Course Description:

            This course is an introduction to the cross-cultural study of art - with an emphasis on painting, drawing,
and wood carving.   Students will acquire experience in interpreting the forms, functions, and varied meanings
of visual art from a variety of existing and historical sociocultural traditions.
            Art, Myth, and Nature focuses on myth, ontological myth, as a vital approach to the cross-cultural study
of art.  In addition,  this course is oriented around several issues and topics of importance - among them:
theories of imagery and the making of images;  categories of interpretation  in the effective comparison
of painting, drawing, and carving;  cross-cultural conceptualizations of 'art.'  These topics are studied
through attention to the interrelationship of art and other aspects of society and culture - primarily cosmology,
ecology, and ideology.
            We study these interrelationships within several specific sociocultural traditions: the Dineh {Navaho},
southwestern United states; Walbiri, north-central Australia; the Northwest Coast of North America
{Haida; Kwagiutl; Tlingit; Tshimshian}; Dogon, Mali, West Africa.  In each case, our cross-cultural study
of art places emphasis on graphic and plastic {two-dimensional} images and plastic {three-dimensional} forms.
Attention is given to materials, techniques and modes of manufacture, style, as well as to the social
and cultural uses and meanings of artifacts and images.
            The people producing the paintings, drawings, and carvings we will study in most instances
continue to be overlooked if not dismissed as 'primitive.'  Yet, the art of the people we will study
is monumental in vision, in their conception of the human and, thus, in their contribution to humanity.
 

TEXTS {available at Student Stores}

• A coursepack of readings
• Course webpage:   http://www.unc.edu/courses/2005ss2/anth134/001