- Based on Ch. 16 from, “Where Does Art Come From?” answer the question from the chapter title, ‘Can We Live Together.’ Use examples from the text. (More or less summarize the chapter in your own words but base the answer on your own opinion)
- After viewing ‘Friends and Strangers’ in module Week 2, how important do you believe human connections are? Do you believe they are relative to creative expression and social identity? Explain.
- Is cooking an art and does food allow for human connection? Explain.
- Was there a specific recipe from Pinedo or Russell that resonated with you? Why do you believe you were drawn to this specific recipe?
- Why do you believe both women are pioneers of the culinary world? Consider the dates of publications and the zeitgeist. (Mood of the era) If you do not, why?
- Create a recipe that is representative of who you are. You can use a family recipe that spans generationally or you can create something new totally unique to you. Share your recipe and write a few sentences on its importance. About the Publisher If you are an instructor who is using this OER for a course, please let us know by filling out our About Mavs Open Press OER Adoption Form. Creation of this resource was supported by Mavs Open Press, operated by the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries (UTA Libraries). Mavs Open Press offers no-cost services for UTA faculty, staff, and students who wish to openly publish their scholarship. The Libraries program provides human and technological resources that empower our communities to publish new open access journals, to convert traditional print journals to open access publications, and to create or adapt open educational resources (OER). Our resources are openly licensed using Creative Commons licenses and are offered in various e-book formats free of charge, which can be downloaded from the Mavs Open Press OER catalog. Optional print copies of this text may be available through the UTA Bookstore or can be purchased directly from XanEdu, Mavs Open Press exclusive print provider and distributor. About OER OER are free teaching and learning materials that are licensed to allow for revision and reuse. They can be fully self contained textbooks, videos, quizzes, learning modules, and more. OER are distinct from public resources in that they permit others to use, copy, distribute, modify, or reuse the content. The legal permission to modify and customize OER to meet the specific learning objectives of a particular course make them a useful pedagogical tool. About Pressbooks Pressbooks is an open source, web-based authoring tool based on WordPress, and it is the primary tool that Mavs Open Press uses to create and adapt course materials. Pressbooks should not be used with Internet Explorer. The following browsers are best to use with Pressbooks: Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Edge. Contact Us Information about open education at UTA is available online. Contact us at oer@uta.edu for other inquires related to UTA Libraries publishing services. About the Publisher | vii About This Project Overview Where Does Art Come From? focuses on global arts and culture for the UTA core curriculum art history introductory course ART 1317 Arts of Africa, Asia, Islam, Oceania, and the Indigenous Americas. By offering this course resource at no cost, we reduce the required financial outlay of students and build new mechanism for course engagement, thereby enhancing the student experience. The text prioritizes relatability, cultural context, and inclusivity, following much needed decolonization practices in higher education. Creation Process The text was written from February-August 2021. The primary author drafted each chapter, including two chapters that were written collaboratively with two student contributors. After drafting, each chapter was immediately sent for review by an undergraduate-level student reviewer and a graduate-level student reviewer. Student reviewers offered feedback about clarity and relatability while the peer-reviewer offered feedback about content and context. Revisions were immediate, with a final review process in fall 2021 by UTA Art & Art History Department faculty and two anonymous peer-reviewers. All illustrations were developed by student graphic designers from June 2021 July 2022. About the Project Manager Dr. Leah McCurdy (she/her) is an anthropological archaeologist and art historian focused on global visual traditions. Her scholarship focuses on ancient Maya architectural and construction histories while her expertise via graduate education and professional experience spans visual traditions across the ancient Americas, Africa, Islamic lands, South Asia, East Asia, Oceania, as well as Egypt and Western Asia. McCurdy has been teaching in higher education for 10 years, covering art history, anthropology, and archaeology. McCurdy develops courses with an applied focus, promoting awareness about cultural traditions, heritage, pluralism, and global citizenship. In all courses, she seeks to increase understanding about diverse art historical traditions while enhancing critical