The Culture of Art

      I think that early cave drawings displayed early human way of life and communication. Early artists used these paintings to display what animals were in a certain region and how they were able to survive. Without formal writing, cave art became an essential tool of communication. It was a way to leave your mark in a certain location and to let others who would pass by, to know what animals either are or were there. Early cave drawings portrayed more animals than humans, I think it was mainly due to animals were their existence. After going through the virtual cave I got sense that this early group was more in tuned with nature and animals. I realized that early humans were more understanding of what was their life source. They respected the animals that they hunted and immortalized them through their paintings. These paintings give us great insight into the lives of cave dwellers. It showed how our early ancestors were able to depict life through art and feeling. It’s very important to see all aspects of cave dwelling societies, because so much has been portrayed as comical satire, we have come to think of our early ancestors as mindless brutes that ran around and hit their potential mates on the head with a club and drag them off. The paintings give us a look at how they were starting to form ideas about life, art, and spiritual matters. The hardest problem these early artists would face in painting these walls would be actually obtaining the material to paint. They had a limited amount of material and had to make do with what they had available. The lack of light would have also been problematic for the early artists, especially when the caves would be deep and had no contact with natural light. The three functions of this art, in my opinion, would have been for communication, spiritual, and to memorialize a kill.

     The commonalities of early art and modern art regarding function are not far apart. Most modern art is created in order to display feelings, emotions, or an ideal thought. It is still, like early art, used as the medium of communication. Art is able to communicate beyond languages, just as the early art did. The medium has become the function for expressing thought through different cultures regarding politics, social issues, and wide various world topics.

   

      One of my favorite art forms is literature and Jack Kerouac's book “On the Road” is one of my favorite books. Jack Kerouac is from the "Beat" literary movement along with Allen Ginsberg. Jack Kerouac introduced the phase "Beat Generation" to describe post World War 2 writers of the 1950's. The artists that participated in this movement were trying to break from traditional views on life, sex, and material wealth. There was a non conforming attitude that was being spread through “Beat” literature and it pushed the envelope on most obscenity laws of the time. There was a whole culture surrounding the "Beat generation", the clothes, and the way they talked and acted. Men were primarily reflecting the young artist's look of France, with tight cotton shirts, berets and scarves. Turtlenecks or horizontal striped shirts emerged as a stereotypical piece of clothing, plain sweaters with no design and big dark sunglasses. The women went counterculture to the era's frilly skirts and fancy hair seen in the mainstream culture. Black was a favored color for women, especially black Capri pants, stirrup slacks or pencil skirts. Women's tops might be sweatshirts, turtlenecks, and knit shirts, thin sweaters with cowl necks or black leotards. Jewelry was minimalistic, often reflecting Eastern religious symbols.

     This movement was very affective in helping a generation that felt lost, find its voice. Many authors at this time were able to set precedents that allowed later generations without censorship be able to express their views. Unfortunately, like any movement there are good points and bad points. Many from the "Beat Generation" were involved with drugs and a lot of young adults got lost within the chaos of their addiction. The "Beat Generation" promoted freedom from old restraints, however the culture was soaked with drugs and eventually their message was drowned out by this image.