Breaking Dawn is the fourth and final novel in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. Divided into three parts, the first and third sections are written from Bella Swan's perspective and the second is written from the perspective of Jacob Black. Breaking Dawn was released on August 2, 2008 at midnight release parties in over 4,000 bookstores throughout the US.[1] From its initial print run of 3.7 million copies, 1.3 million were sold in the first 24 hours of the book's release, setting a record in first-day sales performance for the Hachette Book Group USA.[2]
Plot summary
Breaking Dawn is split into three separate parts. The first part details Bella's marriage and honeymoon with Edward, which they spend on a private island off the coast of Brazil. Two weeks into their honeymoon, Bella realizes that she is pregnant and that her condition is progressing at an unnaturally accelerated rate. After contacting Carlisle, who confirms her pregnancy, she and Edward immediately return home to Forks, Washington. Edward, concerned for Bella's life and convinced that the fetus is a monster as it continues to develop with unnatural rapidity, urges her to have an abortion. However, Bella feels a connection with the child and refuses.
The novel's second part is written from the perspective of wolf shape-shifter Jacob Black, and lasts throughout Bella's pregnancy and childbirth. Jacob's Quileute wolf pack, not knowing what danger the unborn child may pose, plan to destroy it, also killing Bella. Jacob vehemently protests this decision and leaves, forming his own pack with Leah and Seth Clearwater. Bella soon gives birth, but the baby breaks many of her bones and she loses massive amounts of blood. In order to save her life, Edward changes her into a vampire by injecting his venom into her heart. Jacob, who was present for the birth, almost immediately "imprints"—an involuntary response in which a shape-shifter finds his soul mate—on Edward and Bella's newborn daughter, Renesmee. This ends the enmity between Jacob and the Cullens, leading Edward and Jacob to regard each other as brothers.
The third section of Breaking Dawn shifts back to Bella's perspective, finding her changed into a vampire and enjoying her new life and abilities. However, the vampire Irina misidentifies Renesmee as an "immortal child", a child who has been turned into a vampire. Because "immortal children" are uncontrollable, creating them has been outlawed by the Volturi. After Irina presents her allegation to the Volturi, they plan to destroy Renesmee and the Cullens. In an attempt to survive, the Cullens gather other vampire clans from around the world to stand as witnesses and prove to the Volturi that Renesmee is not an immortal child. Upon confronting the gathered Cullen allies and witnesses, the Volturi discover that they have been misinformed and immediately execute Irina for her mistake. However, they remain undecided on whether Renesmee should be viewed as a threat to vampires' secret existence. At that time, Alice and Jasper, who had left prior to the confrontation, return with a Mapuche called Nahuel, a 150-year-old vampire-human crossbreed like Renesmee. He demonstrates that the crossbreeds pose no threat, and the Volturi surrender. Edward, Bella and Renesmee return to their home in peace.
Publication history
[edit] Development
The title, Breaking Dawn, is a reference to the beginning of Bella's life as a newborn vampire. The cover is a metaphor for Bella's progression throughout the entire series; she began as the physically weakest player on the board, the pawn, but at the end she becomes the strongest, the queen.[3]
The plays: The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream both influenced Breaking Dawn. Originally, Meyer wrote a book titled Forever Dawn, which was a direct sequel to Twilight.[4] While the basic storyline remained the same, Forever Dawn was narrated completely from Bella's point of view, the werewolves and Jacob were "only sketchily developed", Victoria and Laurent were both alive, and there was an epilogue.[3] Meyer went on to say that she "may post some extras someday if I ever have time to go back through the Forever Dawn manuscript—it's just as long as Breaking Dawn."
In regard to Renesmee's unique name, Meyer wrote that she "couldn't call her Jennifer or Ashley. What do you name the most unique baby in the world? I looked through a lot of baby name websites. Eventually I realized that there was no human name that was going to work for me, so I surrendered to necessity and made up my own."[3] Meyer decided to include the pregnancy in her story while she was researching vampires and came across the legend of the incubus, a demon who could father children.[3]
Meyer states in regard to ending the series that:
"The Twilight Saga is really Bella's story, and this was the natural place for her story to wind up. She overcame the major obstacles in her path and fought her way to the place she wanted to be. I suppose I could try to prolong her story unnaturally, but it wouldn't be interesting enough to keep me writing. Stories need conflict, and the conflicts that are Bella-centric are resolved."[3]
[edit] Marketing and release
Entertainment Weekly magazine released an excerpt of Breaking Dawn on May 30, 2008.[5] Stephenie Meyer also revealed a 'Quote of the Day' from Breaking Dawn for about three weeks prior to its August 2, 2008 release. The first quote was released on Stephenie's website on July 12, 2008.[6] The first chapter of Breaking Dawn, "Engaged", was released in the special edition of Eclipse.[7] Breaking Dawn was officially released on August 2, 2008 through midnight release parties in over 4,000 bookstores,[1] most of which involved costume and trivia contests, crafts, and face painting.[8]
Godiva also made a Twilight-themed chocolate bar, which was released in Barnes & Noble book stores at the release parties.[9] A four-city Breaking Dawn Concert Series, featuring Stephenie Meyer and Blue October's Justin Furstenfeld, coincided with the novel's release. The concert series sold out three of its four locations on the day that tickets went on sale,[10] selling out in under an hour in one city.[11]
[edit] Publication
Prior to the novel's release, the first three Twilight books had already sold 8.5 million copies throughout the US[2] and over 2 million copies in the UK.[12] Breaking Dawn was one of the most anticipated book of 2008 with The Guardian noting, "Teenagers across the world are anxiously awaiting the next instalment of author Stephenie Meyer's vampiric series of novels."[1] To meet the high demand, Little, Brown Books added a printing of 500,000 additional copies just prior to publication of the title, bringing initial print run to 3.7 million.[2]
The book sold 1.3 million copies in the US[2] and 20,000 copies in the UK in its first 24 hours of release,[13] as well as 100,000 copies in Canada during its first weekend.[14] Breaking Dawn debuted at #1 on USA Today's top 150 best sellers list and has gone on to spend over 58 weeks on the list.[15] It was also the biggest-selling children's book of 2008 with over 6 million copies sold.[16]
A special edition of Breaking Dawn was released on August 4, 2009, containing a DVD of the Breaking Dawn Concert Series and a poster of Bella and Edward.[17]
[edit] Reception
Reception of Breaking Dawn was, at best, "mixed".[18] Lev Grossman wrote, "First, since there's a lot of one-star reviews up on Amazon, let me say up front: I loved Breaking Dawn."[19] Cara von Wrangel Kinsey of School Library Journal responded with a positive review, describing the book as "captivating" and noting, "While this novel is darker and more mature than the earlier titles, Meyer's twists and turns are not out of character."[20] The Charlotte Observer agreed and called the book "pretty darned good", but criticized the book's length saying, "I wish [Stephenie Meyer] hadn't felt compelled to pack so much into one volume. It should have been two books."[21] Mary Harris Russell of the Chicago Tribune also responded with a positive review and hailed the book as a "fun read", noting that Stephenie Meyer "continues to produce witty writing about families, teenagers and popular culture",[22] while Time called the book "a wild but satisfying finish to the ballad of Bella and Edward" and gave it a rating of A-.[23] An article in The Daily News Tribune said of Breaking Dawn, "Some of the dialog is a bit stilted,... but, if you stay close to Meyer's rich and prodigious narrative, you too might fall in love with its suspense and moving sensitivity".[24]
Publishers Weekly stated that the main problem with Breaking Dawn was that, "Essentially, everyone gets everything they want, even if their desires necessitate an about-face in characterization or the messy introduction of some back story. Nobody has to renounce anything or suffer more than temporarily—in other words, grandeur is out."[25] In an article by The Associated Press, journalist Sara Rose wrote on NewsOK.com that fans of the series would love "engaging characters, great humor, a distracting obsession with beauty, focus on the minutiae of emotions"; however "casual readers may be disappointed with a lot of build-up and little action."[26] The Independent called the book, "shockingly, tackily, sick-makingly sexist" and said that "Bella Swan lives to serve men and suffer."[27] Entertainment Weekly graded Breaking Dawn with a D, criticizing the birth scene and Bella's "unwavering passion for Edward" and having no other goals.[28] The Washington Post also responded with a negative review, making comments such as, "Meyer has put a stake through the heart of her own beloved creation," and "Breaking Dawn has a childbirth sequence that may promote lifelong abstinence in sensitive types."[29]
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Meyer responded to the negative response of many fans to the book and called it the "Rob Effect"; she said that the fans need time to accept the ending of Breaking Dawn, just as they needed time to accept Robert Pattinson playing the role of Edward in the Twilight movie.[30]
[edit] Awards and honors
Breaking Dawn was the recipient of a British Book Award for "Children's Book of the Year", despite competition with JK Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard.[31] In the 2009 "Children's Choice Book Awards", the novel was chosen as "Teen Choice Book of the Year" and won Meyer the "Author of the Year" award.
Selasa, 08 Juni 2010
Breaking Dawn
Breaking Dawn adalah buku terakhir dari Saga Twilight. Buku terakhir ini dibagi menjadi 3 bagian. Bagian pertama dan ketiga diceritakan dari sudut pandang Bella. Sementara bagian kedua diceritakan melalui sudut pandang Jacob.
Bagian pertama menceritakan Bella yang telah bertunangan dengan Edward saat Jacob menghilang entah ke mana. Setelah pertunangan resmi tersebut, sesuai perjanjian Bella harus rela menerima hadiah apapun yang diberikan Bella. Bella menerima hadiah Edward berupa Mercedes Guardian dengan jengkel. Ke manapun ia mengendarai mobil adahsyat itu, orang – orang selalu memperhatikan. Bagaimana tidak, mobil itu sungguh mewah, cepat, dan mampu menahan berat 2000 kg dan tahan misil. Bahkan mobil tersebut belum masuk pasar Eropa.
Pernikahan pun dilangsungkan segera begitu Bella dan Edward lulus sekolah. Pernikahan berjalan dengan sempurna. Jacob pun muncul memberikan ucapan selamat. Meskipun ia mengucapkan kata – kata yang membuat Bella sedih.
Bella dan Edward berbulan madu ke Pulau Esme. Malam pertama yang dinanti – nanti Bella tiba. Semua berjalan dengan sempurna sampai keesokan harinya Edward menyadari lebam – lebam di sekujur tubuh Bella. Edward sangat menyesal meski Bella berkali – kali meyakinkan Edward bahwa ia baik – baik saja. Dan sisa bulan madu mereka habiskan dengan melakukan kegiatan di luar, berenang, menyelam, mendaki.
Di tengah – tengah bulan madu tersebut, datang sebuah kabar yang mengejutkan. Bella hamil. Sungguh suatu hal yang mustahil seorang vampir bisa membuahi rahim seorang manusia.
Itulah akhir bagian pertama.
Bagian kedua menceritakan proses kehamilan Bella yang sulit. Bayi yang dikandung Bella tumbuh dengan sangat cepat dan semakin kuat. Sementara tubuh Bella yang rapuh tidak mampu menanggungnya.
Edward membujuk Bella supaya mau menggugurkan kandungannya. Namun Bella menolak mentah – mentah ide tersebut. Dan tidak mungkin memaksa Bella dengan Rosaline selalu di samping Bella, menjaganya. Atau lebih tepatnya menjaga si jabang bayi.
Lalu suatu hari, Edward menemukan hal yang mustahil. Edward berkomunikasi dengan si jabang bayi melalui pikirannya. Dan sikap Edward terhadap sang jabang bayi yang mulanya antipati kini mulai berubah.
Saat keadaan mulai membaik dan jabang bayi tumbuh semakin besar. Tinggal menunggu kelahiran. Namun, belum tiba saatnya sang jabang bayi merobek perut Bella. Demi bayinya, Bella meregang nyawa.
Bagian ketiga menceritakan awal kehidupan Bella sebagai mahluk imortal. Bella menikmati kehidupan barunya yang tenang bersama Edward dan Renesmee, serta Jacob dan keluarga Cullen.
Dan di luar dugaan Charlie dapat menerima dengan tabah perubahan yang terjadi pada anaknya, meski pada awalnya ia sedikit terguncang.
Namun, kedamaian itu diusik oleh adanya kedengkian Irina terhadap kebahagiaan Bella dan keluarganya. Ia melaporkan pada keluarga Volturi keberadaan Renesmee yang dianggap sebagai sebuah ancaman. Bagaimana akhir kisah ini?Akankah Bella menemukan kembali kebahagiaannya? Bagaimana sikap kawanan serigala terhadap perang vampir yang tak dapat dielakkan ini? Di pihak manakah mereka? Dan satu rahasia lagi terungkap? Siapakah imprint Jacob? Bacalah Breaking Dawn hingga tuntas!
Bagian pertama menceritakan Bella yang telah bertunangan dengan Edward saat Jacob menghilang entah ke mana. Setelah pertunangan resmi tersebut, sesuai perjanjian Bella harus rela menerima hadiah apapun yang diberikan Bella. Bella menerima hadiah Edward berupa Mercedes Guardian dengan jengkel. Ke manapun ia mengendarai mobil adahsyat itu, orang – orang selalu memperhatikan. Bagaimana tidak, mobil itu sungguh mewah, cepat, dan mampu menahan berat 2000 kg dan tahan misil. Bahkan mobil tersebut belum masuk pasar Eropa.
Pernikahan pun dilangsungkan segera begitu Bella dan Edward lulus sekolah. Pernikahan berjalan dengan sempurna. Jacob pun muncul memberikan ucapan selamat. Meskipun ia mengucapkan kata – kata yang membuat Bella sedih.