thinking and pluralistic perspectives on the world. McCurdy has been teaching ART 1317 and upper-level art history courses at UTA since 2017. viii | About This Project Acknowledgments UTA CARES Grant Program Creation of this OER was funded by the UTA CARES Grant Program, which is sponsored by UTA Libraries. Under the auspices of UTAs Coalition for Alternative Resources in Education for Students (CARES), the grant program supports educators interested in practicing open education through the adoption of OER and, when no suitable open resource is available, through the creation of new OER or the adoption of library-licensed or other free content. Additionally, the program promotes innovation in teaching and learning through the exploration of open educational practices, such as collaborating with students to produce educational content of value to a wider community. Information about the grant program and funded projects is available online. Authors Note We thank the UTA Libraries OER Department for supporting this project. Specifically, we thank Katie Willeford, Jessica McClean, Jasmine Bridges, and Hamsa Puttaswamy for their guidance, support, and assistance! We thank Dr. Mary Vaccaro, Dr. August Davis, Dr. Fletcher Coleman, and Professor Cheryl Mitchell in the UTA Art & Art History Department for their support and feedback on the development of this project. Thank you to the UTA Land Acknowledgement Task Force and Professor Darryl Lauster as well! Lead Author/Editor/Project Manager Dr. Leah McCurdy Senior Lecturer, The University of Texas at Arlington Contributing Authors, Illustrators, and Reviewers Victor Tsao Undergraduate Student, University of Pennsylvania Marizela Garza Undergraduate Student, The University of Texas at Arlington Emery Martinez-Blas Undergraduate Student, The University of Texas at Arlington Maria Esswein Graduate Student, The University of Texas at Arlington Mya Lewis Curatorial Assistant, National Museum of African American Culture and History, Smithsonian Institution Jessica Khazem Consultant, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Allyson Frizzell Undergraduate Student, The University of Texas at Arlington Emily Berkes Graduate Student, University of Colorado, Boulder Vy Dang Undergraduate Student, The University of Texas at Arlington Simona Cabella Undergraduate Student, The University of Texas at Arlington Dr. Lina Jammal Editor of Al-Markaz: Journal of Arabic Studies Dr. Fletcher Coleman Assistant Professor, The University of Texas at Arlington Acknowledgments | ix How to Read this Book & Land Acknowledgement As an open educational resource developed originally for the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), we developed this book with the ethics of inclusivity at the front of our minds. As an art history text, we also focus on accurate historical context. Thus, at the outset, we acknowledge that UTA is located on Native American lands. The UTA Land Acknowledgement Task Force constructed the following statement. The University of Texas at Arlington respectfully acknowledges the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes upon whose historical homelands the university is located. Their ancestors resided here for generations before being violently displaced by US settlers and soldiers in the mid-1800s CE. We recognize the historical presence of the Caddo Nation and other Tribal Nations in the region, the ongoing presence and achievement of many people who moved to the area due to the Indian Relocation program of the 1950s and 1960s CE, and the vital presence and accomplishments of our Native students, faculty, and staff. How to Read this Book Youve probably noticed that this book is made up of a ton of questions. The title is a question and all chapters are focused on questions. We will explore these questions as they relate to your life and to art history. Thus, this isnt a chronologically or geographically organized art history textbook. Well talk about why we choose not to take that traditional approach in Where Does Art Come From? An Introduction. In addition, unlike most art history textbooks, we wrote this book in a conversational tone, with the hope of making you smile or LOL (laugh out loud) at some point. Mostly, we wrote informally to ensure this text is readable and enjoyable for everyone. In addition to LOL, youll see informal abbreviations like P.S. (postscript), aka (also known as), btw (by the way), FYI (for your information), and tbh (to be honest). If you arent familiar with those abbreviations, just come back here to see what they mean. We periodically announce SPOILERS as well, especially when we talk about recent films but also when we foreshadow whats to come in later chapters. FYI: Well also include some videos with content warnings to reduce any triggers. Importantly, while the writing style of this textbook is intentionally informal, we expect students to practice formal, academic writing. There are models of academic writing embedded throughout the text, including scholarly books and articles, as well as example student papers linked to chapters. Look beyond this text at