The Art Instinct_ Beauty, Pleasure, & Human Evolution - Denis Dutton [37]
She supports this contention with the following observations. First, Baule “merge and equate” (a) spirits and unseen powers, (b) ordinary physical objects in which they may dwell, such as a lump of clay, and superb sculptures, which they may also inhabit. However, only the works of art in the Western sense. Second, the Baule “attribute great powers to their artworks—powers that Western culture would mainly relegate to the realm of superstition . . . Enormous powers of life death are integral parts of the sculptures we admire in museums, Baule people do not consider them apart from those powers.” Third, many of the most important art works of the Baule are not meant to wrapped in cloth and taken out only infrequently. This sharply contrasts with the Western ethos of aesthetic objects that invite “intense, exalted looking” from a large audience. Looking itself is for the Baule privileged and risky act, as the very sight of a sculpture by the wrong person can be fatal. This shows the special place of sight in Baule where “seeing something is potentially more significant, more dangerous and contaminating, than touching or ingesting something.” (Thus, Vogel says, a woman inadvertently seeing a sacred man’s mask might from the event, whereas a blind woman who laid her hand on it didn’t realize what she was touching would not necessarily be so threatened; men might find the sight of a woman’s genitals fatal.)
Do these considerations support the view that the Baule have a concept of art from the West’s; that “art” in our sense cannot found in Baule villages? No, they do not, as Vogel’s subsequent account repeatedly makes clear. She describes masks and figure sculptures have intense spiritual and personal significance to the Baule. These personal portrait masks and so-called spirit spouses. Among these pieces magical or personal meanings certainly loom larger in the minds their owners than purely sensuous or technical qualities: some these objects would have been made by superb local carvers, others competent artists, but this might have little bearing on the significance of the work to its own er. These distinctions, however, and the that this art genre is implicated in a spiritual world, are not uniquely Baule phenomena. Many Christians who have been inspired by Giotto’s great frescoes at Padua might have been just as moved by similar frescoes that did not approach Giotto’s high level of artistry; in other words, original audience might have generally had little interest in their comparative artistic values and would have responded to them purely religious narratives. Our own much later grasp of the importance Giotto for his original audience requires knowing the place of his work specific economy of religious thought. Religion, though often intermingled with art, need not be confused with it. So it is perfectly valid art historian to discuss those aspects of Giotto’s work that form art history—technique, formal excellence, modes of representation— rather than religious or social history. The aesthetic qualities of Giotto’s Baule masks and figures. In both cultures, the status of these works art is not threatened by being regarded by their original audiences religious objects—as biblical illustrations, perhaps merely colorful backdrops for religious ceremonies, in the case of Giotto, as powerful “ spirit objects in the case of the Baule. The Baule people are many ways exotic, but this