Bella dan Edward berbulan madu ke Pulau Esme. Malam pertama yang dinanti – nanti Bella tiba. Semua berjalan dengan sempurna sampai keesokan harinya Edward menyadari lebam – lebam di sekujur tubuh Bella. Edward sangat menyesal meski Bella berkali – kali meyakinkan Edward bahwa ia baik – baik saja. Dan sisa bulan madu mereka habiskan dengan melakukan kegiatan di luar, berenang, menyelam, mendaki.
Di tengah – tengah bulan madu tersebut, datang sebuah kabar yang mengejutkan. Bella hamil. Sungguh suatu hal yang mustahil seorang vampir bisa membuahi rahim seorang manusia.
Itulah akhir bagian pertama.
Bagian kedua menceritakan proses kehamilan Bella yang sulit. Bayi yang dikandung Bella tumbuh dengan sangat cepat dan semakin kuat. Sementara tubuh Bella yang rapuh tidak mampu menanggungnya.
Edward membujuk Bella supaya mau menggugurkan kandungannya. Namun Bella menolak mentah – mentah ide tersebut. Dan tidak mungkin memaksa Bella dengan Rosaline selalu di samping Bella, menjaganya. Atau lebih tepatnya menjaga si jabang bayi.
Lalu suatu hari, Edward menemukan hal yang mustahil. Edward berkomunikasi dengan si jabang bayi melalui pikirannya. Dan sikap Edward terhadap sang jabang bayi yang mulanya antipati kini mulai berubah.
Saat keadaan mulai membaik dan jabang bayi tumbuh semakin besar. Tinggal menunggu kelahiran. Namun, belum tiba saatnya sang jabang bayi merobek perut Bella. Demi bayinya, Bella meregang nyawa.
Bagian ketiga menceritakan awal kehidupan Bella sebagai mahluk imortal. Bella menikmati kehidupan barunya yang tenang bersama Edward dan Renesmee, serta Jacob dan keluarga Cullen.
Dan di luar dugaan Charlie dapat menerima dengan tabah perubahan yang terjadi pada anaknya, meski pada awalnya ia sedikit terguncang.
Namun, kedamaian itu diusik oleh adanya kedengkian Irina terhadap kebahagiaan Bella dan keluarganya. Ia melaporkan pada keluarga Volturi keberadaan Renesmee yang dianggap sebagai sebuah ancaman. Bagaimana akhir kisah ini?Akankah Bella menemukan kembali kebahagiaannya? Bagaimana sikap kawanan serigala terhadap perang vampir yang tak dapat dielakkan ini? Di pihak manakah mereka? Dan satu rahasia lagi terungkap? Siapakah imprint Jacob? Bacalah Breaking Dawn hingga tuntas!
Breaking Dawn
Truk tua Bella akhirnya benar-benar mati. Dan bergabung dengan keluarga Cullen yang lain, Bella mulai menikmati mobil-mobil mahal berkecepatan tinggi yang dijual terbatas di pasaran. Kehidupan mulai berputar cepat di sekelilingnya. Ayah dan ibunya menyetujui dengan mudah pertunangannya dengan Edward, tidak seperti bayangannya. Meski dengan bayang-bayang Jacob yang pergi untuk menyembuhkan luka hatinya, akhirnya hari pernikahan itu tiba juga. Edward berada di sisinya mengucapkan janji setia selama masa eksistensi mereka.
Bulan madu yang semula dirancang indah ternyata menjadi awal yang sangat buruk untuk hubungan mereka. Kekuatan vampir Edward yang luar biasa ternyata membuat tubuh manusia Bella yang ringkih terluka. Belum cukup hingga di situ Bellaharus dihadapkan dengan kenyataan bahwa dia ternyata hamil. Buah cintanya terhadap Edward tumbuh di perutnya sebagai seorang monster yang haus darah.
Penuh keberanian, melawan semua usul dan nasihat keluarga Cullen, Bella bertahan untuk tidak mau menggugurkan kandungannya meski dia harus bertaruh nyawa. Di saat kritis, kehadiran sahabat lama, Jacob, sangat menolongnya dan Edward untuk melalui hari-hari buruk mereka.
Setelah melalui penderitaan panjang akibat janin monster yang dikandungnya, Bella pun meregan nyawa di meja persalinan. Edward pun akhirnya mengambil keputusan yang selama ini adalah ide yang paling ditentangnya, yaitu merubah Bella menjadi vampir.
Hari-hari Bella sebagai seorang vampir pun dimulai, dengan buah hatinya, Renesmee, yang ternyata merupakan penjelmaan separuh manusia separuh vampir. Lalu masalah yang timbul adalah bagaimanakah Bella harus menjelaskan kepada ayahnya bahwa dia sekarang telah menjadi vampir, seperti halnya keluarga suaminya? Atau bagaimanakah dia harus menerangkan kalau sesungguhnya Jacob yang periang itu adalah manusia serigala? Dan bahwa ayahnya telah memiliki cucu yang separo manusia separo vampir dengan segala bakat anehnya?
Bulan madu yang semula dirancang indah ternyata menjadi awal yang sangat buruk untuk hubungan mereka. Kekuatan vampir Edward yang luar biasa ternyata membuat tubuh manusia Bella yang ringkih terluka. Belum cukup hingga di situ Bellaharus dihadapkan dengan kenyataan bahwa dia ternyata hamil. Buah cintanya terhadap Edward tumbuh di perutnya sebagai seorang monster yang haus darah.
Penuh keberanian, melawan semua usul dan nasihat keluarga Cullen, Bella bertahan untuk tidak mau menggugurkan kandungannya meski dia harus bertaruh nyawa. Di saat kritis, kehadiran sahabat lama, Jacob, sangat menolongnya dan Edward untuk melalui hari-hari buruk mereka.
Setelah melalui penderitaan panjang akibat janin monster yang dikandungnya, Bella pun meregan nyawa di meja persalinan. Edward pun akhirnya mengambil keputusan yang selama ini adalah ide yang paling ditentangnya, yaitu merubah Bella menjadi vampir.
Hari-hari Bella sebagai seorang vampir pun dimulai, dengan buah hatinya, Renesmee, yang ternyata merupakan penjelmaan separuh manusia separuh vampir. Lalu masalah yang timbul adalah bagaimanakah Bella harus menjelaskan kepada ayahnya bahwa dia sekarang telah menjadi vampir, seperti halnya keluarga suaminya? Atau bagaimanakah dia harus menerangkan kalau sesungguhnya Jacob yang periang itu adalah manusia serigala? Dan bahwa ayahnya telah memiliki cucu yang separo manusia separo vampir dengan segala bakat anehnya?
Jumat, 04 Juni 2010
ComIcs
Cosmic ray
Cosmic rays are energetic particles originating from outer space that impinge on Earth's atmosphere. Almost 90% of all the incoming cosmic ray particles are simple protons, with nearly 10% being helium nuclei (alpha particles), and slightly under 1% are heavier elements, electrons (beta particles), or gamma ray photons.[1] The term ray is a misnomer, as cosmic particles arrive individually, not in the form of a ray or beam of particles. However, when they were first discovered, cosmic rays were thought to be rays. When their particle nature needs to be emphasized, "cosmic ray particle" is written.
The variety of particle energies reflects the wide variety of sources. The origins of these particles range from energetic processes on the Sun all the way to as yet unknown events in the farthest reaches of the visible universe. Cosmic rays can have energies of over 1020 eV, far higher than the 1012 to 1013 eV that man-made particle accelerators can produce. (See Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays for a description of the detection of a single particle with an energy of about 50 J, the same as a well-hit tennis ball at 42 m/s [about 94 mph].) There has been interest in investigating cosmic rays of even greater energies.[2]
Composition
Cosmic rays may broadly be divided into two categories, primary and secondary. The cosmic rays that arise in extrasolar astrophysical sources are primary cosmic rays; these primary cosmic rays can interact with interstellar matter to create secondary cosmic rays. The sun also emits low energy cosmic rays associated with solar flares. The exact composition of primary cosmic rays, outside the Earth's atmosphere, is dependent on which part of the energy spectrum is observed. However, in general, almost 90% of all the incoming cosmic rays are protons, about 9% are helium nuclei (alpha particles) and nearly 1% are electrons. The ratio of hydrogen to helium nuclei (28% helium by mass) is about the same as the primordial elemental abundance ratio of these elements (24% by mass He) in the universe.
The remaining fraction is made up of the other heavier nuclei which are abundant end products of stars' nuclear synthesis. Secondary cosmic rays consist of the other nuclei which are not abundant nuclear synthesis end products, or products of the Big Bang, primarily lithium, beryllium, and boron. These light nuclei appear in cosmic rays in much greater abundance (about 1:100 particles) than in solar atmospheres, where their abundance is about 10−7 that of helium.
This abundance difference is a result of the way secondary cosmic rays are formed. When the heavy nuclei components of primary cosmic rays, namely the carbon and oxygen nuclei, collide with interstellar matter, they break up into lighter nuclei (in a process termed cosmic ray spallation) - lithium, beryllium and boron. It is found that the energy spectra of Li, Be and B fall off somewhat more steeply than those of carbon or oxygen, indicating that less cosmic ray spallation occurs for the higher energy nuclei presumably due to their escape from the galactic magnetic field. Spallation is also responsible for the abundances of scandium, titanium, vanadium, and manganese ions in cosmic rays, which are produced by collisions of iron and nickel nuclei with interstellar matter. (See environmental radioactivity#Natural).
In the past, it was believed that the cosmic ray flux has remained fairly constant over time. Recent research has, however, produced evidence for 1.5 to 2-fold millennium-timescale changes in the cosmic ray flux in the past forty thousand years.[3]
Modulation
The flux (flow rate) of cosmic rays incident on the Earth’s upper atmosphere is modulated (varied) by two processes; the sun’s solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field. The Solar wind is expanding magnetized plasma generated by the sun, which has the effect of decelerating the incoming particles, as well as excluding some of the particles with energies below about 1 GeV. The amount of solar wind is not constant due to changes in solar activity, for instance over its regular eleven-year cycle. Hence the level of modulation varies in anticorrelation with solar activity. Also the Earth's magnetic field deflects some of the cosmic rays, giving rise to the observation that the intensity of cosmic radiation is dependent on latitude, longitude, and azimuth angle. The cosmic flux varies from eastern and western directions due to the polarity of the Earth's geomagnetic field and the positive charge dominance in primary cosmic rays. (This is called the "east-west effect"). The cosmic ray intensity at the Equator is lower than at the poles as the geomagnetic cutoff value is greatest at the equator. This is because charged particles tend to move in the direction of field lines and not across them, so that they are concentrated in the polar regions (where field lines are closest together). This is the reason the auroras occur at the poles, since the field lines curve down towards the Earth’s surface there. Finally, the longitude dependence arises from the fact that the geomagnetic dipole axis is not parallel to the Earth's rotation axis.
This modulation which describes the change in the interstellar intensities of cosmic rays as they propagate in the heliosphere is highly energy and spatial dependent, and it is described by the Parker's Transport Equation in the heliosphere. At large radial distances, far from the Sun (~94 AU), there exists the region where the solar wind undergoes a transition from supersonic to subsonic speeds called the "solar wind termination shock". The region between the termination shock and the heliopause (the boundary marking the end of the heliosphere) is called the heliosheath. This region acts as a barrier to cosmic rays, decreasing their intensity at lower energies by about 90%; thus it is not only the Earth's magnetic field that protects us from cosmic ray bombardment.
From a scientific modeling point of view, there is a challenge in determining the Local Interstellar Spectra (LIS) due to large adiabatic energy changes these particles experience owing to the diverging solar wind in the heliosphere. However, significant progress has been made in the field of cosmic ray studies with the development of an improved state-of-the-art 2D numerical model that includes the simulation of the solar wind termination shock, drifts and the heliosheath coupled with fresh descriptions of the diffusion tensor, see Langner et al. (2004). But challenges also exist because the structure of the solar wind and the turbulent magnetic field in the heliosheath is not well understood indicating the heliosheath as the region unknown beyond. With lack of knowledge of the diffusion coefficient perpendicular to the magnetic field our knowledge of the heliosphere and from the modelling point of view is far from complete. There exist promising theories like ab initio method approaches, but the drawback is that such theories produce poor compatibility with observations (Minnie, 2006) indicating their failure in describing the mechanisms influencing the cosmic rays in the heliosphere.
Detection
The Moon's cosmic ray shadow, as seen in secondary muons detected 700 m below ground, at the Soudan 2 detector.
The Moon as seen by the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, in gamma rays of greater than 20 MeV. These are produced by cosmic ray bombardment of its surface. The Sun, which has no similar surface of high atomic number to act as target for cosmic rays, cannot be seen at all at these energies, which are too high to emerge from primary nuclear reactions, such as solar nuclear fusion.[4]
The nucleus that make up cosmic rays are able to travel from their distant sources to the Earth because of the low density of matter in space. Nuclei interact strongly with other matter, so when the cosmic rays approach Earth they begin to collide with the nuclei of atmospheric gases. These collisions, in a process known as a shower, result in the production of many pions and kaons, unstable mesons which quickly decay into muons. Because muons do not interact strongly with the atmosphere and because of the relativistic effect of time dilation many of these muons are able to reach the surface of the Earth. Muons are ionizing radiation, and may easily be detected by many types of particle detectors such as bubble chambers or scintillation detectors. If several muons are observed by separated detectors at the same instant it is clear that they must have been produced in the same shower event.
Cosmic rays impacting other (non-Earth) bodies in the solar system which are made of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, can be detected indirectly by observing high energy gamma ray emissions from these bodies using a gamma-ray telescope (see image at right). When such gammas are of energy too high to result from radioactive decay processes (> about 10 MeV) they must be secondary to cosmic ray bombardment.