those resources to ensure you understand the difference between conversations about art that facilitate learning and demonstrations of your learning according to academic standards. Also, this conversation is not one-sided! You have a voice! This is a digital text and easily editable. Students should suggest changes and additions. BTW, this is something that students and scholars are supposed to do! We find the gaps and inaccuracies and work to fill or correct them as best we can! In fact, students who develop excellent research papers and projects will be invited to submit their work as part of this text! Youll see examples already embedded in the text, including a comic written and illustrated by Emery Martinez-Blas, a UTA art student! And, the graphic designer of many illustrations, Marizela Garza, is a UTA art student! Youll see her work in every chapter! Further, UTA art student and athlete, Simona Cabella, designed the book cover here! Speaking of Marizelas work, we hope it helps you navigate all the artworks, geography, and time periods discussed in the book. In Where Are We Going?, well discuss the geography you need to know to get started. Marizelas maps in that chapter will get you situated before diving into all the artworks! Then, each chapter starting with Who Am I? x | How to Read this Book & Land Acknowledgement begins with a specifically designed map featuring the artworks in that chapter, as well as a timeline visualizing how those artworks relate chronologically. We chose all artworks discussed in the book carefully. They relate to the questions and offer perspectives or approaches that arent necessarily well-known or well-understood. Because of this, it is important to thoroughly contextualize every artwork, so you know exactly who, when, and where it comes from (as far as we can know with current scholarship), and where it is now. That info is summed up in artwork captions below each image, following the art history standard Chicago Manual of Style format: Artist Last Name, Artist First Name (if known) OR Cultural Maker(s). Artwork Title (in italics). Date of creation (may use ca. to abbreviate circa, meaning around the date(s) listed). Media, dimensions (provided in inches or centimeters, depending on the information provided by the artist or museum). Museum collection that holds the artwork or courtesy of the artist or in situ if in its original location. Photo attribution if known; Creative Commons copyright license (provided via the artist, photographer, museum, or established in this publication). Some artworks (and/or images of them) have copyright restrictions, so we could not include photographs of them in the text. They are so important to the topics discussed that we couldnt leave them out. So, Marizela developed transformational sketches of these artworks. Check out Marizelas amazing sketches and the original artworks through links provided in their captions. To give you a sense of how these transformational sketches were created digitally, Marizela screencasted her work! Figure 0.1 below demonstrates Marizelas work on the sketch of Bester I, Mayotte (Fig. 5.7) by South African artist Zanele Muholi. Check out all those clothes pins! View all the sketching time lapses here. Figure 0.1: GIF time lapse of digital transformation sketching process by Marizela Garza of the artwork: Zanele Muholi from South Africa, Bester I, Mayotte, 2015 CE, digital photo. Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town/ Johannesburg, and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York. Zanele Muholi. A few notes about dates in captions and in the text: We dont use the BC/AD dating convention, which abbreviates the phrases Before Christ and Anno Domini (Latin for in the year of our Lord). That convention assumes Christian structures of thought and chronology. Instead, we use the BCE/CE convention, which abbreviates Before Common Era and Common Era. BC and BCE dates are the same numerically. But the BCE label does not presuppose Christian relevance. Thus, it is much more appropriate when discussing cultural traditions that do not see Christianity as relevant to their belief structures. Youll see BCE or CE after every date mentioned in the text. This may feel redundant but it is important to ensure that everyone understands when events occurred. BCE/CE will not be included in bibliographic references since almost all sources were published in the Common Era. But there are exceptions, so if you are confused, make sure How to Read this Book & Land Acknowledgement | xi to ask. Labels like ancient, traditional, historical, modern, and contemporary are used to separate time periods but can be a bit confusing. Generally speaking: Ancient refers to periods prior to the development of writing and/or a cultural period that is contrasted to a more recent period (like the ancient Maya versus the historic or modern Maya). Traditional is problematic because it often comes with a value judgment that something is not modern (see discussion below; meaning new, sophisticated, or civilized) but old-fashioned or dependent on cultural belief. We try to avoid