching of two large boats, on which the natives had been working for several months, a festive feast was arranged. When it was nearing its end, one of the young men who were present jumped up, grabbed a coal, and began to draw a series of primitive figures on a thick beam that lay nearby on the site ... The first two figures drawn by the native were supposed to represent two new boats ... Then followed an image of two pigs slaughtered for a feast ... Next, several large tabirs were shown, corresponding to the number of dishes with food that were offered to us that day. Finally, my boat was depicted, marked with a large flag, two large sailing boats from the island of Tiara and several small pirogues without sails ... This group was supposed to depict the guests present at the dinner ... The image was supposed to serve as a memory of the celebration that was taking place; I saw him months later. It became clear to me that this image, which could hardly be called a drawing, as well as all images of the same kind that I had seen before, should be considered as the beginnings of primitive figurative writing ”(Miklukho-Maclay 1951, pp. 97 - 98 ).

Having made this discovery, having discovered the beginnings of writing among the Papuans, N. N. Miklukho-Maclay immediately notes that “the meaning of these impromptu drawings is unknown and incomprehensible to others who were not at their inscription”, that the conventionality of these images is very great and does not give “the possibility to understand this primitive letter to outsiders” (Miklukho-Maclay 1951, p. 99). The same, as we already know, is the case with the Australians. How, then, is the informational function of art carried out? At this stage of development, this is achieved in only two ways: either the image plays the role of a mnemonic tool, serves as a reminder of the events of the past, real or legendary, and, relying on it, the memory of the past is transmitted directly from one person to another; or in a given social group there is already a known agreement or due to tradition that certain symbols are associated with certain specific concepts or phenomena. In the latter case, primitive art in its informational function is already very close to writing in the proper sense of the word.

A kind of primitive writing - traditional schematic drawings on the sand - accompanies mythological stories about the "time of dreams" in the central Australian tribe of Walbiri. Women play an active role in this story, accompanied by explanatory drawings. The storytelling process is rhythmic and, in addition to drawings, is accompanied by traditional gestures, which also explain what is being told (Munn 1962, pp. 972–984; Munn 1963, pp. 37–44). This is a typical example of the syncretism of the mythological narrative characteristic of Australians and other primitive peoples, sometimes turning into singing, drawing and sign language. These stories have an educational and educational value: the way of life of modern Valbiri, the norms of their behavior are consecrated by the authority of myth, sanctioned by projection in mythical times.

It is often said that writing appears only in societies in which social stratification has already occurred or is occurring, that it is, therefore, an indicator of important social and cultural changes that are taking place or have already taken place. This is only partly true. It must be borne in mind that the origins of writing lie in the visual activity of pre-class society, that even primitive society already felt the need and had the means to transmit information using symbols, and one of them was pictography, which was the basis of writing and arising at a very early stage of social development. Already in the pictorial symbolism of the Australian early tribal society, art, magic, mythology and emerging primitive writing are combined.

At the present time, there are many examples of the communicative function of primitive art, which was the basis of writing (see, for example, Deeringer 1963, pp. 31-53). But, while accumulating factual materials, it is no less important to find out what social needs determine the development of pictography. And there are apparently a lot of them. In one case, we have a love letter from a Yukaghir girl, a touching story about unhappy love (Deeringer 1963, p. 52); in the other, a story about a celebration on the occasion of the launching of two boats, dictated by the desire to keep the memory of such an outstanding event for a long time; in the third - a story about the events that took place during the "time of dreams." Particularly interesting and important is the function of emerging and developing pictography, which is associated with the need to preserve the memory of past events - real or fictional. This need underlies the emergence of history as a science. Already at the earliest stages of social and cultural development, people feel the need to know their past, their history and to preserve the memory of it, including “sacred history”, mythology, which they still cannot separate from true history. “Seeing how a phenomenon arises is the best way to understand it”, “you really own only that you clearly understand” - these aphorisms of Goethe would be close to primitive man, although he would understand them in his own way. For him, to understand the origin of a thing means to master it, to understand the origin of human society means to master the forces on which the existence of society depends. Knowing how the world came into being did not just satisfy the curiosity of primitive man, but with the help of this knowledge he sought to master the forces that govern the world.

“And they still didn’t hold back,

And they didn't stop

Three mighty words of God

The story of things beginning ... "

So it says in "Kalevala" ("Kalevala", rune 8, p. 42). To heal the wound caused by iron, to stop the blood, the creators of the epic know one sure remedy: you need to know “the beginning of steel and the birth of iron” (“Kalevala”, rune 9, p. 43). Power over a thing - in the knowledge of the history of the origin of this thing, power over the world, over the forces that control the fate of people - in the history of the origin of the world and human society. The man who knows the beginning of all things is a medicine man. He can conjure any thing, any pain, by telling about the origin of this thing, just like Lemminkäinen conjures frost:

"Or to say your beginning,

Announce origin?

I know your beginning...