Detection by particle track-etch technique
Cosmic rays can also be detected directly when they pass through particle detectors flown aboard satellites or in high altitude balloons. In a pioneering technique developed by Robert Fleischer, P. Buford Price, and Robert M. Walker,[5] sheets of clear plastic such as 1/4 mil Lexan polycarbonate can be stacked together and exposed directly to cosmic rays in space or high altitude. When returned to the laboratory, the plastic sheets are "etched" [literally, slowly dissolved] in warm caustic sodium hydroxide solution, which removes the surface material at a slow, known rate. Wherever a bare cosmic ray nucleus passes through the detector, the nuclear charge causes chemical bond breaking in the plastic. The slower the particle, the more extensive is the bond-breaking along the path; and the higher the charge [the higher the Z], the more extensive is the bond-breaking along the path. The caustic sodium hydroxide dissolves at a faster rate along the path of the damage, but thereafter dissolves at the slower base-rate along the surface of the minute hole that was drilled. The net result is a conical shaped pit in the plastic; typically with two pits per sheet [one originating from each side of the plastic]. The etch pits can be measured under a high power microscope [typically 1600X oil-immersion], and the etch rate plotted as a function of the depth in the stack of plastic. At the top of the stack, the ionization damage is less due to the higher speed. As the speed decreases due to deceleration in the stack, the ionization damage increases along the path. This generates a unique curve for each atomic nucleus of Z from 1 to 92, allowing identification of both the charge and energy [speed] of the particle that traverses the stack. This technique has been used with great success for detecting not only cosmic rays, but fission product nuclei for neutron detectors.
Interaction with the Earth's atmosphere
When cosmic ray particles enter the Earth's atmosphere they collide with molecules, mainly oxygen and nitrogen, to produce a cascade of lighter particles, a so-called air shower. The general idea is shown in the figure which shows a cosmic ray shower produced by a high energy proton of cosmic ray origin striking an atmospheric molecule.
Atmospheric Collision.svg
This image is a simplified picture of an air shower: in reality, the number of particles created in an air shower event can reach in the billions, depending on the energy and chemical environment (i.e. atmospheric) of the primary particle. All of the produced particles stay within about one degree of the primary particle's path. Typical particles produced in such collisions are charged mesons (e.g. positive and negative pions and kaons). Cosmic rays are also responsible for the continuous production of a number of unstable isotopes in the Earth’s atmosphere, such as carbon-14, via the reaction:
n + \mathrm{N}^{14} \rightarrow p + \mathrm{C}^{14}
Cosmic rays kept the level of carbon-14 in the atmosphere roughly constant (70 tons) for at least the past 100,000 years, until the beginning of above-ground nuclear weapons testing in the early 1950s. This is an important fact used in radiocarbon dating which is used in archaeology.
Cosmic rays are energetic particles originating from outer space that impinge on Earth's atmosphere. Almost 90% of all the incoming cosmic ray particles are simple protons, with nearly 10% being helium nuclei (alpha particles), and slightly under 1% are heavier elements, electrons (beta particles), or gamma ray photons.[1] The term ray is a misnomer, as cosmic particles arrive individually, not in the form of a ray or beam of particles. However, when they were first discovered, cosmic rays were thought to be rays. When their particle nature needs to be emphasized, "cosmic ray particle" is written.
The variety of particle energies reflects the wide variety of sources. The origins of these particles range from energetic processes on the Sun all the way to as yet unknown events in the farthest reaches of the visible universe. Cosmic rays can have energies of over 1020 eV, far higher than the 1012 to 1013 eV that man-made particle accelerators can produce. (See Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays for a description of the detection of a single particle with an energy of about 50 J, the same as a well-hit tennis ball at 42 m/s [about 94 mph].) There has been interest in investigating cosmic rays of even greater energies.[2]
Composition
Cosmic rays may broadly be divided into two categories, primary and secondary. The cosmic rays that arise in extrasolar astrophysical sources are primary cosmic rays; these primary cosmic rays can interact with interstellar matter to create secondary cosmic rays. The sun also emits low energy cosmic rays associated with solar flares. The exact composition of primary cosmic rays, outside the Earth's atmosphere, is dependent on which part of the energy spectrum is observed. However, in general, almost 90% of all the incoming cosmic rays are protons, about 9% are helium nuclei (alpha particles) and nearly 1% are electrons. The ratio of hydrogen to helium nuclei (28% helium by mass) is about the same as the primordial elemental abundance ratio of these elements (24% by mass He) in the universe.
The remaining fraction is made up of the other heavier nuclei which are abundant end products of stars' nuclear synthesis. Secondary cosmic rays consist of the other nuclei which are not abundant nuclear synthesis end products, or products of the Big Bang, primarily lithium, beryllium, and boron. These light nuclei appear in cosmic rays in much greater abundance (about 1:100 particles) than in solar atmospheres, where their abundance is about 10−7 that of helium.
This abundance difference is a result of the way secondary cosmic rays are formed. When the heavy nuclei components of primary cosmic rays, namely the carbon and oxygen nuclei, collide with interstellar matter, they break up into lighter nuclei (in a process termed cosmic ray spallation) - lithium, beryllium and boron. It is found that the energy spectra of Li, Be and B fall off somewhat more steeply than those of carbon or oxygen, indicating that less cosmic ray spallation occurs for the higher energy nuclei presumably due to their escape from the galactic magnetic field. Spallation is also responsible for the abundances of scandium, titanium, vanadium, and manganese ions in cosmic rays, which are produced by collisions of iron and nickel nuclei with interstellar matter. (See environmental radioactivity#Natural).
In the past, it was believed that the cosmic ray flux has remained fairly constant over time. Recent research has, however, produced evidence for 1.5 to 2-fold millennium-timescale changes in the cosmic ray flux in the past forty thousand years.[3]
Modulation
The flux (flow rate) of cosmic rays incident on the Earth’s upper atmosphere is modulated (varied) by two processes; the sun’s solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field. The Solar wind is expanding magnetized plasma generated by the sun, which has the effect of decelerating the incoming particles, as well as excluding some of the particles with energies below about 1 GeV. The amount of solar wind is not constant due to changes in solar activity, for instance over its regular eleven-year cycle. Hence the level of modulation varies in anticorrelation with solar activity. Also the Earth's magnetic field deflects some of the cosmic rays, giving rise to the observation that the intensity of cosmic radiation is dependent on latitude, longitude, and azimuth angle. The cosmic flux varies from eastern and western directions due to the polarity of the Earth's geomagnetic field and the positive charge dominance in primary cosmic rays. (This is called the "east-west effect"). The cosmic ray intensity at the Equator is lower than at the poles as the geomagnetic cutoff value is greatest at the equator. This is because charged particles tend to move in the direction of field lines and not across them, so that they are concentrated in the polar regions (where field lines are closest together). This is the reason the auroras occur at the poles, since the field lines curve down towards the Earth’s surface there. Finally, the longitude dependence arises from the fact that the geomagnetic dipole axis is not parallel to the Earth's rotation axis.
This modulation which describes the change in the interstellar intensities of cosmic rays as they propagate in the heliosphere is highly energy and spatial dependent, and it is described by the Parker's Transport Equation in the heliosphere. At large radial distances, far from the Sun (~94 AU), there exists the region where the solar wind undergoes a transition from supersonic to subsonic speeds called the "solar wind termination shock". The region between the termination shock and the heliopause (the boundary marking the end of the heliosphere) is called the heliosheath. This region acts as a barrier to cosmic rays, decreasing their intensity at lower energies by about 90%; thus it is not only the Earth's magnetic field that protects us from cosmic ray bombardment.
From a scientific modeling point of view, there is a challenge in determining the Local Interstellar Spectra (LIS) due to large adiabatic energy changes these particles experience owing to the diverging solar wind in the heliosphere. However, significant progress has been made in the field of cosmic ray studies with the development of an improved state-of-the-art 2D numerical model that includes the simulation of the solar wind termination shock, drifts and the heliosheath coupled with fresh descriptions of the diffusion tensor, see Langner et al. (2004). But challenges also exist because the structure of the solar wind and the turbulent magnetic field in the heliosheath is not well understood indicating the heliosheath as the region unknown beyond. With lack of knowledge of the diffusion coefficient perpendicular to the magnetic field our knowledge of the heliosphere and from the modelling point of view is far from complete. There exist promising theories like ab initio method approaches, but the drawback is that such theories produce poor compatibility with observations (Minnie, 2006) indicating their failure in describing the mechanisms influencing the cosmic rays in the heliosphere.
Detection
The Moon's cosmic ray shadow, as seen in secondary muons detected 700 m below ground, at the Soudan 2 detector.
The Moon as seen by the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, in gamma rays of greater than 20 MeV. These are produced by cosmic ray bombardment of its surface. The Sun, which has no similar surface of high atomic number to act as target for cosmic rays, cannot be seen at all at these energies, which are too high to emerge from primary nuclear reactions, such as solar nuclear fusion.[4]
The nucleus that make up cosmic rays are able to travel from their distant sources to the Earth because of the low density of matter in space. Nuclei interact strongly with other matter, so when the cosmic rays approach Earth they begin to collide with the nuclei of atmospheric gases. These collisions, in a process known as a shower, result in the production of many pions and kaons, unstable mesons which quickly decay into muons. Because muons do not interact strongly with the atmosphere and because of the relativistic effect of time dilation many of these muons are able to reach the surface of the Earth. Muons are ionizing radiation, and may easily be detected by many types of particle detectors such as bubble chambers or scintillation detectors. If several muons are observed by separated detectors at the same instant it is clear that they must have been produced in the same shower event.
Cosmic rays impacting other (non-Earth) bodies in the solar system which are made of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, can be detected indirectly by observing high energy gamma ray emissions from these bodies using a gamma-ray telescope (see image at right). When such gammas are of energy too high to result from radioactive decay processes (> about 10 MeV) they must be secondary to cosmic ray bombardment.
Detection by particle track-etch technique
Cosmic rays can also be detected directly when they pass through particle detectors flown aboard satellites or in high altitude balloons. In a pioneering technique developed by Robert Fleischer, P. Buford Price, and Robert M. Walker,[5] sheets of clear plastic such as 1/4 mil Lexan polycarbonate can be stacked together and exposed directly to cosmic rays in space or high altitude. When returned to the laboratory, the plastic sheets are "etched" [literally, slowly dissolved] in warm caustic sodium hydroxide solution, which removes the surface material at a slow, known rate. Wherever a bare cosmic ray nucleus passes through the detector, the nuclear charge causes chemical bond breaking in the plastic. The slower the particle, the more extensive is the bond-breaking along the path; and the higher the charge [the higher the Z], the more extensive is the bond-breaking along the path. The caustic sodium hydroxide dissolves at a faster rate along the path of the damage, but thereafter dissolves at the slower base-rate along the surface of the minute hole that was drilled. The net result is a conical shaped pit in the plastic; typically with two pits per sheet [one originating from each side of the plastic]. The etch pits can be measured under a high power microscope [typically 1600X oil-immersion], and the etch rate plotted as a function of the depth in the stack of plastic. At the top of the stack, the ionization damage is less due to the higher speed. As the speed decreases due to deceleration in the stack, the ionization damage increases along the path. This generates a unique curve for each atomic nucleus of Z from 1 to 92, allowing identification of both the charge and energy [speed] of the particle that traverses the stack. This technique has been used with great success for detecting not only cosmic rays, but fission product nuclei for neutron detectors.
Interaction with the Earth's atmosphere
When cosmic ray particles enter the Earth's atmosphere they collide with molecules, mainly oxygen and nitrogen, to produce a cascade of lighter particles, a so-called air shower. The general idea is shown in the figure which shows a cosmic ray shower produced by a high energy proton of cosmic ray origin striking an atmospheric molecule.
Atmospheric Collision.svg
This image is a simplified picture of an air shower: in reality, the number of particles created in an air shower event can reach in the billions, depending on the energy and chemical environment (i.e. atmospheric) of the primary particle. All of the produced particles stay within about one degree of the primary particle's path. Typical particles produced in such collisions are charged mesons (e.g. positive and negative pions and kaons). Cosmic rays are also responsible for the continuous production of a number of unstable isotopes in the Earth’s atmosphere, such as carbon-14, via the reaction:
n + \mathrm{N}^{14} \rightarrow p + \mathrm{C}^{14}
Cosmic rays kept the level of carbon-14 in the atmosphere roughly constant (70 tons) for at least the past 100,000 years, until the beginning of above-ground nuclear weapons testing in the early 1950s. This is an important fact used in radiocarbon dating which is used in archaeology.
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Art
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This article is about the general concept of art. For the categories of different artistic disciplines, see The arts.
For the arts that are visual in nature, see Visual arts.
For other uses, see Art (disambiguation).
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Clockwise from upper left: A self-portrait from Vincent van Gogh, an African Chokwe-statue, detail from the Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli and a Japanese Shisa lion.
Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, photography, sculpture, and paintings. The meaning of art is explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics.
The definition and evaluation of art has become especially problematic since the early 20th century. Richard Wollheim distinguishes three approaches: the Realist, whereby aesthetic quality is an absolute value independent of any human view; the Objectivist, whereby it is also an absolute value, but is dependent on general human experience; and the Relativist position, whereby it is not an absolute value, but depends on, and varies with, the human experience of different humans.[1] An object may be characterized by the intentions, or lack thereof, of its creator, regardless of its apparent purpose. A cup, which ostensibly can be used as a container, may be considered art if intended solely as an ornament, while a painting may be deemed craft if mass-produced.
Traditionally, the term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery. This conception changed during the Romantic period, when art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".[2] Generally, art is made with the intention of stimulating thoughts and emotions.