this term but when we use it, we refer to practices or arts that are long-established and important to a particular group. Historical usually refers to periods after the development of writing but more recent than ancient periods. Modern is malleable. In formal art history, it was a period of art starting in the late 1800s CE that challenged the long-held focus on realism in art (see Where Does Art Come From? An Introduction). When used in that sense, well capitalize the term for clarity. Generally, modern (lowercase) can refer to recent times. To add to the confusion, modern and contemporary are often used interchangeably. Contemporary refers to artists making art right now and to the developments of Postmodernism starting in the 1960s CE (see Where Does Art Come From? An Introduction). Getting back to Chicago Manual of Style unlike many textbooks, this book will include in-text citations (directly in the sentences) to credit information sources. Textbooks usually dont include citations because they can hinder readability, especially for introductory audiences. But, weve decided that we want our readers to be informed about sources. We dont cite every single source but we offer key resources and we cite every quotation to model ethical writing practices and help you start your own research. For academic writing, you must cite ALL sources of information, including those you have paraphrased and quoted. Typically, art historians use the Chicago Manual of Style Notes and Bibliography (footnotes) substyle. As a digital text, it was difficult to include footnotes here so we chose to use the Chicago Manual of Style Author-Date substyle, which uses parenthetical in-text citations (not footnotes). FYI: Chicago Author-Date citations appear similar to MLA citations BUT THEY ARE DIFFERENT! There are many ways to cite your sources in academic writing. It is crucial that you follow the specific assignment instructions, including Manual of Style expectations. The Wrap-up Every chapter ends with The Wrap-Up to summarize and conclude things. Then, youll see a section called News Flash highlighting social media, movies, television, and games that relate to the traditions and arts discussed in each chapter. If you dont see something that youve found on your own, send it in as a recommendation! Lastly, there will be a Where Do I Go From Here? section that acts both as a bibliography for in-text citations and as a list for recommended reading to learn more. You can use these bibliographies to begin research for your essays and projects! Youre Welcome!! P.S. Can you find all the drawings by Vy, a UTA student in spring 2022? Look for Vys signature above this kitty! If you find all 16 drawings after this one, let your instructor know to claim a prize! xii | How to Read this Book & Land Acknowledgement 1. Where Does Art Come From? An Introduction Where does art come from? This is the type of question that we dont often consider carefully because it feels so simple. Duh art comes from where it is made! Youre probably asking why a textbook about art history even asks this question (and, perhaps, why it is written so informally; for that refer to How to Read this Book). The question is actually really important when you want to consider all art, not just some of it. Weve got to question what we have been taught about what art is and/or is allowed to be. This requires understanding the history of art history. An admittedly very brief and condensed history of Art History The title of first art historian usually goes to Giorgio Vasari, an Italian artist and architect who wrote Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (Vasari 1550, 1558) but this is debated (see more below). From the title of Vasaris book, you already get a picture of what his art history was like. He offered biographies of famous painters, sculptors, and architects who worked during the Italian Renaissance (a French term that was given to this period after Vasaris time but reflects his use of the Italian term rinascimento, meaning rebirth). He praised the artists who achieved what scholars today call realism and/or naturalistic representation (rendering of subjects very close to the way we see things in real life). These ideals were adopted from ancient Greek and Roman (i.e. Classical) artists. This came in contrast to subsequent Medieval artists, whose work was shapeless and clumsy, according to Vasari (1550). After the Medieval period, the Renaissance was the rebirth of Classical ideals, intellectualism, and visual style. Vasari is pretty clear about what types of art interest him. One big distinction made early on in art history was the difference between art and craft. Paintings, sculpture, and architecture were classified as art while objects like ceramic vessels, baskets, or beaded jewelry were crafts. A related distinction created by later art historians contrasts high art and low art. High art requires more and scarcer resources to produce than baskets or pottery, and appeals to the so called higher classes of society (those with wealth, power, and prestige; well expand on this in Why Do They Have More