("Kalevala", rune 30, p. 184)

That is why it was so important for a person to know his own “beginning”. This is how history was born, still inextricably linked with pseudo-history, and art played its important social role here too. At first, the society is satisfied with the legendary story, the story of the “time of dreaming”, stories about the exploits of half-humans, half-animals, the pioneers and founders of the social order, about their deeds, recorded in traditional symbols depicted on churingas, on rocks and cave walls, on the ground, etc. e. But, having arisen, the need for knowledge of the past becomes self-sufficient, and then primitive historiography develops. The Dakota Indians, who did not have a written language, made drawings on the skins of bison, placing them in concentric circles - these drawings were a kind of historical chronicle, and the old people, pointing to them, explained what happened in such and such a year: the drawing told about what happened in this year of the event. Similar drawings were found among the Yukagirs - sometimes they were even original historical maps.

While in the conventionally geometric, symbolic art of the Australians, the connection with the real forms of the visible world is largely lost, their primitive realist art, on the contrary, strives for the most accurate reproduction of the forms and characteristic features of objects. Moreover, as is generally characteristic of primitive art, the effect of similarity is achieved by minimal means, which at the same time testifies to observation and great skill. The plots of this art, as a rule, are limited to the phenomena of the surrounding world and the events of everyday life. Animals - objects of hunting are especially often depicted. Entire scenes are sometimes presented, such as the catching of turtles, fish, dolphins and dugongs by people sitting in dugout boats and armed with harpoons - such are the drawings on the walls of the caves of Groote Island and Kasm in the Gulf of Carpentaria (McCarthy 1959). Among the monuments of primitive realist art, one can, with certain reservations, include numerous anthropomorphic images of spirits, cultural heroes and other mythical creatures.

The most striking and interesting is the primitive-realistic art of Arnhemland, and the rock art of this peninsula is especially high in terms of its artistic merit and variety of subjects. These are either polychrome, static images of animals, birds, fish, reptiles, people and mysterious anthropomorphic creatures that are harmful or benevolent to people, made in the “X-ray” style, when internal organs are reproduced along with external details; or monochrome, dynamic drawings of people in a completely different style, conveyed by thin lines and always in motion - men run, fight, throw spears, play musical instruments, and women carry vessels for food or dance. The image of a person occupies a large place in the primitive realistic art of the Australians, and this indicates that they have an inherent interest in a person - let us recall here A. A. Formozov, who believes that it has not yet arisen among primitive hunters.

While some "X-ray" style drawings are from the memory of the current generation, "linear" style drawings are much older. Their creators have long been forgotten, and the natives attribute their origin to Mimi - mysterious creatures living in the rocks. Mimi live like people, gather food and hunt, but no one has yet seen them, because they are very shy and, at the slightest sound of an approaching person, hide in the crevices of the rocks. Images in caves (especially drawings of animals) are attributed by the natives to magical, creative power. The old men, by casting spells over them, thereby seek to increase the number of animals on which they hunt and on which the life of the tribe depends (Harvey 1957, p. 117; Mountford 1954, pp. 11, 14). That is why the assumption arises that in the Paleolithic the images of animals played an important role in producing rites.

Another form of art in Arnhemland is bark painting. It has a very ancient origin - there is evidence that in the early years of colonization, the natives of Southeast Australia and Tasmania painted on the bark. At present, this art form has survived only in Arnhemland, but it has reached its true flowering here. There are many aboriginal artists who paint with ocher of various shades, white clay, charcoal on sheets of eucalyptus bark, and each of the artists has his own special style, his own “handwriting”. They also make drawings in the "X-ray" style. They look like primitive anatomical schemes; the spine, heart, and esophagus are almost always depicted (Spencer and Gillen 1914; Kupka 1962).

Australian art, like primitive art in general, develops according to its own special laws. But it gravitates toward a holistic depiction of the surrounding world, toward identifying its main, essential features, it seeks to express what corresponds to the level of knowledge of the native about the universe. An animal is primarily a source of food, and an Australian, in the words of one researcher, “sees it not only with his eyes, but also with his stomach” (Kupka 1957, “tr. 265). More precisely, he sees it with all his senses, and this makes some works of Australian art, according to the same researcher, outstanding examples of "expressionism" in painting. One should not, however, exaggerate the subjective principle in the work of Australian painters. The Australian artist takes from the diverse reality what is vitally important for him, what his life, the life of past and future generations depends on. If this is an animal, he strives to express in the drawing all the most essential in it: not only its external appearance, but also its internal structure - to the extent, of course, in which it is known to him. Australian visual arts are on the verge of primitive art and primitive science. The drawings of Australians can be approached both as works of art and as evidence of their knowledge of nature, in particular, of the anatomy of animals. If this is a mythical creature, then in this case the Australian, like the Papuan marind-anim, seeks to emphasize what is especially important, essential in him. For the Papuan, his external, visible, changing shell is insignificant in the deme; the main thing in him is his insides, the receptacle of his life force. The Australian may approach the creations of his imagination differently, but he will also express the most essential in them. In the "X-ray" style, mainly edible animals are drawn, the anatomical structure of which is fairly well known. In the drawings of crocodiles that are not eaten, as well as people and mythical creatures, the representation of internal organs is limited to only some parts of the skeleton. The natives of Arnhemland are familiar with the human skeleton from the funeral ritual (they practice secondary burial), and mythical creatures are depicted by analogy with human ones. If this is a pregnant woman, then the fetus is drawn, as if visible through her skin. Such drawings, like some images of animals in the "X-ray" style, are used in witchcraft rites and, being works of art, are at the same time tools of magic. The elders often draw totemic animals in order to initiate the youth into the mythology of the tribe, and such drawings are mainly for educational and didactic purposes.