The nature of art has been described by Richard Wollheim as "one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture".[3] It has been defined as a vehicle for the expression or communication of emotions and ideas, a means for exploring and appreciating formal elements for their own sake, and as mimesis or representation. Leo Tolstoy identified art as a use of indirect means to communicate from one person to another.[4] Benedetto Croce and R.G. Collingwood advanced the idealist view that art expresses emotions, and that the work of art therefore essentially exists in the mind of the creator.[5][6] The theory of art as form has its roots in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and was developed in the early twentieth century by Roger Fry and Clive Bell. Art as mimesis or representation has deep roots in the philosophy of Aristotle.[4] More recently, thinkers influenced by Martin Heidegger have interpreted art as the means by which a community develops for itself a medium for self-expression and interpretation.[7]
Mozarabic Beatus miniature; Spain, late 10th century.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Definition of the term
* 2 History
* 3 Characteristics
* 4 Forms, genres, media, and styles
o 4.1 Skill and craft
o 4.2 Value judgment
o 4.3 Communication
* 5 Purpose of art
o 5.1 Non-motivated functions of art
o 5.2 Motivated functions of art
* 6 Controversial art
* 7 Art theories
* 8 Classification disputes
* 9 Art, class, and value
* 10 See also
* 11 Notes
* 12 Bibliography
* 13 Further reading
* 14 External links
Definition of the term
Works of art worldwide can tell stories or simply express an aesthetic truth or feeling. Panorama of Along the River During the Qingming Festival, an 18th century reproduction of the 12th century original by Zhang Zeduan
Britannica Online defines art as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others." By this definition of the word, artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art; however, some theories restrict the concept to modern Western societies.[8] Adorno said in 1970, "It is now taken for granted that nothing which concerns art can be taken for granted any more: neither art itself, nor art in relationship to the whole, nor even the right of art to exist."[9] The first and broadest sense of art is the one that has remained closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft." A few examples where this meaning proves very broad include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, and military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology.
20th-century Rwandan bottle. Artistic works may serve practical functions, in addition to their decorative value.
The second and more recent sense of the word art is as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art. Fine art means that a skill is being used to express the artist's creativity, or to engage the audience's aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience towards consideration of the finer things. Often, if the skill is being used in a common or practical way, people will consider it a craft instead of art. Likewise, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it will be considered Commercial art instead of fine art. On the other hand, crafts and design are sometimes considered applied art. Some art followers have argued that the difference between fine art and applied art has more to do with value judgments made about the art than any clear definitional difference.[10] However, even fine art often has goals beyond pure creativity and self-expression. The purpose of works of art may be to communicate ideas, such as in politically, spiritually, or philosophically motivated art; to create a sense of beauty (see aesthetics); to explore the nature of perception; for pleasure; or to generate strong emotions. The purpose may also be seemingly nonexistent.
Art can describe several things: a study of creative skill, a process of using the creative skill, a product of the creative skill, or the audience's experience with the creative skill. The creative arts (art as discipline) are a collection of disciplines (arts) that produce artworks (art as objects) that are compelled by a personal drive (art as activity) and echo or reflect a message, mood, or symbolism for the viewer to interpret (art as experience). Artworks can be defined by purposeful, creative interpretations of limitless concepts or ideas in order to communicate something to another person. Artworks can be explicitly made for this purpose or interpreted based on images or objects. Art is something that stimulates an individual's thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or ideas through the senses. It is also an expression of an idea and it can take many different forms and serve many different purposes. Although the application of scientific knowledge to derive a new scientific theory involves skill and results in the "creation" of something new, this represents science only and is not categorized as art.
History
Main article: History of art
Venus of Willendorf, circa 24,000–22,000 BP.
Sculptures, cave paintings, rock paintings, and petroglyphs from the Upper Paleolithic dating to roughly 40,000 years ago have been found, but the precise meaning of such art is often disputed because so little is known about the cultures that produced them. The oldest art objects in the world—a series of tiny, drilled snail shells about 75,000 years old—were discovered in a South African cave.[11]
Cave painting of a horse from the Lascaux caves, c. 16,000 BP.
Many great traditions in art have a foundation in the art of one of the great ancient civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, China, Ancient Greece, Rome, as well as Inca, Maya, and Olmec. Each of these centers of early civilization developed a unique and characteristic style in their art. Because of the size and duration these civilizations, more of their art works have survived and more of their influence has been transmitted to other cultures and later times. Some also have provided the first records of how artists worked. For example, this period of Greek art saw a veneration of the human physical form and the development of equivalent skills to show musculature, poise, beauty, and anatomically correct proportions.
In Byzantine and Medieval art of the Western Middle Ages, much art focused on the expression of Biblical and not material truths, and used styles that showed the higher unseen glory of a heavenly world, such as the use of gold in the background of paintings, or glass in mosaics or windows, which also presented figures in idealized, patterned (flat) forms. Nevertheless a classical realist tradition persisted in small Byzantine works, and realism steadily grew in the art of Catholic Europe.
Renaissance art had a greatly increased emphasis on the realistic depiction of the material world, and the place of humans in it, reflected in the corporeality of the human body, and development of a systematic method of graphical perspective to depict recession in a three dimensional picture space.
The stylized signature of Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire was written in Arabic calligraphy. It reads Mahmud Khan son of Abdulhamid is forever victorious.
In the east, Islamic art's rejection of iconography led to emphasis on geometric patterns, calligraphy, and architecture. Further east, religion dominated artistic styles and forms too. India and Tibet saw emphasis on painted sculptures and dance with religious painting borrowing many conventions from sculpture and tending to bright contrasting colors with emphasis on outlines. China saw many art forms flourish, jade carving, bronzework, pottery (including the stunning terracotta army of Emperor Qin), poetry, calligraphy, music, painting, drama, fiction, etc. Chinese styles vary greatly from era to era and are traditionally named after the ruling dynasty. So, for example, Tang Dynasty paintings are monochromatic and sparse, emphasizing idealized landscapes, but Ming Dynasty paintings are busy, colorful, and focus on telling stories via setting and composition. Japan names its styles after imperial dynasties too, and also saw much interplay between the styles of calligraphy and painting. Woodblock printing became important in Japan after the 17th century.
Painting by Song Dynasty artist Ma Lin, c. 1250. 24,8 × 25,2 cm.
The western Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century saw artistic depictions of physical and rational certainties of the clockwork universe, as well as politically revolutionary visions of a post-monarchist world, such as Blake's portrayal of Newton as a divine geometer, or David's propagandistic paintings. This led to Romantic rejections of this in favor of pictures of the emotional side and individuality of humans, exemplified in the novels of Goethe. The late 19th century then saw a host of artistic movements, such as academic art, Symbolism, impressionism and fauvism among others.
The history of twentieth century art is a narrative of endless possibilities and the search for new standards, each being torn down in succession by the next. Thus the parameters of Impressionism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, etc. cannot be maintained very much beyond the time of their invention. Increasing global interaction during this time saw an equivalent influence of other cultures into Western art, such as Pablo Picasso being influenced by African sculpture. Japanese woodblock prints (which had themselves been influenced by Western Renaissance draftsmanship) had an immense influence on Impressionism and subsequent development. Later, African sculptures were taken up by Picasso and to some extent by Matisse. Similarly, the west has had huge impacts on Eastern art in 19th and 20th century, with originally western ideas like Communism and Post-Modernism exerting powerful influence on artistic styles.
Modernism, the idealistic search for truth, gave way in the latter half of the 20th century to a realization of its unattainability. Relativism was accepted as an unavoidable truth, which led to the period of contemporary art and postmodern criticism, where cultures of the world and of history are seen as changing forms, which can be appreciated and drawn from only with irony. Furthermore the separation of cultures is increasingly blurred and some argue it is now more appropriate to think in terms of a global culture, rather than regional cultures.
Characteristics
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Art tends to facilitate intuitive rather than rational understanding, and is usually consciously created with this intention.[citation needed] Fine art intentionally serves no other purpose.[dubious – discuss] As a result of this impetus, works of art are elusive, refractive to attempts at classification, because they can be appreciated in more than one way, and are often susceptible to many different interpretations. In the case of Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, special knowledge concerning the shipwreck that the painting depicts is not a prerequisite to appreciating it, but allows the appreciation of Géricault's political intentions in the piece. Even art that superficially depicts a mundane event or object, may invite reflection upon elevated themes.
Traditionally, the highest achievements of art demonstrate a high level of ability or fluency within a medium. This characteristic might be considered a point of contention, since many modern artists (most notably, conceptual artists) do not themselves create the works they conceive, or do not even create the work in a conventional, demonstrative sense. Art has a transformative capacity: confers particularly appealing or aesthetically satisfying structures or forms upon an original set of unrelated, passive constituents.
Forms, genres, media, and styles
Main article: The arts
Detail of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, showing the painting technique of sfumato.
The creative arts are often divided into more specific categories that are related to their technique, or medium, such as decorative arts, plastic arts, performing arts, or literature. Unlike scientific fields, art is one of the few subjects that is academically organized according to technique [1]. An artistic medium is the substance or material the artistic work is made from, and may also refers to the technique used. For example, paint is the medium used in painting, paper is a medium used in drawing.
An art form is the specific shape, or quality an artistic expression takes. The media used often influences the form. For example, the form of a sculpture must exist in space in three-dimensions, and respond to gravity. The constraints and limitations of a particular medium are thus called its formal qualities. To give another example, the formal qualities of painting are the canvas texture, color, and brush texture. The formal qualities of video games are non-linearity, interactivity and virtual presence. The form of a particular work of art is determined by both the formal qualities of the media, and the intentions of the artist.
A genre is a set of conventions and styles within a particular media. For instance, well recognized genres in film are western, horror and romantic comedy. Genres in music include death metal and trip hop. Genres in painting include still life, and pastoral landscape. A particular work of art may bend or combine genres but each genre has a recognizable group of conventions, clichés and tropes. (One note: the word genre has a second older meaning within painting; genre painting was a phrase used in the 17th to 19th century to refer specifically to paintings of scenes of everyday life and can still be used in this way.)
The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849), colored woodcut print.
An artwork, artist's, or movement's style is the distinctive method and form that art takes. Any loose brushy, dripped or poured abstract painting is called expressionistic. Often these styles are linked with a particular historical period, set of ideas, and particular artistic movement. So Jackson Pollock is called an Abstract Expressionist.
Because a particular style may have a specific cultural meanings, it is important to be sensitive to differences in technique. Roy Lichtenstein's (1923–1997) paintings are not pointillist, despite his uses of dots, because they are not aligned with the original proponents of Pointillism. Lichtenstein used Ben-Day dots: they are evenly spaced and create flat areas of color. These types of dots, used in halftone printing, were originally used in comic strips and newspapers to reproduce color. Lichtenstein thus uses the dots as a style to question the "high" art of painting with the "low" art of comics - to comment on class distinctions in culture. Lichtenstein is thus associated with the American Pop art movement (1960s). Pointillism is a technique in late Impressionism (1880s), developed especially by the artist Georges Seurat, that employs dots that are spaced in a way to create variation in color and depth in an attempt to paint images that were closer to the way people really see color. Both artists use dots, but the particular style and technique relates to the artistic movement these artists were a part of.
These are all ways of beginning to define a work of art, to narrow it down. "Imagine you are an art critic whose mission is to compare the meanings you find in a wide range of individual artworks. How would you proceed with your task? One way to begin is to examine the materials each artist selected in making an object, image video, or event. The decision to cast a sculpture in bronze, for instance, inevitably effects its meaning; the work becomes something different than if it had been cast in gold or plastic or chocolate, even if everything else about the artwork remained the same. Next, you might examine how the materials in each artwork have become an arrangement of shapes, colors, textures, and lines. These, in turn, are organized into various patterns and compositional structures. In your interpretation, you would comment on how salient features of the form contribute to the overall meaning of the finished artwork. [But in the end] the meaning of most artworks... is not exhausted by a discussion of materials, techniques, and form. Most interpretations also include a discussion of the ideas and feelings the artwork engenders."[12]
Skill and craft
Adam. Detail from Michelangelo's fresco in the Cappella Sistina (1511)
Art can connote a sense of trained ability or mastery of a medium. Art can also simply refer to the developed and efficient use of a language to convey meaning with immediacy and or depth. Art is an act of expressing feelings, thoughts, and observations. There is an understanding that is reached with the material as a result of handling it, which facilitates one's thought processes.
A common view is that the epithet "art", particular in its elevated sense, requires a certain level of creative expertise by the artist, whether this be a demonstration of technical ability or an originality in stylistic approach such as in the plays of Shakespeare, or a combination of these two. Traditionally skill of execution was viewed as a quality inseparable from art and thus necessary for its success; for Leonardo da Vinci, art, neither more nor less than his other endeavors, was a manifestation of skill. Rembrandt's work, now praised for its ephemeral virtues, was most admired by his contemporaries for its virtuosity. At the turn of the 20th century, the adroit performances of John Singer Sargent were alternately admired and viewed with skepticism for their manual fluency, yet at nearly the same time the artist who would become the era's most recognized and peripatetic iconoclast, Pablo Picasso, was completing a traditional academic training at which he excelled.
A common contemporary criticism of some modern art occurs along the lines of objecting to the apparent lack of skill or ability required in the production of the artistic object. In conceptual art, Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" is among the first examples of pieces wherein the artist used found objects ("ready-made") and exercised no traditionally recognised set of skills. Tracey Emin's My Bed, or Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living follow this example and also manipulate the mass media. Emin slept (and engaged in other activities) in her bed before placing the result in a gallery as work of art. Hirst came up with the conceptual design for the artwork but has left most of the eventual creation of many works to employed artisans. Hirst's celebrity is founded entirely on his ability to produce shocking concepts. The actual production in many conceptual and contemporary works of art is a matter of assembly of found objects. However there are many modernist and contemporary artists who continue to excel in the skills of drawing and painting and in creating hands on works of art.
Value judgment
Aboriginal hollow log tombs. National Gallery, Canberra, Australia.
This section may stray from the topic of the article into the topic of another article, Art_(disambiguation). Please help improve this section or discuss this issue on the talk page.
