In many non-Western cultures there is no such thing as “art” as “art” implies that a group of artifacts that has “non-utility” and a “special status for disinterested appreciation” (Heyd within Mcdonald & Veth, 283). This is not to imply that rock art is not aesthetically pleasing but that it has a different function in indigenous societies than just looking pretty. Much rock art has a use and is not just meant to be looked at but to tell stories. Thomas Heyd suggests that rock art be viewed “with the same kind of fullness of life experience that is required to perform songs or plays” (M&V 289). Additionally “most humanly made marks on rocks were made by people at a great distance from us, either in terms of time or in terms of cultural continuity with our own forms of life” this means that using a term like “art” to describe rock art does not do justice to the items it is describing (M&V, 289). A Western term cannot fully describe something whose concept it cannot fully understand. For the purpose of this paper, rock art includes petroglyphs and pictographs on natural rock sources that hold meaning for specific groups of
In many non-Western cultures there is no such thing as “art” as “art” implies that a group of artifacts that has “non-utility” and a “special status for disinterested appreciation” (Heyd within Mcdonald & Veth, 283). This is not to imply that rock art is not aesthetically pleasing but that it has a different function in indigenous societies than just looking pretty. Much rock art has a use and is not just meant to be looked at but to tell stories. Thomas Heyd suggests that rock art be viewed “with the same kind of fullness of life experience that is required to perform songs or plays” (M&V 289). Additionally “most humanly made marks on rocks were made by people at a great distance from us, either in terms of time or in terms of cultural continuity with our own forms of life” this means that using a term like “art” to describe rock art does not do justice to the items it is describing (M&V, 289). A Western term cannot fully describe something whose concept it cannot fully understand. For the purpose of this paper, rock art includes petroglyphs and pictographs on natural rock sources that hold meaning for specific groups of