Some researchers apply the concept of "intellectual realism" to the "X-ray" style (Kenyon 1929, pp. 37-39; Adam 1951, p. 162). "Intellectual realism", which tends to depict the object as the artist knows or imagines it, they distinguish from "visual realism", which seeks to depict the object as the artist's eyes see it. The concept of "intellectual realism" includes, in addition to the "X-ray" style, other pictorial techniques that are characteristic of primitive, including Australian, art - for example, when animals are transmitted by depicting only their traces or when both are drawn in an animal depicted in profile. eyes. The term "intellectual realism" is borrowed from research on the psychology of children's creativity. This phenomenon is characteristic of children's art. Children, like primitive artists, sometimes draw people and animals in an "X-ray" style, "with a spine." “The child often contrasts what he knows with what he sees ... The child draws objects not as he should see them, but as he knows them. From the sides of the house, he lines up two or three of its sides in the same direction, while they inevitably obscure each other, or he depicts the contents of the house as if its walls were transparent ... According to Piaget, the child visual realism and intellectual realism coexist, one on the sensory plane, in which it corresponds to the data of experience, the other on the plane of mental representations” (Vallon 1956, p. 196).

They also coexist in primitive art. Children's art largely repeats the methods of primitive artistic creativity. This feature of children's art was very well noticed by A.P. Chekhov. In the story “At Home”, he writes: “From daily observations of his son, the prosecutor became convinced that children, like savages, have their own artistic views and peculiar requirements, inaccessible to the understanding of adults. Under careful observation, an adult Serezha could seem crazy. He found it possible and reasonable to draw people above houses, to convey with a pencil, in addition to objects, his sensations. and color, so that when coloring the letters, each time he invariably painted the sound L in yellow, M in red, A in black, and so on.

Like children's creativity, primitive artists also try to convey sounds in graphic symbols. So, on Easter Island, rock images of a bird-man, a hero of local mythology, whose dual nature resembles the totemic ancestors of the Australian aborigines, have been preserved. In an effort to convey the piercing cry of this creature, the artist depicted lines radiating from its open beak in a beam. Like children's art, and in the art of primitive peoples, color is closely associated with the depicted object, with the idea of ​​a phenomenon, even with an abstract concept. Hence the symbolism of flowers. For Australians, white is the color of death, mourning, sadness. It is used in funeral rites and initiation rites. Sometimes, however, warriors paint themselves white before the battle. Red is predominantly the color of strength, energy - visible (fire) and invisible, spiritual, - the color of joy, a masculine color. Churingas are rubbed with red ocher, the bride and groom are painted during the wedding ceremony. The female color is yellow. Black is the color of vendetta (Roth 1904, pp. 14-16; Chewings 1937, pp. 65-66). The symbolic use of colors is a kind of language, a traditional means of conveying ideas and states of mind.

In Australia, only four colors are commonly used - red, yellow, black and white. The use of any other color in painting is an extremely rare occurrence; but there are many shades of red and yellow. Only the four colors mentioned have their own special names. Thus, among the Aranda of Central Australia, yellow, green and blue are designated by one word (Spencer and Gillen 1927, p. 551). This phenomenon expresses the well-known sequence in the development of colors by people, testified by numerous studies. Red and yellow colors are mastered by children and backward peoples much earlier than blue and green. According to the research of linguists, the ancient Jews and Chinese did not know the color blue, and Homer called the sea "wine-colored." The Turkmens designated blue and green colors in one word.

In addition to symbolic and primitive realist art, in some areas of Australia, especially in Arnhemland, there is also a special, third type, or style, of visual art. This type of art is not symbolic, but it cannot be categorized as objective primitive realist art, in which even the creations of religious fantasy are depicted with all the attributes characteristic of normal human beings. Here we also find images of supernatural beings, the peculiarity of which is that, although they consist of elements borrowed from nature, from human beings and animals, these elements are combined quite arbitrarily, fantastically, incredibly, grotesquely. These are real demons, creatures of nightmares. By a distant analogy - of course, very conditional - with modern art, this type of Australian art (it is also observed in other backward peoples) can be called "primitive surrealism" (vivid examples of this style can be found in the book: Elkin and Berndt 1950).

Western researchers are often inclined to exaggerate the magical-religious significance of primitive art. Ethnographic materials show that in reality the meaning of a work of art depends on its place, its function in the life of society. The functional significance of primitive art is the key to understanding it.

Australian art, or even a whole gallery of drawings in a cave, may be accessible to all, any member of the tribe has the right to make and see them, but they can also be ritual, sacred, in which case they are kept secret by a small closed group of dedicated men. This group is not only the custodian of the cult and objects related to it, it directs the entire social life. And the works of art that Australians see as their very lives - such are the churingas, the wanings, the natandyas of Central Australia, the rangga - wooden painted sculptures from Arnhemland, these are the rock art galleries - the sanctuaries - all these are the pillars of the authority of this leadership group, and in this sense such works of art are not just objects of worship: they also have an important social significance. Other types of art have the same social significance, sometimes not connected with religion or magic, for example, dances performed to commemorate the conclusion of peace and other important events in public life. Traditional dance is the property of a group, sometimes even an individual, and is subject to exchange. Together with the dances, from group to group, from one person to another, the songs accompanying them are transmitted, although they are incomprehensible to people from other tribes who speak other languages. In this inextricable connection, singing and dancing is another manifestation of the syncretism of primitive art. The symbolism of sacred images, together with myths and rituals inextricably linked to them, is also passed down from father to son and from group to group, spreading across the continent like utilitarian items.