Somewhat in relation to the above, the word art is also used to apply judgments of value, as in such expressions like "that meal was a work of art" (the cook is an artist), or "the art of deception", (the highly attained level of skill of the deceiver is praised). It is this use of the word as a measure of high quality and high value that gives the term its flavor of subjectivity.
Making judgments of value requires a basis for criticism. At the simplest level, a way to determine whether the impact of the object on the senses meets the criteria to be considered art is whether it is perceived to be attractive or repulsive. Though perception is always colored by experience, and is necessarily subjective, it is commonly taken that - that what is not somehow aesthetically satisfying cannot be art. However, "good" art is not always or even regularly aesthetically appealing to a majority of viewers. In other words, an artist's prime motivation need not be the pursuit of the aesthetic. Also, art often depicts terrible images made for social, moral, or thought-provoking reasons. For example, Francisco Goya's painting depicting the Spanish shootings of 3rd of May 1808 is a graphic depiction of a firing squad executing several pleading civilians. Yet at the same time, the horrific imagery demonstrates Goya's keen artistic ability in composition and execution and produces fitting social and political outrage. Thus, the debate continues as to what mode of aesthetic satisfaction, if any, is required to define 'art'.
The assumption of new values or the rebellion against accepted notions of what is aesthetically superior need not occur concurrently with a complete abandonment of the pursuit of what is aesthetically appealing. Indeed, the reverse is often true, that the revision of what is popularly conceived of as being aesthetically appealing allows for a re-invigoration of aesthetic sensibility, and a new appreciation for the standards of art itself. Countless schools have proposed their own ways to define quality, yet they all seem to agree in at least one point: once their aesthetic choices are accepted, the value of the work of art is determined by its capacity to transcend the limits of its chosen medium to strike some universal chord by the rarity of the skill of the artist or in its accurate reflection in what is termed the zeitgeist.
Communication
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* It may contain original research or unverifiable claims. Tagged since January 2010.
* It reads like a personal reflection or essay. Tagged since January 2010.
Art is often intended to appeal and connect with human emotion. It can arouse aesthetic or moral feelings, and can be understood as a way of communicating these feelings. Artists express something so that their audience is aroused to some extent, but they do not have to do so consciously. Art explores what is commonly termed as the human condition; that is, essentially what it is to be human. Effective art often brings about some new insight concerning the human condition either singly or en-mass, which is not necessarily always positive, or necessarily widens the boundaries of collective human ability. The degree of skill that the artist has, will affect their ability to trigger an emotional response and thereby provide new insights, the ability to manipulate them at will shows exemplary skill and determination.
Purpose of art
A Navajo rug made c. 1880.
Art has had a great number of different functions throughout its history, making its purpose difficult to abstract or quantify to any single concept. This does not imply that the purpose of Art is "vague", but that it has had many unique, different, reasons for being created. Some of these functions of Art are provided in the following outline. The different purposes of art may be grouped according to those that are non-motivated, and those that are motivated (Levi-Strauss).
Non-motivated functions of art
The non-motivated purposes of art are those that are integral to being human, transcend the individual, or do not fulfill a specific external purpose. Aristotle said, "Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature." [13] In this sense, Art, as creativity, is something humans must do by their very nature (i.e., no other species creates art), and is therefore beyond utility.
1. Basic human instinct for harmony, balance, rhythm. Art at this level is not an action or an object, but an internal appreciation of balance and harmony (beauty), and therefore an aspect of being human beyond utility.
"Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry." -Aristotle [14]
2. Experience of the mysterious. Art provides a way to experience one's self in relation to the universe. This experience may often come unmotivated, as one appreciates art, music or poetry.
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." -Albert Einstein [15]
3. Expression of the imagination. Art provide a means to express the imagination in non-grammatic ways that are not tied to the formality of spoken or written language. Unlike words, which come in sequences and each of which have a definite meaning, art provides a range of forms, symbols and ideas with meanings that are maleable.
"Jupiter's eagle [as an example of art] is not, like logical (aesthetic) attributes of an object, the concept of the sublimity and majesty of creation, but rather something else - something that gives the imagination an incentive to spread its flight over a whole host of kindred representations that provoke more thought than admits of expression in a concept determined by words. They furnish an aesthetic idea, which serves the above rational idea as a substitute for logical presentation, but with the proper function, however, of animating the mind by opening out for it a prospect into a field of kindred representations stretching beyond its ken." -Immanuel Kant[16]
4. Universal communication. Art allows the individual to express things toward the world as a whole.[according to whom?] Earth artists often create art in remote locations that will never be experienced by another person. The practice of placing a cairn, or pile of stones at the top of a mountain, is an example. (Note: This need not suggest a particular view of God, or religion.) Art created in this way is a form of communication between the individual and the world as a whole.[citation needed]
5. Ritualistic and symbolic functions. In many cultures, art is used in rituals, performances and dances as a decoration or symbol. While these often have no specific utilitarian (motivated) purpose, anthropologists know that they often serve a purpose at the level of meaning within a particular culture. This meaning is not furnished by any one individual, but is often the result of many generations of change, and of a cosmological relationship within the culture.
"Most scholars who deal with rock paintings or objects recovered from prehistoric contexts that cannot be explained in utilitarian terms and are thus categorized as decorative, ritual or symbolic, are aware of the trap posed by the term 'art'." -Silva Tomaskova[17]
Motivated functions of art
Motivated purposes of art refer to intentional, conscious actions on the part of the artists or creator. These may be to bring about political change, to comment on an aspect of society, to convey a specific emotion or mood, to address personal psychology, to illustrate another discipline, to (with commercial arts) to sell a product, or simply as a form of communication.
1. Communication. Art, at its simplest, is a form of communication. As most forms of communication have an intent or goal directed toward another individual, this is a motivated purpose. Illustrative arts, such as scientific illustration, are a form of art as communication. Maps are another example. However, the content need not be scientific. Emotions, moods and feelings are also communicated through art.
"[Art is a set of] artefacts or images with symbolic meanings as a means of communication." -Steve Mithen[18]
2. Art as entertainment. Art may seek to bring about a particular emotion or mood, for the purpose of relaxing or entertaining the viewer. This is often the function of the art industries of Motion Pictures and Video Games.
3. The Avante-Garde. Art for political change. One of the defining functions of early twentieth century art has been to use visual images to bring about political change. Art movements that had this goal—Dadaism, Surrealism, Russian Constructivism, and Abstract Expressionism, among others—are collectively referred to as the avante-garde arts.
"By contrast, the realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog's life." -André Breton (Surrealism)[19]
4. Art for psychological and healing purposes. Art is also used by art therapists, psychotherapists and clinical psychologists as art therapy. The Diagnostic Drawing Series, for example, is used to determine the personality and emotional functioning of a patient. The end product is not the principal goal in this case, but rather a process of healing, through creative acts, is sought. The resultant piece of artwork may also offer insight into the troubles experienced by the subject and may suggest suitable approaches to be used in more conventional forms of psychiatric therapy.
5. Art for social inquiry, subversion and/or anarchy. While similar to art for political change, subversive or deconstructivist art may seek to question aspects of society without any specific political goal. In this case, the function of art may be simply to criticize some aspect of society.
Spray-paint graffiti on a wall in Rome.
Graffiti art and other types of street art are graphics and images that are spray-painted or stencilled on publicly viewable walls, buildings, buses, trains, and bridges, usually without permission. Certain art forms, such as graffiti, may also be illegal when they break laws (in this case vandalism).
6. Art for propaganda, or commercialism. Art is often utilized as a form of propaganda, and thus can be used to subtly influence popular conceptions or mood. In a similar way, art that tries to sell a product also influences mood and emotion. In both cases, the purpose of art here is to subtly manipulate the viewer into a particular emotional or psychological response toward a particular idea or object.[20]
The functions of art described above are not mutually exclusive, as many of them may overlap. For example, art for the purpose of entertainment may also seek to sell a product, i.e. the movie or video game.
Controversial art
Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, c. 1820
Further information: Art and politics
Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa (c. 1820), was a social commentary on a current event, unprecedented at the time. Édouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (1863), was considered scandalous not because of the nude woman, but because she is seated next to men fully dressed in the clothing of the time, rather than in robes of the antique world. John Singer Sargent's Madame Pierre Gautreau (Madam X) (1884), caused a huge uproar over the reddish pink used to color the woman's ear lobe, considered far too suggestive and supposedly ruining the high-society model's reputation.
In the twentieth century, Pablo Picasso's Guernica (1937) used arresting cubist techniques and stark monochromatic oils, to depict the harrowing consequences of a contemporary bombing of a small, ancient Basque town. Leon Golub's Interrogation III (1981), depicts a female nude, hooded detainee strapped to a chair, her legs open to reveal her sexual organs, surrounded by two tormentors dressed in everyday clothing. Andres Serrano's Piss Christ (1989) is a photograph of a crucifix, sacred to the Christian religion and representing Christ's sacrifice and final suffering, submerged in a glass of the artist's own urine. The resulting uproar led to comments in the United States Senate about public funding of the arts.
Art theories
In the nineteenth century, artists were primarily concerned with ideas of truth and beauty. The aesthetic theorist John Ruskin, who championed what he saw as the naturalism of J. M. W. Turner, saw art's role as the communication by artifice of an essential truth that could only be found in nature.[21]
The definition and evaluation of art has become especially problematic since the 20th century. Richard Wollheim distinguishes three approaches: the Realist, whereby aesthetic quality is an absolute value independent of any human view; the Objectivist, whereby it is also an absolute value, but is dependent on general human experience; and the Relativist position, whereby it is not an absolute value, but depends on, and varies with, the human experience of different humans.[22]
The arrival of Modernism in the late nineteenth century lead to a radical break in the conception of the function of art,[23] and then again in the late twentieth century with the advent of postmodernism. Clement Greenberg's 1960 article "Modernist Painting" defines modern art as "the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself".[24] Greenberg originally applied this idea to the Abstract Expressionist movement and used it as a way to understand and justify flat (non-illusionistic) abstract painting:
Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; modernism used art to call attention to art. The limitations that constitute the medium of
painting – the flat surface, the shape of the support, the properties of the pigment — were treated by the Old Masters as negative factors that could be acknowledged only implicitly or indirectly. Under Modernism these same limitations came to be regarded as positive factors, and were acknowledged openly.[24]
After Greenberg, several important art theorists emerged, such as Michael Fried, T. J. Clark, Rosalind Krauss, Linda Nochlin and Griselda Pollock among others. Though only originally intended as a way of understanding a specific set of artists, Greenberg's definition of modern art is important to many of the ideas of art within the various art movements of the 20th century and early 21st century.
Pop artists like Andy Warhol became both noteworthy and influential through work including and possibly critiquing popular culture, as well as the art world. Artists of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s expanded this technique of self-criticism beyond high art to all cultural image-making, including fashion images, comics, billboards and pornography.
Classification disputes
Main article: Classificatory disputes about art
Disputes as to whether or not to classify something as a work of art are referred to as classificatory disputes about art.
Classificatory disputes in the 20th century have included cubist and impressionist paintings, Duchamp's Fountain, the movies, superlative imitations of banknotes, Conceptual art, and Video games.[25]
Philosopher David Novitz has argued that disagreement about the definition of art are rarely the heart of the problem. Rather, "the passionate concerns and interests that humans vest in their social life" are "so much a part of all classificatory disputes about art" (Novitz, 1996). According to Novitz, classificatory disputes are more often disputes about societal values and where society is trying to go than they are about theory proper. For example, when the Daily Mail criticized Hirst's and Emin's work by arguing "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilising forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all" they are not advancing a definition or theory about art, but questioning the value of Hirst's and Emin's work.[26] In 1998, Arthur Danto, suggested a thought experiment showing that "the status of an artifact as work of art results from the ideas a culture applies to it, rather than its inherent physical or perceptible qualities. Cultural interpretation (an art theory of some kind) is therefore constitutive of an object's arthood."[27][28]
Anti-art is a label for art that intentionally challenges the established parameters and values of art;[29] it is term associated with Dadaism and attributed to Marcel Duchamp just before World War I,[29] when he was making art from found objects.[29] One of these, Fountain (1917), an ordinary urinal, has achieved considerable prominence and influence on art.[29] Anti-art is a feature of work by Situationist International,[30] the lo-fi Mail art movement, and the Young British Artists,[29] though it is a form still rejected by the Stuckists,[29] who describe themselves as anti-anti-art.[31][32]
Art, class, and value
Versailles: Louis Le Vau opened up the interior court to create the expansive entrance cour d'honneur, later copied all over Europe.
Art has been perceived by some as belonging to some social classes and often excluding others. In this context, art is seen as an upper-class activity associated with wealth, the ability to purchase art, and the leisure required to pursue or enjoy it. For example, the palaces of Versailles or the Hermitage in St. Petersburg with their vast collections of art, amassed by the fabulously wealthy royalty of Europe exemplify this view. Collecting such art is the preserve of the rich, or of governments and institutions.
Fine and expensive goods have been popular markers of status in many cultures, and they continue to be so today. There has been a cultural push in the other direction since at least 1793, when the Louvre, which had been a private palace of the Kings of France, was opened to the public as an art museum during the French Revolution. Most modern public museums and art education programs for children in schools can be traced back to this impulse to have art available to everyone. Museums in the United States tend to be gifts from the very rich to the masses (The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, for example, was created by John Taylor Johnston, a railroad executive whose personal art collection seeded the museum.) But despite all this, at least one of the important functions of art in the 21st century remains as a marker of wealth and social status.
Performance by Joseph Beuys, 1978 : Everyone an artist — On the way to the libertarian form of the social organism.
