Human history is marked by the construction of artifacts that emerged from creative processes. From the Stone Age wall paintings at Lascaux, France to the painting Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa; from the majestic European cathedrals to decorations made on the tepee dwellings of American Indians, from elaborate wood carvings found in West Africa to pottery and terra cotta made by ancient dynasties in china. The need for creative expression in the form of art seems to be a distinct human form of self expression. In the same vein the need to understand the art appears to be an equally strong need especially when diverse cultures interact with each other in close proximity. One approach to understanding the artistic expression of art is by classifying artwork and artifacts, a characteristic possessed by people with “a categorical habit of mind” such as like Loehr, Thorp, Von Erdberg, Zhang, and Elisseeff among others. Their attempt to understanding artwork from the past in the form of ancient Chinese bronze pieces involves studying predetermined elements of the artwork or artifact in question. Others such as Ledderose focus on the processes involved in coming up with the artifacts as key to the classification process. Although each categorization attempt makes it easier to manage the information received from artwork, and having proven its merits in other fields such as archeology, biology, computer analysis and statistics, they all lack a crucial element of all artwork: the true intentions of the artist.
The Artist as the Creator and Best Interpreter of Art
The Artist is a vital part of the art he creates since he embodies the various forces acting on the need for artistic expression and his own personal motivations for investing time and effort on the artwork. Although scholars and researcher may be able to determine some of the social, cultural and personal factors affecting the artwork, they will always be one step behind the artist. For instance, all the attempts at classification draw their basic assumptions from the cultural, cognitive and societal influences in Europe, where the modern forms of classification flourished. A Chinese Bronze caster may have no need to conform to a specific category or artistic style, merely adhering to the pragmatic effectiveness dictated by resources and skills available to accomplish a task in compliance with societal expectations. As stated in the text, in such an instance “no analysis can extract informationit does not containhow in practice does one tailormethods to the real needs of the user, when the real need of the user is to be forced to sit and think?”
Artists draw their inspiration and skills from sources which may be completely unavailable to others not familiar with their culture. The Chinese bronze pieces depict dragons, tigers, birds, horses and other creatures combined in ways that make sense to themselves and others like them who share a similar background. Penetrating the veil of the artist mind is the missing key in classifying artwork from diverse cultures and chronological periods. The artist on the other hand is tethered to the needs of others including the patron, the society or even the Gods of the religions the artwork intends to serve. By attempting to see beyond the surface meaning and attempting to understand art as a crystallization of the artist’s will, skill, societal and motivational factors, art satisfies a basic human need. Human forms of expressions need audiences, even of classifiers and analysis. Observers, patrons and analysts need artifacts they can relate to. Pursuing art as an expression of this demand and supply relationship may help explain why it has persisted throughout human history and why new and old art forms alike help define the human experience.