Than Us?). Low art primarily features commonplace and cheap materials. High art is primarily function-less, and therefore only made to be admired and contemplated. There are exceptions, like highly decorative porcelain dinnerware that adorned lavish tables and served tasty meals! Low art is primarily functional, such as a basket used to transport many small things at once but happens to have interesting visual qualities. Low art that has strong cultural resonance for lower status people, sometimes called the common folk, is often labeled folk art. Any guesses who the high status people associated with high art were when art history was just getting started? They were European. They were white. They were wealthy and/or from noble families and they were predominantly men. So, high art was for and about old rich white men and their families. Those are the patrons of art that you read about in traditional art history textbooks. P.S. Patron derives from the Latin pater, meaning father. The gender bias (favoring or advantaging of one gender over another) is clear. Who made high art like that? They were skilled (and sometimes high status) artists paid to glorify the heritage, power, and wealth of those old rich white men. Most of those artists looked a lot like their patrons, albeit with less fancy adornments. For example, almost all the artists mentioned in Vasaris (1550, 1558) Lives are white men. Vasari included four women painters. Vasaris art history successor, German artist and scholar Karel Van Mander, wrote Schilder-boeck (The Book on Painting, 1604) to expand the collection of valued artists to include those of the Netherlands (aka Northern Europe) and also mentioned several women. But, we cannot ignore that the vast majority of valued artists of high art were men. Before Vasari and Van Mander, one of the earliest recorded attempts to describe high art is now known as the Seven Where Does Art Come From? An Introduction | 1 Wonders of the World compiled by the Greek historians. These were architectural marvels, often adorned with marble sculpture or mural painting, that housed the activities and/or graves of the social and political elite. Most of these wonders were built during the early part of the Classical Period. Overall, this period spans the development of the Greek city states and the Roman Empire. The term Classical was applied to those periods after the time of Vasari and Van Mander but they shared the sentiments it relates. The term classical (as a proper or regular noun) is synonymous with harmonious, pure, and relates to phrases like the epitome of something. Thus, the term implies a sense of rightness and superiority to the arts produced during the Classical period. In Schilder-boeck, Van Mander included a section dedicated to Greek and Roman, as well as Egyptian, artists because scholars of the Renaissance saw a line of descent from the Classical artists to the artists of their day (thus, the rebirth). Greeks saw links between their culture and that of the preceding Egyptians (including direct political links because the Greeks conquered Egypt in 310 BCE and established the Ptolemaic Dynasty). Thats why Van Mander included Egyptian artists in his Schilder-boeck, because the vaunted Greeks already made the connection to them. (P.S. Another of the original Seven Wonders was the Great Pyramid at Giza). After Vasari and Van Mander came Johann Joachim Winckelmann. This German art historian wrote Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (The History of Art in Antiquity, 1764) focused on Greek and Roman arts. He was the first to arrange Greek and Roman artists into periods and structure our view of Classical art. His work wasnt just a list of artists and their dates. It solidified an underlying message or narrative of art history started by Vasari and continues to this day: Classical arts, and those that relate to their ideals (namely Renaissance and Neoclassical arts) are set above, as in superior to, other arts. This is the foundation of art history. When a school teacher uses an image of a Greek marble sculpture to introduce children to art, they are being taught taste and to have an eye for the Classical beauty and sophistication of such arts. They are being taught the Western Canon. The term canon derives from the practices of the Christian Church but is also generally used to describe a group of ideas/things that have been established and accepted as the rule or standard for judgment. Well focus on the more specific canon of art (not the canon of music, literature, etc.). The Western Canon The Western Canon of art is a collection of artworks, usually organized on a timeline, that Western scholars agree should be understood as the best examples of art. And here, we get back to our ultimate question Where do those best examples of art come from? Yep you got it the so-called Western World/the West. So, whats the West? Its not just whatever place is west of where you are right now. Its West with a capital W. This term derives from the Latin occidens, meaning sunset or West. Its contrast was oriens, meaning rise or East. These were directional