There have been attempts by artists to create art that can not be bought by the wealthy as a status object. One of the prime original motivators of much of the art of the late 1960s and 1970s was to create art that could not be bought and sold. It is "necessary to present something more than mere objects"[33] said the major post war German artist Joseph Beuys. This time period saw the rise of such things as performance art, video art, and conceptual art. The idea was that if the artwork was a performance that would leave nothing behind, or was simply an idea, it could not be bought and sold. "Democratic precepts revolving around the idea that a work of art is a commodity impelled the aesthetic innovation which germinated in the mid-1960s and was reaped throughout the 1970s. Artists broadly identified under the heading of Conceptual art... substituting performance and publishing activities for engagement with both the material and materialistic concerns of painted or sculptural form... [have] endeavored to undermine the art object qua object."[34]
In the decades since, these ideas have been somewhat lost as the art market has learned to sell limited edition DVDs of video works,[35] invitations to exclusive performance art pieces, and the objects left over from conceptual pieces. Many of these performances create works that are only understood by the elite who have been educated as to why an idea or video or piece of apparent garbage may be considered art. The marker of status becomes understanding the work instead of necessarily owning it, and the artwork remains an upper-class activity. "With the widespread use of DVD recording technology in the early 2000s, artists, and the gallery system that derives its profits from the sale of artworks, gained an important means of controlling the sale of video and computer artworks in limited editions to collectors."[36]
See also
WPVA-khamsa.png Visual arts portal
* Art movement
* List of artistic mediums
* Outline of visual arts
Notes
Wikipedia Books Book:Art
Books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.
1. ^ Wollheim 1980, op. cit. Essay VI. pp. 231-39.
2. ^ Gombrich, Ernst. (2005). "Press statement on The Story of Art". The Gombrich Archive. http://www.gombrich.co.uk/showdoc.php?id=68. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
3. ^ Richard Wollheim, Art and its objects, p.1, 2nd edn, 1980, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521297060
4. ^ a b Jerrold Levinson, The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, Oxford university Press, 2003, p5. ISBN 0-1992-7945-4
5. ^ Jerrold Levinson, The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, Oxford university Press, 2003, p16. ISBN 0-1992-7945-4
6. ^ R.G. Collingwood's view, expressed in The Principles of Art, is considered in Wollheim, op. cit. 1980 pp 36-43
7. ^ Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art", in Poetry, Language, Thought, (Harper Perenniel, 2001). See also Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "Cézanne's Doubt" in The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, Galen Johnson and Michael Smith (eds), (Northwestern University Press, 1994) and John Russon, Bearing Witness to Epiphany, (State University of New York Press, 2009).
8. ^ Elkins, James "Art History and Images That Are Not Art", The Art Bulletin, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Dec. 1995), with previous bibliography. "Non-Western images are not well described in terms of art, and neither are medieval paintings that were made in the absence of humanist ideas of artistic value". 553
9. ^ Adorno, Theodor W., Aesthetic Theory, (1970 in German)
10. ^ David Novitz, "The Boundaries of Art", 1992
11. ^ Radford, Tim. "World's Oldest Jewellery Found in Cave". Guardian Unlimited, April 16, 2004. Retrieved on January 18, 2008.
12. ^ Robertson, Jean and Craig McDaniel: Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art after 1980, page 4. Oxford University Press, 2005.
13. ^ Aristotle. The Poetics, Republic
14. ^ Aristotle. The Poetics, Republic. Note: Although speaking mostly of poetry here, the Ancient greeks often speak of the arts collectively. http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-2.html
15. ^ Einstein, Albert. The World as I See It. http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/essay.htm
16. ^ Immanuel Kant, Critique of Aesthetic Judgement (1790).
17. ^ Silvia Tomaskova, "Places of Art: Art and Archaeology in Context": (1997)
18. ^ Steve Mithen. The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science. 1999
19. ^ André Breton, Surrealist Manifesto (1924)
20. ^ Roland Barthes, Mythologies
21. ^ "go to nature in all singleness of heart, rejecting nothing and selecting nothing, and scorning nothing, believing all things are right and good, and rejoicing always in the truth." Ruskin, John. Modern Painters, Volume I, 1843. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
22. ^ Wollheim 1980, Essay VI. pp. 231-39.
23. ^ Griselda Pollock, Differencing the Canon. Routledge, London & N.Y.,1999. ISBN 0-415-06700-6
24. ^ a b Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology. ed. Francis Frascina and Charles Harrison, 1982.
25. ^ Deborah Solomon, "2003: the 3rd Annual Year in Ideas: Video Game Art", New York Times, Magazine Section, December 14, 2003
26. ^ Painter, Colin. "Contemporary Art and the Home". Berg Publishers, 2002. p. 12. ISBN 1-8597-3661-0
27. ^ Dutton, Denis Tribal Art in Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, edited by Michael Kelly (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
28. ^ Danto, Arthur. "Artifact and Art." In Art/Artifact, edited by Susan Vogel. New York, 1988.
29. ^ a b c d e f "Glossary: Anti-art", Tate. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
30. ^ Schneider, Caroline. "Asger Jorn", Artforum, 1 September 2001. Retrieved from encyclopedia.com, 24 January 2010.
31. ^ Ferguson, Euan. "In bed with Tracey, Sarah ... and Ron", The Observer, 20 April 2003. Retrieved on 2 May 2009.
32. ^ "Stuck on the Turner Prize", artnet, 27 October 2000. Retrieved on 2 May 2009.
33. ^ Sharp, Willoughby (December 1969). "An Interview with Joseph Beuys". ArtForum 8 (4): 45.
34. ^ Rorimer, Anne: New Art in the 60s and 70s Redefining Reality, page 35. Thames and Hudson, 2001.
35. ^ Fineman, Mia (2007-03-21). "YouTube for ArtistsThe best places to find video art online.". Slate. http://www.slate.com/id/2162382/. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
36. ^ Robertson, Jean and Craig McDaniel: Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art after 1980, page 16. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Bibliography
* Arthur Danto, The Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Concept of Art. 2003
* Dana Arnold and Margaret Iverson (eds.) Art and Thought. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2003.
* Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey (eds.) Art History and Visual Studies. Yale University Press, 2002.
* John Whitehead. Grasping for the Wind. 2001
* Noel Carroll, Theories of Art Today. 2000
* Evelyn Hatcher, ed. Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Art. 1999
* Catherine de Zegher (ed.). Inside the Visible. MIT Press, 1996.
* Nina, Felshin, ed. But is it Art? 1995
* Stephen Davies, Definitions of Art. 1991
* Oscar Wilde, "Intentions".
* Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel, "Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art after 1980." 2005
Further reading
Search Wiktionary Look up art in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Art
* Augros, Robert M., Stanciu, George N., The New Story of Science: mind and the universe, Lake Bluff, Ill.: Regnery Gateway, c1984. ISBN 0895268337 (this book has significant material on Art and Science)
* Richard Wollheim, Art and its Objects
* Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
* Benedetto Croce, Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic, 1902
* Władysław Tatarkiewicz, A History of Six Ideas: an Essay in Aesthetics, translated from the Polish by Christopher Kasparek, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1980.
* Leo Tolstoy, What Is Art?, 1897
* Kleiner, Gardner, Mamiya and Tansey (2004). Art Through the Ages, Twelfth Edition (2 volumes). Wadsworth. ISBN 0-534-64095-8 (vol 1) and ISBN 0-534-64091-5 (vol 2).
* Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, eds., Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
External links
* Art and Play from the Dictionary of the History of ideas
* In-depth directory of art
* Art and Artist Files in the Smithsonian Libraries Collection (2005) Smithsonian Digital Libraries
* Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) - online collections from UK museums, galleries, universities
* RevolutionArt - Art magazines with worldwide exhibitions, callings and competitions
* Artforum magazine - online art reviews - also previews of upcoming exhibitions
* Article on the meaning of Art in Ancient India on the website of Frontline
* "The Definition of Art" article by Thomas Adajian in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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Art
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This article is about the general concept of art. For the categories of different artistic disciplines, see The arts.
For the arts that are visual in nature, see Visual arts.
For other uses, see Art (disambiguation).
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve the article or discuss these issues on the talk page.
* It does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve it by citing reliable sources. Tagged since January 2010.
* It may contain original research or unverifiable claims. Tagged since January 2010.
* It reads like a personal reflection or essay. Tagged since January 2010.
Clockwise from upper left: A self-portrait from Vincent van Gogh, an African Chokwe-statue, detail from the Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli and a Japanese Shisa lion.
Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, photography, sculpture, and paintings. The meaning of art is explored in a branch of philosophy known as aesthetics.
The definition and evaluation of art has become especially problematic since the early 20th century. Richard Wollheim distinguishes three approaches: the Realist, whereby aesthetic quality is an absolute value independent of any human view; the Objectivist, whereby it is also an absolute value, but is dependent on general human experience; and the Relativist position, whereby it is not an absolute value, but depends on, and varies with, the human experience of different humans.[1] An object may be characterized by the intentions, or lack thereof, of its creator, regardless of its apparent purpose. A cup, which ostensibly can be used as a container, may be considered art if intended solely as an ornament, while a painting may be deemed craft if mass-produced.
Traditionally, the term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery. This conception changed during the Romantic period, when art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".[2] Generally, art is made with the intention of stimulating thoughts and emotions.
The nature of art has been described by Richard Wollheim as "one of the most elusive of the traditional problems of human culture".[3] It has been defined as a vehicle for the expression or communication of emotions and ideas, a means for exploring and appreciating formal elements for their own sake, and as mimesis or representation. Leo Tolstoy identified art as a use of indirect means to communicate from one person to another.[4] Benedetto Croce and R.G. Collingwood advanced the idealist view that art expresses emotions, and that the work of art therefore essentially exists in the mind of the creator.[5][6] The theory of art as form has its roots in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and was developed in the early twentieth century by Roger Fry and Clive Bell. Art as mimesis or representation has deep roots in the philosophy of Aristotle.[4] More recently, thinkers influenced by Martin Heidegger have interpreted art as the means by which a community develops for itself a medium for self-expression and interpretation.[7]
Mozarabic Beatus miniature; Spain, late 10th century.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 Definition of the term
* 2 History
* 3 Characteristics
* 4 Forms, genres, media, and styles
o 4.1 Skill and craft
o 4.2 Value judgment
o 4.3 Communication
* 5 Purpose of art
o 5.1 Non-motivated functions of art
o 5.2 Motivated functions of art
* 6 Controversial art
* 7 Art theories
* 8 Classification disputes
* 9 Art, class, and value
* 10 See also
* 11 Notes
* 12 Bibliography
* 13 Further reading
* 14 External links
Definition of the term
Works of art worldwide can tell stories or simply express an aesthetic truth or feeling. Panorama of Along the River During the Qingming Festival, an 18th century reproduction of the 12th century original by Zhang Zeduan
Britannica Online defines art as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others." By this definition of the word, artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art; however, some theories restrict the concept to modern Western societies.[8] Adorno said in 1970, "It is now taken for granted that nothing which concerns art can be taken for granted any more: neither art itself, nor art in relationship to the whole, nor even the right of art to exist."[9] The first and broadest sense of art is the one that has remained closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft." A few examples where this meaning proves very broad include artifact, artificial, artifice, medical arts, and military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology.
20th-century Rwandan bottle. Artistic works may serve practical functions, in addition to their decorative value.
The second and more recent sense of the word art is as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art. Fine art means that a skill is being used to express the artist's creativity, or to engage the audience's aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience towards consideration of the finer things. Often, if the skill is being used in a common or practical way, people will consider it a craft instead of art. Likewise, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it will be considered Commercial art instead of fine art. On the other hand, crafts and design are sometimes considered applied art. Some art followers have argued that the difference between fine art and applied art has more to do with value judgments made about the art than any clear definitional difference.[10] However, even fine art often has goals beyond pure creativity and self-expression. The purpose of works of art may be to communicate ideas, such as in politically, spiritually, or philosophically motivated art; to create a sense of beauty (see aesthetics); to explore the nature of perception; for pleasure; or to generate strong emotions. The purpose may also be seemingly nonexistent.
Art can describe several things: a study of creative skill, a process of using the creative skill, a product of the creative skill, or the audience's experience with the creative skill. The creative arts (art as discipline) are a collection of disciplines (arts) that produce artworks (art as objects) that are compelled by a personal drive (art as activity) and echo or reflect a message, mood, or symbolism for the viewer to interpret (art as experience). Artworks can be defined by purposeful, creative interpretations of limitless concepts or ideas in order to communicate something to another person. Artworks can be explicitly made for this purpose or interpreted based on images or objects. Art is something that stimulates an individual's thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or ideas through the senses. It is also an expression of an idea and it can take many different forms and serve many different purposes. Although the application of scientific knowledge to derive a new scientific theory involves skill and results in the "creation" of something new, this represents science only and is not categorized as art.
History
Main article: History of art
Venus of Willendorf, circa 24,000–22,000 BP.
Sculptures, cave paintings, rock paintings, and petroglyphs from the Upper Paleolithic dating to roughly 40,000 years ago have been found, but the precise meaning of such art is often disputed because so little is known about the cultures that produced them. The oldest art objects in the world—a series of tiny, drilled snail shells about 75,000 years old—were discovered in a South African cave.[11]
Cave painting of a horse from the Lascaux caves, c. 16,000 BP.
Many great traditions in art have a foundation in the art of one of the great ancient civilizations: Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, China, Ancient Greece, Rome, as well as Inca, Maya, and Olmec. Each of these centers of early civilization developed a unique and characteristic style in their art. Because of the size and duration these civilizations, more of their art works have survived and more of their influence has been transmitted to other cultures and later times. Some also have provided the first records of how artists worked. For example, this period of Greek art saw a veneration of the human physical form and the development of equivalent skills to show musculature, poise, beauty, and anatomically correct proportions.