Some songs, dances and works of fine art have a sacred, religious and magical meaning, others do not. External differences between them often may not be. Images of totemic animals can often be seen in bark paintings, where they sometimes have no religious significance, but the same images on the chest of young people during initiation become sacred symbols. A work of primitive art can only be truly understood if its role, its function within the social organism in which it lives is revealed.

Artworks with ritual significance are often the product of collective creativity. The production of ritual ornaments or drawings on the ground is usually done by a whole group of ritual participants, members of a totemic group, and not just one gifted artist, and each performs

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abstract

Artistic culture of primitive society: syncretism and magic

Introduction

figurative primitive art rite

The origins and roots of our culture are in primitive times.

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

Under primitive culture, it is customary to understand an archaic culture that 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 intact the primitive Lifestyle. Primitive culture covers mainly the art of the Stone Age, it is pre - and non-literate culture.

Together with mythology and religious beliefs, primitive man developed the ability to perceive and depict reality in an artistic way. A number of researchers believe that the artistic creativity of primitive people could be more accurately called "pre-art", since it had a magical, symbolic meaning to a greater extent.

It is difficult now to name the date when the first artistic abilities appeared, inherent in human nature. 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, which 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 southern France), who appeared from 40 to 35 thousand years ago.

Most of the products were designed for survival, so they were far from decorative and aesthetic purposes and performed purely practical tasks. Man used them to increase his security and survival in a difficult world. However, even in those prehistoric times, there were attempts to work with clay and metals, to scratch drawings or to make inscriptions on cave walls. The same household utensils that were in the dwellings already had noticeable tendencies to describe the surrounding world and develop a certain artistic taste.

The purpose of my work is to determine the role of artistic culture in primitive society.

To achieve this goal, I put forward the following tasks:

Studying the history of the development of the culture of primitive society

Determination of the features of primitive art.

Analysis of its role in primitive society.

1 . Perhyodization of primitiveness

The oldest human tool dates back to about 2.5 million years ago. According to the materials from which people made tools, archaeologists divide the history of the Primitive World into stone, copper, bronze and iron ages.

The Stone Age is divided into ancient (Paleolithic), middle (Neolithic) and new (Neolithic). The approximate chronological boundaries of the Stone Age are over 2 million - 6 thousand years ago. The Paleolithic, in turn, is divided into three periods: lower, middle and upper (or late). The Stone Age was replaced by the Copper Age (Neolithic), which lasted 4-3 thousand BC. Then came the Bronze Age (4th-beginning of the 1st millennium BC), at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. it was replaced by the Iron Age.

Primitive man mastered the skills of agriculture and cattle breeding for less than ten thousand years. Prior to this, for hundreds of millennia, people obtained their livelihood in three ways: gathering, hunting and fishing. Even in the early stages of development, the mind of our distant ancestors affected. Paleolithic sites, as a rule, are located on capes and when enemies enter one or another wide valley. Rough terrain was more convenient for driven hunting for herds of large animals. Its success was ensured not by the perfection of the tool (in the Paleolithic, these were darts and horns), but by the complex tactics of beaters chasing mammoths or bison. Later, by the beginning of the Mesolithic, bows and arrows appeared. By that time, the mammoth and rhinoceros had died out, and small, shameless mammals had to be hunted. It was not the size and coherence of the team of beaters that became decisive, but the dexterity and accuracy of an individual hunter. In the Mesolithic, fishing also developed, nets and hooks were invented.

These technical achievements - the result of a long search for the most reliable, most expedient tools of production - did not change the essence of the matter. Mankind still appropriated only the products of nature.

The question of how this ancient society, based on the appropriation of products of wild nature, developed into more advanced forms of farming and pastoralism, is the most difficult problem of historical science. In the excavations carried out by scientists, signs of agriculture dating back to the Mesolithic era were found. These are sickles, consisting of silicon inserts inserted into bone handles, and grain grinders.

In the very nature of man lies the fact that he cannot be only a part of nature: he forms himself by means of art.

Osothe virtues of primitive art

For the first time, the involvement of hunters and gatherers of the Stone Age in the fine arts was attested to by the famous archaeologist Eduard Larte, who found an engraved plate in 1837 in the Shaffo grotto. He also discovered the image of a mammoth on a piece of mammoth bone in the grotto of La Madeleine (France).

A characteristic feature of art at a very early stage was syncretism.

Human activity associated with the artistic development of the world, simultaneously contributed to the formation of homo sapiens (reasonable man). At this stage, the possibilities of all psychological processes and experiences of primitive man were in their infancy - in a collective unconscious state, in the so-called archetype.

As a result of the discoveries of archaeologists, it was found that monuments of art appeared immeasurably later than tools, almost a million years.

Monuments of Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic hunting art show us what people's attention was focused on at that time. Paintings and engravings on rocks, sculptures made of stone, clay, wood, drawings on vessels are devoted exclusively to scenes of hunting game animals.

The main object of creativity of the Paleolithic Mesolithic and Neolithic times were animals.