terms relative to Rome. The term Western came into prominence with the division of the Western Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. This is where we get the modern terms of Western Europe and Eastern Europe. So, in the Western Canon, arts from Western Europe (by white men) are prioritized. There are a few exceptions. As art history developed over time, scholars started to contextualize ancient Egyptian art with examples from the Levant (aka the eastern Mediterranean coast; present-day Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Syria) and Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). Egyptologists realized that ancient Egyptian leaders had long-established contacts in the Levant and Mesopotamia. Biblical references to the Mesopotamian cities of Ur and Babylon also inspired investigations of these regions. It is not a coincidence that the trajectory of Judeo-Christian-Muslim (aka Abrahamic) history laid out in Biblical texts features prominently in the Western Canon. But, it is important to note that Egyptian religion and the social systems of places like Babylon are not represented favorably in the Biblical tradition. Thus, there is a question whether Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures really belong in the Western Canon. Interestingly, there are many antecedents of the Abrahamic 2 | Where Does Art Come From? An Introduction traditions within Egyptian and Mesopotamian culture, such as the Goddess Isis and her son Horus (forerunners of the Virgin Mary and her son Jesus Christ). Overall, the Western Canon is biased towards European and Mediterranean art, especially high art, and is fundamentally Eurocentric. It is a master narrative of prestige, power, and progress. Many art historians now recognize that as art history was developing so too were the early European countries (aka nation-states). As Shelly Errington (2007, 417; also Tchibozo 2007, 235 citing Summers) writes, Emerging European nation-states depended on their colonies not just economically but imaginatively, coming to define themselves artistically, photographically, architecturally, and in innumerable other ways in contrast to their colonies in the set of binaries all too familiar the civilized versus the savage, the agent of history versus the passive recipients of history, the emblems of progress versus the emblems of backwardness and decadence. These notions of progress and civilization are still ever-present in Western culture today. They derive from this period of setting Europeans and Euro-Americans (people of European origin who colonized the Americas) apart from the rest of the world (that, in their eyes, was open for colonization). The concept of Manifest Destiny so tied to the history of the United States and settlement of the Americas, derives from the perception that Europeans and their descendants are active and civilized, while all others are passive, backward, uncivilized, primitive, savage, and tribal. These others needed saving, so the heroic European colonists set out on their civilizing mission ( Errington 2007, 420) to save the day (please, notice the sarcasm). These are the types of sentiments, implicit or explicit, that fueled severe violations of basic human rights, such as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. These sentiments supported the intent to actively suppress and oppress peoples without European heritage. FYI: Xiyang or The West was also a term developed within China to refer to the areas west of the boundaries of Zhongguo (the Middle Kingdom; the name of the historic territories of what we now call China today). Xiyang did not refer to Europe but to Central and Western Asia. Zhongguo was civilized while Xiyang was barbarous. Such derogatory perceptions were not just limited to the history of European/Western expansion and foreign relationships. The communist government of China today does not hold to the values of Zhongguo, as a system of dynastic imperial rule, but does demonstrate prejudice against populations of Xiyang (more specifically Xiyu), such as the predominately Muslim Uyghurs of Xinjiang. Sentiments of prejudice and superiority also justified the theft and/or exportation of cultural objects from their places of origin into Europe as curiosities of primitive culture. From the European perspective, these objects were interesting for their difference and for their anti-artness and how low they were in comparison to the high arts of Europe. This difference is summed up by the term Non-Western, a catch-all that could identify whether something was part of the Western Canon or not. This term developed as people started seeing the flaws in the narrative of civilization inherited by European colonists from their perfect Greek and Roman Western predecessors. People started asking, so what about all the other art? There had been trade along the Silk Roads for thousands of years prior to the development of the Western Canon. This trade brought the arts of Asia into Europe and vice versa. These were always curiosities and exotic luxury goods but werent really treated seriously. Starting in