In Byzantine and Medieval art of the Western Middle Ages, much art focused on the expression of Biblical and not material truths, and used styles that showed the higher unseen glory of a heavenly world, such as the use of gold in the background of paintings, or glass in mosaics or windows, which also presented figures in idealized, patterned (flat) forms. Nevertheless a classical realist tradition persisted in small Byzantine works, and realism steadily grew in the art of Catholic Europe.
Renaissance art had a greatly increased emphasis on the realistic depiction of the material world, and the place of humans in it, reflected in the corporeality of the human body, and development of a systematic method of graphical perspective to depict recession in a three dimensional picture space.
The stylized signature of Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire was written in Arabic calligraphy. It reads Mahmud Khan son of Abdulhamid is forever victorious.
In the east, Islamic art's rejection of iconography led to emphasis on geometric patterns, calligraphy, and architecture. Further east, religion dominated artistic styles and forms too. India and Tibet saw emphasis on painted sculptures and dance with religious painting borrowing many conventions from sculpture and tending to bright contrasting colors with emphasis on outlines. China saw many art forms flourish, jade carving, bronzework, pottery (including the stunning terracotta army of Emperor Qin), poetry, calligraphy, music, painting, drama, fiction, etc. Chinese styles vary greatly from era to era and are traditionally named after the ruling dynasty. So, for example, Tang Dynasty paintings are monochromatic and sparse, emphasizing idealized landscapes, but Ming Dynasty paintings are busy, colorful, and focus on telling stories via setting and composition. Japan names its styles after imperial dynasties too, and also saw much interplay between the styles of calligraphy and painting. Woodblock printing became important in Japan after the 17th century.
Painting by Song Dynasty artist Ma Lin, c. 1250. 24,8 × 25,2 cm.
The western Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century saw artistic depictions of physical and rational certainties of the clockwork universe, as well as politically revolutionary visions of a post-monarchist world, such as Blake's portrayal of Newton as a divine geometer, or David's propagandistic paintings. This led to Romantic rejections of this in favor of pictures of the emotional side and individuality of humans, exemplified in the novels of Goethe. The late 19th century then saw a host of artistic movements, such as academic art, Symbolism, impressionism and fauvism among others.
The history of twentieth century art is a narrative of endless possibilities and the search for new standards, each being torn down in succession by the next. Thus the parameters of Impressionism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, etc. cannot be maintained very much beyond the time of their invention. Increasing global interaction during this time saw an equivalent influence of other cultures into Western art, such as Pablo Picasso being influenced by African sculpture. Japanese woodblock prints (which had themselves been influenced by Western Renaissance draftsmanship) had an immense influence on Impressionism and subsequent development. Later, African sculptures were taken up by Picasso and to some extent by Matisse. Similarly, the west has had huge impacts on Eastern art in 19th and 20th century, with originally western ideas like Communism and Post-Modernism exerting powerful influence on artistic styles.
Modernism, the idealistic search for truth, gave way in the latter half of the 20th century to a realization of its unattainability. Relativism was accepted as an unavoidable truth, which led to the period of contemporary art and postmodern criticism, where cultures of the world and of history are seen as changing forms, which can be appreciated and drawn from only with irony. Furthermore the separation of cultures is increasingly blurred and some argue it is now more appropriate to think in terms of a global culture, rather than regional cultures.
Characteristics
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Art tends to facilitate intuitive rather than rational understanding, and is usually consciously created with this intention.[citation needed] Fine art intentionally serves no other purpose.[dubious – discuss] As a result of this impetus, works of art are elusive, refractive to attempts at classification, because they can be appreciated in more than one way, and are often susceptible to many different interpretations. In the case of Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, special knowledge concerning the shipwreck that the painting depicts is not a prerequisite to appreciating it, but allows the appreciation of Géricault's political intentions in the piece. Even art that superficially depicts a mundane event or object, may invite reflection upon elevated themes.
Traditionally, the highest achievements of art demonstrate a high level of ability or fluency within a medium. This characteristic might be considered a point of contention, since many modern artists (most notably, conceptual artists) do not themselves create the works they conceive, or do not even create the work in a conventional, demonstrative sense. Art has a transformative capacity: confers particularly appealing or aesthetically satisfying structures or forms upon an original set of unrelated, passive constituents.
Forms, genres, media, and styles
Main article: The arts
Detail of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, showing the painting technique of sfumato.
The creative arts are often divided into more specific categories that are related to their technique, or medium, such as decorative arts, plastic arts, performing arts, or literature. Unlike scientific fields, art is one of the few subjects that is academically organized according to technique [1]. An artistic medium is the substance or material the artistic work is made from, and may also refers to the technique used. For example, paint is the medium used in painting, paper is a medium used in drawing.
An art form is the specific shape, or quality an artistic expression takes. The media used often influences the form. For example, the form of a sculpture must exist in space in three-dimensions, and respond to gravity. The constraints and limitations of a particular medium are thus called its formal qualities. To give another example, the formal qualities of painting are the canvas texture, color, and brush texture. The formal qualities of video games are non-linearity, interactivity and virtual presence. The form of a particular work of art is determined by both the formal qualities of the media, and the intentions of the artist.
A genre is a set of conventions and styles within a particular media. For instance, well recognized genres in film are western, horror and romantic comedy. Genres in music include death metal and trip hop. Genres in painting include still life, and pastoral landscape. A particular work of art may bend or combine genres but each genre has a recognizable group of conventions, clichés and tropes. (One note: the word genre has a second older meaning within painting; genre painting was a phrase used in the 17th to 19th century to refer specifically to paintings of scenes of everyday life and can still be used in this way.)
The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai (Japanese, 1760–1849), colored woodcut print.
An artwork, artist's, or movement's style is the distinctive method and form that art takes. Any loose brushy, dripped or poured abstract painting is called expressionistic. Often these styles are linked with a particular historical period, set of ideas, and particular artistic movement. So Jackson Pollock is called an Abstract Expressionist.
Because a particular style may have a specific cultural meanings, it is important to be sensitive to differences in technique. Roy Lichtenstein's (1923–1997) paintings are not pointillist, despite his uses of dots, because they are not aligned with the original proponents of Pointillism. Lichtenstein used Ben-Day dots: they are evenly spaced and create flat areas of color. These types of dots, used in halftone printing, were originally used in comic strips and newspapers to reproduce color. Lichtenstein thus uses the dots as a style to question the "high" art of painting with the "low" art of comics - to comment on class distinctions in culture. Lichtenstein is thus associated with the American Pop art movement (1960s). Pointillism is a technique in late Impressionism (1880s), developed especially by the artist Georges Seurat, that employs dots that are spaced in a way to create variation in color and depth in an attempt to paint images that were closer to the way people really see color. Both artists use dots, but the particular style and technique relates to the artistic movement these artists were a part of.
These are all ways of beginning to define a work of art, to narrow it down. "Imagine you are an art critic whose mission is to compare the meanings you find in a wide range of individual artworks. How would you proceed with your task? One way to begin is to examine the materials each artist selected in making an object, image video, or event. The decision to cast a sculpture in bronze, for instance, inevitably effects its meaning; the work becomes something different than if it had been cast in gold or plastic or chocolate, even if everything else about the artwork remained the same. Next, you might examine how the materials in each artwork have become an arrangement of shapes, colors, textures, and lines. These, in turn, are organized into various patterns and compositional structures. In your interpretation, you would comment on how salient features of the form contribute to the overall meaning of the finished artwork. [But in the end] the meaning of most artworks... is not exhausted by a discussion of materials, techniques, and form. Most interpretations also include a discussion of the ideas and feelings the artwork engenders."[12]
Skill and craft
Adam. Detail from Michelangelo's fresco in the Cappella Sistina (1511)
Art can connote a sense of trained ability or mastery of a medium. Art can also simply refer to the developed and efficient use of a language to convey meaning with immediacy and or depth. Art is an act of expressing feelings, thoughts, and observations. There is an understanding that is reached with the material as a result of handling it, which facilitates one's thought processes.
A common view is that the epithet "art", particular in its elevated sense, requires a certain level of creative expertise by the artist, whether this be a demonstration of technical ability or an originality in stylistic approach such as in the plays of Shakespeare, or a combination of these two. Traditionally skill of execution was viewed as a quality inseparable from art and thus necessary for its success; for Leonardo da Vinci, art, neither more nor less than his other endeavors, was a manifestation of skill. Rembrandt's work, now praised for its ephemeral virtues, was most admired by his contemporaries for its virtuosity. At the turn of the 20th century, the adroit performances of John Singer Sargent were alternately admired and viewed with skepticism for their manual fluency, yet at nearly the same time the artist who would become the era's most recognized and peripatetic iconoclast, Pablo Picasso, was completing a traditional academic training at which he excelled.
A common contemporary criticism of some modern art occurs along the lines of objecting to the apparent lack of skill or ability required in the production of the artistic object. In conceptual art, Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" is among the first examples of pieces wherein the artist used found objects ("ready-made") and exercised no traditionally recognised set of skills. Tracey Emin's My Bed, or Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living follow this example and also manipulate the mass media. Emin slept (and engaged in other activities) in her bed before placing the result in a gallery as work of art. Hirst came up with the conceptual design for the artwork but has left most of the eventual creation of many works to employed artisans. Hirst's celebrity is founded entirely on his ability to produce shocking concepts. The actual production in many conceptual and contemporary works of art is a matter of assembly of found objects. However there are many modernist and contemporary artists who continue to excel in the skills of drawing and painting and in creating hands on works of art.
Value judgment
Aboriginal hollow log tombs. National Gallery, Canberra, Australia.
This section may stray from the topic of the article into the topic of another article, Art_(disambiguation). Please help improve this section or discuss this issue on the talk page.
Somewhat in relation to the above, the word art is also used to apply judgments of value, as in such expressions like "that meal was a work of art" (the cook is an artist), or "the art of deception", (the highly attained level of skill of the deceiver is praised). It is this use of the word as a measure of high quality and high value that gives the term its flavor of subjectivity.
Making judgments of value requires a basis for criticism. At the simplest level, a way to determine whether the impact of the object on the senses meets the criteria to be considered art is whether it is perceived to be attractive or repulsive. Though perception is always colored by experience, and is necessarily subjective, it is commonly taken that - that what is not somehow aesthetically satisfying cannot be art. However, "good" art is not always or even regularly aesthetically appealing to a majority of viewers. In other words, an artist's prime motivation need not be the pursuit of the aesthetic. Also, art often depicts terrible images made for social, moral, or thought-provoking reasons. For example, Francisco Goya's painting depicting the Spanish shootings of 3rd of May 1808 is a graphic depiction of a firing squad executing several pleading civilians. Yet at the same time, the horrific imagery demonstrates Goya's keen artistic ability in composition and execution and produces fitting social and political outrage. Thus, the debate continues as to what mode of aesthetic satisfaction, if any, is required to define 'art'.
The assumption of new values or the rebellion against accepted notions of what is aesthetically superior need not occur concurrently with a complete abandonment of the pursuit of what is aesthetically appealing. Indeed, the reverse is often true, that the revision of what is popularly conceived of as being aesthetically appealing allows for a re-invigoration of aesthetic sensibility, and a new appreciation for the standards of art itself. Countless schools have proposed their own ways to define quality, yet they all seem to agree in at least one point: once their aesthetic choices are accepted, the value of the work of art is determined by its capacity to transcend the limits of its chosen medium to strike some universal chord by the rarity of the skill of the artist or in its accurate reflection in what is termed the zeitgeist.
Communication
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Art is often intended to appeal and connect with human emotion. It can arouse aesthetic or moral feelings, and can be understood as a way of communicating these feelings. Artists express something so that their audience is aroused to some extent, but they do not have to do so consciously. Art explores what is commonly termed as the human condition; that is, essentially what it is to be human. Effective art often brings about some new insight concerning the human condition either singly or en-mass, which is not necessarily always positive, or necessarily widens the boundaries of collective human ability. The degree of skill that the artist has, will affect their ability to trigger an emotional response and thereby provide new insights, the ability to manipulate them at will shows exemplary skill and determination.
Purpose of art
A Navajo rug made c. 1880.
Art has had a great number of different functions throughout its history, making its purpose difficult to abstract or quantify to any single concept. This does not imply that the purpose of Art is "vague", but that it has had many unique, different, reasons for being created. Some of these functions of Art are provided in the following outline. The different purposes of art may be grouped according to those that are non-motivated, and those that are motivated (Levi-Strauss).
Non-motivated functions of art
The non-motivated purposes of art are those that are integral to being human, transcend the individual, or do not fulfill a specific external purpose. Aristotle said, "Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature." [13] In this sense, Art, as creativity, is something humans must do by their very nature (i.e., no other species creates art), and is therefore beyond utility.
1. Basic human instinct for harmony, balance, rhythm. Art at this level is not an action or an object, but an internal appreciation of balance and harmony (beauty), and therefore an aspect of being human beyond utility.
"Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry." -Aristotle [14]
2. Experience of the mysterious. Art provides a way to experience one's self in relation to the universe. This experience may often come unmotivated, as one appreciates art, music or poetry.
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." -Albert Einstein [15]
3. Expression of the imagination. Art provide a means to express the imagination in non-grammatic ways that are not tied to the formality of spoken or written language. Unlike words, which come in sequences and each of which have a definite meaning, art provides a range of forms, symbols and ideas with meanings that are maleable.