And rock carvings 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 subtleties, which is why the artist of the Stone Age was able to show them so convincingly. Man himself did not enjoy as much attention as the outside world, which is why there are so few images of people in cave paintings and Paleolithic sculptures are so close in the full sense of the word.

The main artistic feature of primitive art was the symbolic form, the conditional nature of the image. Symbols are both realistic images and conventional ones. Often, works of primitive art represent entire systems of symbols that are complex in their structure, carrying a great aesthetic load, with the help of which a wide variety of concepts or human feelings are conveyed.

Culture in the Paleolithic Age. Originally not separated into a special type of activity and connected with hunting and the labor process, primitive art reflected a person's gradual knowledge of reality, his first ideas about the world around him. Some art historians distinguish three stages of visual activity in the Paleolithic era. Each of them is characterized by a qualitatively new pictorial form. Natural creativity - composition of ink, bones, natural layout. It includes the following moments: ritual actions with the carcass of a killed animal, and later with its skin thrown over a stone or rock ledge. Subsequently, a stucco basis for this skin appears. The animal sculpture was an elementary form of creativity. The next second stage - an artificial pictorial form includes artificial means of creating an image, the gradual accumulation of "creative" experience, which was expressed at the beginning in a full volume sculpture, and then in a bas-relief simplification.

The third stage is characterized by the further development of the Upper Paleolithic art, associated with the appearance of expressive artistic images in color and three-dimensional representation. The most characteristic images of painting of this period are represented by cave paintings. The drawings were made with ocher and other paints, the secret of which has not been found to this day. The palette of the Stone Age is visible, it has four basic colors: black, white, red and yellow. The first two were rarely used.

Similar stages can be traced in the study of the musical layer of primitive art. The musical principle was not separated from movement, gestures, exclamations and facial expressions.

The musical element of natural pantomime included: imitation of the sounds of nature - onomatopoeic motifs; artificial intonation form - motifs, with a fixed pitch position of the tone; intonation creativity; two - and trisonic motives.

An ancient musical instrument made from mammoth bones was discovered in one of the houses at the Mizinskaya site. It was intended to reproduce noise and rhythmic sounds.

The subtle and soft tradition of tones, the imposition of one paint on another sometimes create the impression of volume, a feeling of the texture of the skin of an animal. For all its vital expressiveness and realistic generalization, Paleolithic art remains intuitively spontaneous. It consists of individual concrete images, it has no background, no composition in the modern sense of the word.

Primitive artists became the pioneers of all types of fine arts: graphics (drawings and silhouettes), paintings (images in color, made with mineral paints), sculptures (figures carved from stone or molded from clay). They also excelled in decorative art - stone and bone carving, relief.

A special area of ​​primitive art is ornament. It was used very widely already in the Paleolithic. Bracelets, all kinds of figurines carved from mammoth tusk are covered with geometric patterns. Geometric ornament is the main element of Mizinsky art. This ornament consists mainly of many zigzag lines.

What does this abstract pattern mean and how did it come about? There have been many attempts to resolve this issue. The geometric style did not really correspond to the brilliant realist drawings of cave art. Having studied the cut structure of mammoth tusks with the help of magnifying instruments, the researchers noticed that they also consist of zigzag patterns, very similar to the zigzag ornamental motifs of the Mezin products. Thus, the pattern drawn by nature itself turned out to be the basis of the Mezin geometric ornament. But the ancient artists not only copied nature, they introduced new combinations and elements into the original ornament.

Vessels of the Stone Age, found in the sites of the Urals, had rich ornamentation. Most often, the drawings were squeezed out with special stamps. They were usually made from round, carefully polished flat pebbles of yellowish or greenish stones with sparkles. Cuts were made along their sharp edges; stamps were also made of bone, wood, and shells. If you press such a stamp on wet clay, a pattern similar to the impression of a comb is applied. The impression of such a stamp is often called comb, or serrated.

In all the cases carried out, the original plot for the ornament is determined relatively easily, but, as a rule, it is almost impossible to guess it. The French archaeologist A. Breuil traced the stages of schematization of the image of a roe deer in the late Paleolithic art of Western Europe - from the silhouette of an animal with horns to a kind of flower.

Primitive artists also created works of art in small forms, primarily small figurines. The earliest of them, carved from mammoth tusk, from marl and chalk, belong to polealite.

Some researchers of Upper Paleolithic art believe that the most ancient monuments of art, according to the purposes they served, were not only art, they had a religious and magical significance, they oriented man in nature.

Culture in the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras. Later stages in the development of primitive culture date back to the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and to the time of the spread of the first metal tools. From the appropriation of the finished products of nature, primitive man gradually passes to more complex forms of labor, along with hunting and fishing, he begins to engage in agriculture and cattle breeding. In the new Stone Age, the first artificial material invented by man appeared - refractory clay. Previously, people used what nature gave - stone, wood, bone. Farmers depicted animals much less often than hunters, but they decorated the surface of clay vessels with magnification.

In the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, the ornament survived the dawn, and images appeared. Transmitting more complex and abstract concepts. Many types of arts and crafts were formed - ceramics, metalworking. Bows, arrows and pottery appeared. On the territory of our country, the first metal products appeared about 9 thousand years ago. They were forged - casting appeared much later.