the 1500s CE and ramping up in the late 1800s CE, the arts of East Asia flooded into Europe. Famously, artists like Vincent Van Gogh became fascinated with Japanese prints. The distinct approach of abstracted elements seen in these prints helped fuel the Impressionist and Modernist turns away from Classical realism/naturalistic representation. Modern art (with a capital M; see How To Read This Book) rejected realism and sought to experiment beyond the boundaries of the traditional Western Canon of art. But who were those Modern artists, you ask? Yep mostly white, European men. Even though they messed with and threw out the Classical ideals, artists like Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Salvador Dali were immortalized in the Western Canon. The narrative of progress and prestige shifted from getting closer and closer to picture-perfect realism to experimenting with the boundaries of painting and sculpture. SPOILER: Well discuss how lots Where Does Art Come From? An Introduction | 3 of this early Modernist experimentation was inspired by arts from around the world and not just Japanese prints. Those revered artists benefitted and profited from the study and exportation of Non-Western art to Europe. As artists like Van Gogh and others started taking arts beyond Europe seriously, we needed a way to describe those other arts. Thats where Non-Western came in and investigations of various geographic regions ramped up. One society that didnt necessarily influence European artists but impressed scholars of the late 1800s CE was the ancient Maya. The crew of Columbus last voyage probably came in contact with a large Maya trading canoe traversing the Caribbean sea in 1502 CE. Europeans didnt know much about Mesoamerican cultures until Hernn Corts and Pedro de Alvarado reported back to Spain after the conquests of what became the present-day countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. In the 1520s CE, Catholic missionizing started swiftly. Plantations and colonial cities like Mexico City were built (over existing indigenous infrastructure). The ancient cultures were of interest but the colonial mission was more important for a long time. By the late 1800s CE, the field of archaeology formally developed in Europe. Archaeologists started undertaking expeditions to discover lost Maya cities. (Make sure to notice the quotations marks in that previous sentence. Those cities were not lost to local inhabitants and descendants. They were very much aware of their existence; thats how the European explorers knew where to look.) Many archaeologists focused on the Maya because they found an affinity for their art styles. Maya artists were very adept at the representation of the human figure, realistic proportions, and detail in painting and sculpture. These characteristics put them high up on the rungs of the Non-Western ladder of art. In fact, early Maya archaeologists used the term Classic to refer to certain examples of Maya art. Today, we still use these terms. The Maya Classic period ranges from about 250-900 CE. Scholars designate the period before as the Preclassic period (ca. 1000 BCE-250 CE) and the period after as the Postclassic (ca. 900-1541 CE) (really imaginative, huh?). This Classic designation is different from equating it with Classical (Greco-Roman) culture but it demonstrates that a certain bar of sophistication was met by the Maya, according to the preferences of the Western Canon. Today, Maya archaeologists realize that what earlier scholars prioritized is not necessarily what the Maya would have prioritized and that the arts of the Preclassic and Postclassic give arts of the Classic period a run for their money according to internal Maya conceptions of visual value. Eventually, other traditions were provided with the Classic term, typically denoting when the art styles became the most Western-looking/feeling. For example, the so-called Classic Veracruz culture demonstrated orderly architectural design and skillful figural ceramic sculpture. Applying the term Classic to cultures outside Europe wasnt about challenging the Western Canon but developing a hierarchy of Non-Western traditions. Scholars are competitive and they want the culture they study to be regarded well. Eventually, Chinese art, Japanese art, Maya art, and the art of specific periods like the Gupta Empire of India or the Benin Kingdom of Nigeria took top prizes in those rankings. Still, the convenient division of us versus them (Western versus Non-Western) persisted for a good while. Then, the world changed. The World Wars slowly but surely made people rethink what nationalism (nation-statism) was about and how art history could be used to bolster racialized nationalism (think about Nazism here). In addition, the Post-War period included a succession of independence movements within European colonies, such the independence of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh from the British Empire in 1947 CE. New nations were building out of old colonial powers. Post-war sentiments lit a cultural fire called Postmodernism. As the name implies, Postmodernism was a movement to move past modernism, and actually challenged the assumptions of modernism (here used as a cultural term and not specifically referring to Modern art but oftentimes relating to it). In a nutshell, cultural modernism refers to systematic as well as order- and progress-focused thinking typical of European and Euro-American traditions from the Industrial Revolution to the decade after World War II. Think of the first skyscrapers of the 1890s CE: big, geometric, industrial, and so-called symbols of progress. Think about the stereotype of the 1950s housewife and nuclear family. 