Culture of the Bronze Age. Starting from the Bronze Age, bright images of animals almost disappear. Dry geometric schemes are spreading everywhere. For example, profiles of mountain goats carved on the cliffs of the mountains of Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Central and Central Asia. People spend less and less effort on creating petroglyphs, hastily scratching small figures on the stone. And although in some places the drawings break even today, the ancient art will never be revived. It has exhausted its possibilities. All his highest achievements are in the past.

The last stage in the development of the Bronze Age tribes in the Northwestern Caucasus is characterized by the existence of a large center of metallurgy and metalworking. Copper ores were mined, copper was smelted, and the production of finished products from alloys (bronze) was established.

At the end of this period, along with bronze objects, iron objects begin to appear, which mark the beginning of a new period.

The development of productive forces leads to the fact that part of the pastoral tribes go over to nomadic pastoralism. Other tribes, continuing to lead a settled way of life based on agriculture, are moving to a higher stage of development - to plow agriculture. At this time, there are social shifts among the tribes.

In the late period of primitive society, artistic crafts developed: products were made from bronze, gold and silver.

Types of settlements and burials. By the end of the primitive era, a new type of architectural structures appeared - fortresses. Most often, these are structures made of huge, roughly hewn stones, which have been preserved in many places in Europe and the Caucasus. And in the middle, forest. Strip of Europe from the second half of the 1st millennium BC. settlements and burials spread.

Settlements are divided into fortified (cities, settlements) and fortified (fortifications). Settlements and settlements are usually called monuments of the Bronze and Iron Ages. The settlements are understood as settlements of the Stone and Bronze Ages. The term "parking" is very conditional. Now it is being replaced by the concept of "settlement". A special place is occupied by Mesolithic settlements called kyekenmeddings, which means "kitchen heaps" (they look like long heaps of oyster shell waste). The name is Danish, since these types of monuments were first discovered in Denmark. On the territory of our country, they are found in the Far East. Excavations of settlements provide information about the life of ancient people.

A special type of settlements - Roman terramaras - fortified settlements on piles. The building material of these settlements is marl, a type of shell rock. Unlike the piled settlements of the Stone Age, the Romans built terramaras not in a swamp or lake, but in a dry place, and then the entire space around the buildings was filled with water to protect them from enemies.

Burials are divided into two main types: grave structures (mounds, megaliths, tombs) and ground, that is, without any grave structures. At the base of many mounds of the Yamnaya culture, a cromlech stood out - a belt of stone blocks or slabs placed on edge. The size of the pit mounds is very impressive. The diameter of their cromlechs reaches 20 meters, and the height of other heavily swollen mounds even now exceeds 7 meters. Sometimes stone tombstones, tomb statues, stone women - stone statues of a person (warriors, women) rose on the mounds. The stone woman was an inseparable whole with the mound and was created with the expectation of a high earthen pedestal, for a view from all sides of the most remote points.

The period when people adapted to nature, and all art was reduced, in fact, “to the image of the beast”, has ended. The period of man's dominance over nature and the dominance of his image in art began.

The most complex structures are megalithic burials, that is, burials in tombs built of large stones - dolmens, menhirs. Dolmens are widespread in Western Europe and in the south of Russia. Once in the north-west of the Caucasus, dolmens numbered in the hundreds.

The earliest of them were erected more than four thousand years ago by tribes that had already mastered agriculture, cattle breeding and copper smelting. But the builders of dolmens did not yet know iron, had not yet tamed the horse and had not yet lost the habit of stone tools. These people were very poorly equipped with construction equipment. Nevertheless, they created such stone structures that not only the Caucasian aborigines of the previous era did not leave behind, but also the tribes who later lived along the shores of the Black Sea. It was necessary to try many variants of structures before coming to the classical design - four slabs placed on the edge, bearing the fifth - a flat ceiling.

Engraved megalithic tombs are also a monument of the primitive era.

Menhirs are individual stone pillars. There are menhirs up to 21 meters long and weighing about 300 tons. In Carnac (France), 2683 menhirs are arranged in rows in the form of long stone alleys. Sometimes the stones were arranged in the form of a circle - this is already a cromlech.

Chapter 2:Definition

* Syncretism - the indivisibility of various types of cultural creativity, characteristic of the early stages of its development. (Literary Encyclopedia)

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

* Syncretism - (from the Greek synkretismos - connection)

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

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

* Magic is a symbolic action or inaction aimed at achieving a certain 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 ability of a person 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, amulets, talismans) that can protect a person from harm.

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

Fine art of primitive people

During excavations, we often find images of the head of a rhinoceros, a deer, a horse, and even the head of an entire mammoth carved on ivory. These drawings breathe some kind of wild mysterious power, and in any case, undoubted talent.

As soon as a person provides for himself at least a little, as soon as he feels safe in the slightest degree, his look is looking for beauty. He is amazed by the bright colors of paints - he paints his body with all kinds of colors, rubs it with fat, hangs it with necklaces of berries, fruit stones, bones and roots strung on a cord, even drills into his skin to fix jewelry. Thick nets of vines teach him to weave his own beds for the night, and he weaves a primitive hammock, equalizing sides and ends, taking care of beauty and symmetry. The elastic branches make him think of a bow. By rubbing one piece of wood against another, a spark is produced. And, along with these necessary discoveries of extraordinary importance, he takes care of dancing, rhythmic movements, bunches of beautiful feathers on his head and careful painting of his physiognomy.

Paleolithic

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

Artistic activity also had a syncretic character and was not divided into genera, genres, types. All its results had an applied, utilitarian character, but at the same time they also retained a ritual and magical significance.

From generation to generation, the technique of making tools and some of its secrets were passed down (for example, the fact that a stone heated on fire is easier to process after cooling). Excavations at the sites of Upper Paleolithic people testify to the development of primitive hunting beliefs and witchcraft among them. From clay they sculpted figurines of wild animals 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 arches of the caves. Archaeologists have proven that monuments of art appeared immeasurably later than tools - almost a million years.

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

Rock drawings and paintings are diverse in the manner of execution. The mutual proportions of the depicted animals (mountain goat, lion, mammoths and bison) were usually not respected - a huge tour could be depicted next to a tiny horse. Non-compliance with 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 transmitted through the position of the legs (crossing legs, for example, depicted an animal on the run), tilt of the body or turn of the head. There are almost no moving figures.

When creating rock art, 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 blown colored powder through the tubular bone onto the damp wall of the cave. 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 coarse cutting tools. Massive stone chisels were found at the site of Le Roque 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. Painted drawings, engravings on bones, tusks, horns or stone tiles were made using the same technique.

Archaeologists have never found landscape drawings in the Old Stone Age. Why? Perhaps this once again proves the primacy of the religious and secondary aesthetic functions 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 depicted by primitive people) and art (the aesthetic form of what was depicted) arose almost simultaneously. Although, for some reasons, 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 depths 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 paintings 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 depicted. If this happens, then a clear preference will be given to a woman. A magnificent monument in this regard can serve as a female sculpture found in Austria - "Venus of Willendorf". This sculpture has remarkable features: the head is without a face, the limbs are only outlined, while the sexual characteristics are sharply emphasized.

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

It is very interesting that in the same monument of the Late Paleolithic, female statuettes are usually presented, not of the same type, but of different styles. Comparison of the styles of Paleolithic art, along with technical traditions, made it possible to discover striking and, moreover, specific features of the similarity of finds between remote areas. Similar "Venuses" have been found in France, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, Russia and many other parts 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 carvings and figurines help us 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 subtleties, which is why the artist of the Stone Age was able to show them so convincingly. The man himself did not enjoy such attention as the outside world, which is why there are so few images of people in the cave paintings of France and so faceless in the full sense of the word Paleolithic sculptures.

The composition "Fighting Archers" is one of the most striking Mesolithic compositions (Spain). The first thing you should pay attention to is the content of the image associated with 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 motif: a person in rapid motion is depicted by somewhat zigzag dense lines, slightly swelling in the upper part of the “linear” torso and a rounded spot of the head. The main pattern in the arrangement of the iconographically unified 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 and semantic whole is created.

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

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

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

The visual art of the Neolithic era is enriched with a new type of creativity - painted ceramics. The earliest examples include pottery from the settlements of Karadepe and Geoksyur in Central Asia. Ceramic products are distinguished by the 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 (animate) perception of nature. In particular, the cross is one of the solar signs denoting the sun and the moon.

The transition from matriarchy to patriarchy also had serious consequences for culture. This event is sometimes defined as the historical defeat of women. It entailed a profound 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 distant totemistic ancestors of a given tribe or clan were played out, which were depicted as half-humans - half-animals. Descriptions and explanations of these rites were passed down from generation to generation, gradually separated from the rites themselves and turned into myths in the proper sense of the word - stories about the life of totemic ancestors.

2. Primitive syncretism

Initially, the boundaries between the artistic and non-artistic (life-practical, communicative, religious, etc.) spheres of human activity were very indefinite, vague, and sometimes simply elusive. In this sense, people often talk about the syncretism of primitive culture, meaning its characteristic diffuseness of different ways of practical and spiritual exploration of the world.

The peculiarity of the initial stage of the artistic development of mankind lies in the fact that we also do not find there any definite and clear genre-specific structure. Verbal creativity is not yet separated in it from the musical, the epic from the lyrical, the historical and mythological from the everyday. And in this sense, aesthetics has long been talking about the syncretism of early art forms, while the morphological expression of such syncretism 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 beings, without separating himself from the natural world;

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

* syncretism of various spheres of culture. Art, religion, medicine, agriculture, animal husbandry, handicrafts, food procurement were not isolated from each other. Objects of art (masks, drawings, figurines, musical instruments, etc.) have long been used mainly as objects of everyday life;

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

3. Magic. Rites

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

The most ancient in their origin forms of religion include: magic, fetishism, totemism, erotic rites, funeral cult. They are rooted in the conditions of life of primitive people. We will focus 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 the existence of mankind. It is to this time that researchers attribute the appearance of the first magical rituals and the use of magical amulets that were considered an aid in hunting, for example, necklaces made of fangs and claws of wild animals. The complex system of magical rites that developed in ancient times is now known from archaeological excavations and from descriptions of the life and way of life of peoples living in a primitive system. It is impossible to perceive it in isolation from other primitive beliefs - they were all closely interconnected.

The magical rites performed by the ancient sorcerers often represented a real theatrical performance. They were accompanied by chanting, dancing, or playing bone or wooden musical instruments. One of the elements of such sound accompaniment was often the colorful, noisy attire of the sorcerer himself.