4 | Where Does Art Come From? An Introduction Postmodernism was a rebellion against those things. This is when we got Andy Warhol printing large-scale images of Campbells Soup Cans and telling the world he didnt care about the intellectual property of a big industrial giant. We also saw strongly Feminist artists making statements like Your body is a battleground by Barbara Kruger, demonstrating that modern society wasnt as progressive as it thought it was. Post-War Postmodernism also coincided with Postcolonialism and rethinking of the intersecting colonial, industrial, and Eurocentric agendas of the past. Recently, for example, this re-thinking has inspired the disuse of the term Non-Western, because it feels like a negation of the very traditions it is meant to describe, in favor of terms like global art or world art. Many people argue that were still in the Postmodern period right now and that when art history is written about our contemporary period, it will be classified as Postmodern along with Warhol and Kruger. Others disagree. But, the recent Coronavirus pandemic and events of summer 2020 CE in the US indicate that Americans and the world at large are still grappling with the legacies of colonialism and the embedded biases of concepts like the Western Canon. So, what happens now? What do we do with that history of art history? How do we deal with that baggage? Firstly, we have to understand it and not just sweep it under the rug, pretending that art history is neutral or unbiased (see Orfila 2007: 312). As Kitty Zijlmans (2007: 293, after Mosquera 2005) states, We cannot unwrite the art history that has been written What we can do, and what has been happening for the past decade, is to reevaluate how art history has been written and question why it happened in such a way (her emphasis). The Western Canon and the appendages of Non-Western art are what we have to start with but they dont have to define what we do moving forward. For example, many art history faculty are rethinking what they teach and how they teach it. So, lets start by asking ourselves why a textbook offered for global art history courses has focused on Europe and Euro-America so much. Thats an excellent question! Many art history scholars have asked themselves similar questions. In fact, that became the theme of a scholarly debate in The Art Seminar series, which produced a book called Is Art History Global? (Elkins 2007). Weve already quoted many of the contributors from that volume in this chapter because there were so many important voices collected together to debate this deceptively easy question. You can say, Sure, art history is global, but the people who actually work in art history day in and day out know that its not as easy as that. Check out books that explain this history of art history in more detail, such as ironic riff on James Elkins (2002) Stories of Art, an E. H. Gombrichs (1950) tome The Story of Art. Gombrich wrote one of the preeminent textbooks of art history, used to teach countless high school and undergraduate college students about art history for many years. It is the grand narrative of the Western Canon, with beautiful imagery and engaging descriptions of naturalistic forms. Our brains always love a good story and Gombrich offers one. More recent art history textbooks like the long-lived Art Through the Ages first developed by Helen Gardner in 1926 CE, which is now in its 15th edition, continue this narrative with Non-Western or global art sprinkled in. Contrary to what these textbooks imply, Elkins (2002) highlights that there isnt just one story of art. In fact, he mentions several examples of art histories written by non-European scholars, including: The 1606 CE Persian Calligraphers and Painters by Qadi Ahmad (Ahmad and Minorsky 1959) The Stalinist Universal History of Art by the Institute for the Theory and History of the Visual Arts at the Academy of Arts (1956) in Moscow The works of Zhang Yanyuan ca. 850 CE (Tang Dynasty China) called Fashu Yaolu ( Compendium of Calligraphy) and Lidai Minghua Ji (? Famous Paintings through History) (Zhang Yanyuan 1993-2000) Each of these art histories was written with distinct narratives in mind. To consider this revelation that there isnt just Where Does Art Come From? An Introduction | 5 one story of art history further, lets just focus on some of the most well-known ways of perceiving and presenting a narrative of art history, following examples provided by Elkins (2002, 11-36):
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