Among many peoples, magicians, sorcerers often acted as communal "leaders", and even recognized tribal leaders. They were associated with the idea of ​​a special, as a rule, 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 world of spirits 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 win 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, taboos.

Primitive magical rites are difficult to restrict from the 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), healing and protective, fishing, meteorological and other minor types of magic.

One of the most ancient are magical rites that ensured a successful hunt. In many primitive peoples, members of the community, led by their communal magician, turned to totem spirits for help in hunting. Often the rite included ritual dances. Images of such dances are conveyed to the present day by the art of the Stone Age of Eurasia. Judging by the surviving images, at the center of the ritual was a sorcerer-caster, who dressed in the "disguise" of one or another animal. At that moment, he seemed to resemble the spirits of the ancient ancestors of the tribe, half-humans, half-animals. He was going to enter the world of these spirits.

Often such ancestral spirits needed to be won over. Traces of the “appeasing” ritual were discovered by archaeologists on one of the Carpathian mountains. There primitive hunters for a long time piled up the remains of animals. 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 at people who exterminate their children.

Prayer is a ritual. On the Papuan island of Tanna, where the gods are the souls of dead ancestors, patronizing the growth of fruits, the leader says a prayer: “Compassionate father. Here is food for you; eat it and give it to us." In Africa, the Zulus think that it is enough to call on the ancestors, without mentioning what the one who prays needs: "Fathers of our house" (they say). When they sneeze, it is enough for them to hint at their needs if they are standing next to the spirit: “Children”, “cows”. Further, prayers that were previously free take on traditional forms. Among savages one can hardly find a prayer in which a moral good or forgiveness for an offense would be asked for. The beginnings of moral prayer are found among the semi-civilized Aztecs. Prayer is an appeal to a deity.

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

The 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. They also worship sacred animals, including humans. So, in Mexico, they worshiped a young captive. A large share 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 incorporeal spirits. In Virginia, the Indians sacrificed children and thought that the spirit was sucking blood from their left breasts. Since the spirit in early acmeism was considered as smoke, this idea can be traced in the rites of smoking.

Innumerable images of sacrificial ceremonies in the temples of ancient Egypt show the burning of incense balls in incense burners in front of images of the gods.

Even if the food is not touched, it may mean that the spirits have taken its essence. The soul of the victim is transferred to the spirits. There is also a transmission of sacrifices by fire. Motives: to get a benefit, to avoid the bad, to get help or forgiveness of an insult. Along with the fact that gifts are gradually turning into signs of reverence, a new doctrine arises, according to which the essence of sacrifice is not that the deity receives a gift, but that the worshiper sacrifices it. (Deprivation theory)

Rites - fasting - painful excitement for religious purposes. One such excitation is the use of drugs. Ecstasy and fainting are also caused by increased movements, singing, 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 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 conversion of those who keep silent to the same direction was 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 rites. First of all, these were figurines of the Great Mother - the embodiment of the fertility of the earth and living beings. In ancient times, figurines were broken, burned or thrown away after the ceremony. Many peoples believed that the long-term preservation of the image of a spirit or deity leads to its unnecessary and dangerous for people resurrection. But gradually such a revival ceases to be considered something undesirable. Already in the ancient Paleolithic settlement of Mezin in Ukraine, one of these figurines in the so-called sorcerer's house was fixed in an earthen floor. She probably served as the object of constant incantations.

Fertility was also ensured by the magical rites of calling rain, which were widespread among many peoples of the world. They are still preserved among some peoples. For example, among the Australian tribes, the magical rite of making rain goes like this: two people take turns scooping up enchanted water from a wooden trough and spraying 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 fell into the field of view of an ancient person was filled with magical meaning. And any important, significant action for the clan (or tribe) was accompanied by a magical ritual. Rituals were also accompanied by the manufacture of ordinary, everyday items, such as pottery. This order can be traced 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 led by the leader. The entire adult male population of the community took part in it, spells and praises were sung for the long service of the ship. Similar, although less large-scale, rituals existed among many peoples of Eurasia.

Rites, incantations and performances dating back to primitive magic have survived the ages. They have firmly entered 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 and perhaps the least studied period of world culture. But we are all firmly convinced that everything that the ancient man did, all trial and error - all this served the further development of society.

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

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

Listusedliterature

1. Bagdasaryan N.G. Culturology: Textbook for students. tech. universities - M .: Higher. school, 1999.

2. Gnedich P.P. "World History of Art"

3. History of the Ancient World, 2006-2012

4. History of primitive society. General issues. Problems of anthroposocigenesis. Science, 1983.

5. Kagan. M.S. Forms of primitive art

6. Kravchenko A.I. Culturology: Textbook for universities. - 3rd ed. - M.: Academic project, 2001

7. Lyubimov L. The Art of the Ancient World, M., Enlightenment, 1971.

8. Literary encyclopedia. - In 11 volumes. Edited by V.M. Friche, A.V. Lunacharsky. 1929-1939.

9. Markova A.N. Culturology - Textbook, 2nd edition edited by

10. Pershits A.Ts. and others History of primitive society. M., Nauka, 1974.

11. Primitive society. The main problems of development. M., Nauka, 1975.

12. Sorokin P. The crisis of our time // Sorokin P. Man. Civilization. Society. M., 1992. S. 430.

13. Modern Encyclopedia, 2000

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