"Jupiter's eagle [as an example of art] is not, like logical (aesthetic) attributes of an object, the concept of the sublimity and majesty of creation, but rather something else - something that gives the imagination an incentive to spread its flight over a whole host of kindred representations that provoke more thought than admits of expression in a concept determined by words. They furnish an aesthetic idea, which serves the above rational idea as a substitute for logical presentation, but with the proper function, however, of animating the mind by opening out for it a prospect into a field of kindred representations stretching beyond its ken." -Immanuel Kant[16]
4. Universal communication. Art allows the individual to express things toward the world as a whole.[according to whom?] Earth artists often create art in remote locations that will never be experienced by another person. The practice of placing a cairn, or pile of stones at the top of a mountain, is an example. (Note: This need not suggest a particular view of God, or religion.) Art created in this way is a form of communication between the individual and the world as a whole.[citation needed]
5. Ritualistic and symbolic functions. In many cultures, art is used in rituals, performances and dances as a decoration or symbol. While these often have no specific utilitarian (motivated) purpose, anthropologists know that they often serve a purpose at the level of meaning within a particular culture. This meaning is not furnished by any one individual, but is often the result of many generations of change, and of a cosmological relationship within the culture.
"Most scholars who deal with rock paintings or objects recovered from prehistoric contexts that cannot be explained in utilitarian terms and are thus categorized as decorative, ritual or symbolic, are aware of the trap posed by the term 'art'." -Silva Tomaskova[17]
Motivated functions of art
Motivated purposes of art refer to intentional, conscious actions on the part of the artists or creator. These may be to bring about political change, to comment on an aspect of society, to convey a specific emotion or mood, to address personal psychology, to illustrate another discipline, to (with commercial arts) to sell a product, or simply as a form of communication.
1. Communication. Art, at its simplest, is a form of communication. As most forms of communication have an intent or goal directed toward another individual, this is a motivated purpose. Illustrative arts, such as scientific illustration, are a form of art as communication. Maps are another example. However, the content need not be scientific. Emotions, moods and feelings are also communicated through art.
"[Art is a set of] artefacts or images with symbolic meanings as a means of communication." -Steve Mithen[18]
2. Art as entertainment. Art may seek to bring about a particular emotion or mood, for the purpose of relaxing or entertaining the viewer. This is often the function of the art industries of Motion Pictures and Video Games.
3. The Avante-Garde. Art for political change. One of the defining functions of early twentieth century art has been to use visual images to bring about political change. Art movements that had this goal—Dadaism, Surrealism, Russian Constructivism, and Abstract Expressionism, among others—are collectively referred to as the avante-garde arts.
"By contrast, the realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog's life." -André Breton (Surrealism)[19]
4. Art for psychological and healing purposes. Art is also used by art therapists, psychotherapists and clinical psychologists as art therapy. The Diagnostic Drawing Series, for example, is used to determine the personality and emotional functioning of a patient. The end product is not the principal goal in this case, but rather a process of healing, through creative acts, is sought. The resultant piece of artwork may also offer insight into the troubles experienced by the subject and may suggest suitable approaches to be used in more conventional forms of psychiatric therapy.
5. Art for social inquiry, subversion and/or anarchy. While similar to art for political change, subversive or deconstructivist art may seek to question aspects of society without any specific political goal. In this case, the function of art may be simply to criticize some aspect of society.
Spray-paint graffiti on a wall in Rome.
Graffiti art and other types of street art are graphics and images that are spray-painted or stencilled on publicly viewable walls, buildings, buses, trains, and bridges, usually without permission. Certain art forms, such as graffiti, may also be illegal when they break laws (in this case vandalism).
6. Art for propaganda, or commercialism. Art is often utilized as a form of propaganda, and thus can be used to subtly influence popular conceptions or mood. In a similar way, art that tries to sell a product also influences mood and emotion. In both cases, the purpose of art here is to subtly manipulate the viewer into a particular emotional or psychological response toward a particular idea or object.[20]
The functions of art described above are not mutually exclusive, as many of them may overlap. For example, art for the purpose of entertainment may also seek to sell a product, i.e. the movie or video game.
Controversial art
Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, c. 1820
Further information: Art and politics
Théodore Géricault's Raft of the Medusa (c. 1820), was a social commentary on a current event, unprecedented at the time. Édouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (1863), was considered scandalous not because of the nude woman, but because she is seated next to men fully dressed in the clothing of the time, rather than in robes of the antique world. John Singer Sargent's Madame Pierre Gautreau (Madam X) (1884), caused a huge uproar over the reddish pink used to color the woman's ear lobe, considered far too suggestive and supposedly ruining the high-society model's reputation.
In the twentieth century, Pablo Picasso's Guernica (1937) used arresting cubist techniques and stark monochromatic oils, to depict the harrowing consequences of a contemporary bombing of a small, ancient Basque town. Leon Golub's Interrogation III (1981), depicts a female nude, hooded detainee strapped to a chair, her legs open to reveal her sexual organs, surrounded by two tormentors dressed in everyday clothing. Andres Serrano's Piss Christ (1989) is a photograph of a crucifix, sacred to the Christian religion and representing Christ's sacrifice and final suffering, submerged in a glass of the artist's own urine. The resulting uproar led to comments in the United States Senate about public funding of the arts.
Art theories
In the nineteenth century, artists were primarily concerned with ideas of truth and beauty. The aesthetic theorist John Ruskin, who championed what he saw as the naturalism of J. M. W. Turner, saw art's role as the communication by artifice of an essential truth that could only be found in nature.[21]
The definition and evaluation of art has become especially problematic since the 20th century. Richard Wollheim distinguishes three approaches: the Realist, whereby aesthetic quality is an absolute value independent of any human view; the Objectivist, whereby it is also an absolute value, but is dependent on general human experience; and the Relativist position, whereby it is not an absolute value, but depends on, and varies with, the human experience of different humans.[22]
The arrival of Modernism in the late nineteenth century lead to a radical break in the conception of the function of art,[23] and then again in the late twentieth century with the advent of postmodernism. Clement Greenberg's 1960 article "Modernist Painting" defines modern art as "the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself".[24] Greenberg originally applied this idea to the Abstract Expressionist movement and used it as a way to understand and justify flat (non-illusionistic) abstract painting:
Realistic, naturalistic art had dissembled the medium, using art to conceal art; modernism used art to call attention to art. The limitations that constitute the medium of
painting – the flat surface, the shape of the support, the properties of the pigment — were treated by the Old Masters as negative factors that could be acknowledged only implicitly or indirectly. Under Modernism these same limitations came to be regarded as positive factors, and were acknowledged openly.[24]
After Greenberg, several important art theorists emerged, such as Michael Fried, T. J. Clark, Rosalind Krauss, Linda Nochlin and Griselda Pollock among others. Though only originally intended as a way of understanding a specific set of artists, Greenberg's definition of modern art is important to many of the ideas of art within the various art movements of the 20th century and early 21st century.
Pop artists like Andy Warhol became both noteworthy and influential through work including and possibly critiquing popular culture, as well as the art world. Artists of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s expanded this technique of self-criticism beyond high art to all cultural image-making, including fashion images, comics, billboards and pornography.
Classification disputes
Main article: Classificatory disputes about art
Disputes as to whether or not to classify something as a work of art are referred to as classificatory disputes about art.
Classificatory disputes in the 20th century have included cubist and impressionist paintings, Duchamp's Fountain, the movies, superlative imitations of banknotes, Conceptual art, and Video games.[25]
Philosopher David Novitz has argued that disagreement about the definition of art are rarely the heart of the problem. Rather, "the passionate concerns and interests that humans vest in their social life" are "so much a part of all classificatory disputes about art" (Novitz, 1996). According to Novitz, classificatory disputes are more often disputes about societal values and where society is trying to go than they are about theory proper. For example, when the Daily Mail criticized Hirst's and Emin's work by arguing "For 1,000 years art has been one of our great civilising forces. Today, pickled sheep and soiled beds threaten to make barbarians of us all" they are not advancing a definition or theory about art, but questioning the value of Hirst's and Emin's work.[26] In 1998, Arthur Danto, suggested a thought experiment showing that "the status of an artifact as work of art results from the ideas a culture applies to it, rather than its inherent physical or perceptible qualities. Cultural interpretation (an art theory of some kind) is therefore constitutive of an object's arthood."[27][28]
Anti-art is a label for art that intentionally challenges the established parameters and values of art;[29] it is term associated with Dadaism and attributed to Marcel Duchamp just before World War I,[29] when he was making art from found objects.[29] One of these, Fountain (1917), an ordinary urinal, has achieved considerable prominence and influence on art.[29] Anti-art is a feature of work by Situationist International,[30] the lo-fi Mail art movement, and the Young British Artists,[29] though it is a form still rejected by the Stuckists,[29] who describe themselves as anti-anti-art.[31][32]
Art, class, and value
Versailles: Louis Le Vau opened up the interior court to create the expansive entrance cour d'honneur, later copied all over Europe.
Art has been perceived by some as belonging to some social classes and often excluding others. In this context, art is seen as an upper-class activity associated with wealth, the ability to purchase art, and the leisure required to pursue or enjoy it. For example, the palaces of Versailles or the Hermitage in St. Petersburg with their vast collections of art, amassed by the fabulously wealthy royalty of Europe exemplify this view. Collecting such art is the preserve of the rich, or of governments and institutions.
Fine and expensive goods have been popular markers of status in many cultures, and they continue to be so today. There has been a cultural push in the other direction since at least 1793, when the Louvre, which had been a private palace of the Kings of France, was opened to the public as an art museum during the French Revolution. Most modern public museums and art education programs for children in schools can be traced back to this impulse to have art available to everyone. Museums in the United States tend to be gifts from the very rich to the masses (The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, for example, was created by John Taylor Johnston, a railroad executive whose personal art collection seeded the museum.) But despite all this, at least one of the important functions of art in the 21st century remains as a marker of wealth and social status.
Performance by Joseph Beuys, 1978 : Everyone an artist — On the way to the libertarian form of the social organism.
There have been attempts by artists to create art that can not be bought by the wealthy as a status object. One of the prime original motivators of much of the art of the late 1960s and 1970s was to create art that could not be bought and sold. It is "necessary to present something more than mere objects"[33] said the major post war German artist Joseph Beuys. This time period saw the rise of such things as performance art, video art, and conceptual art. The idea was that if the artwork was a performance that would leave nothing behind, or was simply an idea, it could not be bought and sold. "Democratic precepts revolving around the idea that a work of art is a commodity impelled the aesthetic innovation which germinated in the mid-1960s and was reaped throughout the 1970s. Artists broadly identified under the heading of Conceptual art... substituting performance and publishing activities for engagement with both the material and materialistic concerns of painted or sculptural form... [have] endeavored to undermine the art object qua object."[34]
In the decades since, these ideas have been somewhat lost as the art market has learned to sell limited edition DVDs of video works,[35] invitations to exclusive performance art pieces, and the objects left over from conceptual pieces. Many of these performances create works that are only understood by the elite who have been educated as to why an idea or video or piece of apparent garbage may be considered art. The marker of status becomes understanding the work instead of necessarily owning it, and the artwork remains an upper-class activity. "With the widespread use of DVD recording technology in the early 2000s, artists, and the gallery system that derives its profits from the sale of artworks, gained an important means of controlling the sale of video and computer artworks in limited editions to collectors."[36]
See also
WPVA-khamsa.png Visual arts portal
* Art movement
* List of artistic mediums
* Outline of visual arts
Notes
Wikipedia Books Book:Art
Books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.
1. ^ Wollheim 1980, op. cit. Essay VI. pp. 231-39.
2. ^ Gombrich, Ernst. (2005). "Press statement on The Story of Art". The Gombrich Archive. http://www.gombrich.co.uk/showdoc.php?id=68. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
3. ^ Richard Wollheim, Art and its objects, p.1, 2nd edn, 1980, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521297060
4. ^ a b Jerrold Levinson, The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, Oxford university Press, 2003, p5. ISBN 0-1992-7945-4
5. ^ Jerrold Levinson, The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, Oxford university Press, 2003, p16. ISBN 0-1992-7945-4
6. ^ R.G. Collingwood's view, expressed in The Principles of Art, is considered in Wollheim, op. cit. 1980 pp 36-43
7. ^ Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art", in Poetry, Language, Thought, (Harper Perenniel, 2001). See also Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "Cézanne's Doubt" in The Merleau-Ponty Aesthetics Reader, Galen Johnson and Michael Smith (eds), (Northwestern University Press, 1994) and John Russon, Bearing Witness to Epiphany, (State University of New York Press, 2009).
8. ^ Elkins, James "Art History and Images That Are Not Art", The Art Bulletin, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Dec. 1995), with previous bibliography. "Non-Western images are not well described in terms of art, and neither are medieval paintings that were made in the absence of humanist ideas of artistic value". 553
9. ^ Adorno, Theodor W., Aesthetic Theory, (1970 in German)
10. ^ David Novitz, "The Boundaries of Art", 1992
11. ^ Radford, Tim. "World's Oldest Jewellery Found in Cave". Guardian Unlimited, April 16, 2004. Retrieved on January 18, 2008.
12. ^ Robertson, Jean and Craig McDaniel: Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art after 1980, page 4. Oxford University Press, 2005.
13. ^ Aristotle. The Poetics, Republic
14. ^ Aristotle. The Poetics, Republic. Note: Although speaking mostly of poetry here, the Ancient greeks often speak of the arts collectively. http://www.authorama.com/the-poetics-2.html
15. ^ Einstein, Albert. The World as I See It. http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/essay.htm
16. ^ Immanuel Kant, Critique of Aesthetic Judgement (1790).
17. ^ Silvia Tomaskova, "Places of Art: Art and Archaeology in Context": (1997)
18. ^ Steve Mithen. The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science. 1999
19. ^ André Breton, Surrealist Manifesto (1924)
20. ^ Roland Barthes, Mythologies
21. ^ "go to nature in all singleness of heart, rejecting nothing and selecting nothing, and scorning nothing, believing all things are right and good, and rejoicing always in the truth." Ruskin, John. Modern Painters, Volume I, 1843. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
22. ^ Wollheim 1980, Essay VI. pp. 231-39.
23. ^ Griselda Pollock, Differencing the Canon. Routledge, London & N.Y.,1999. ISBN 0-415-06700-6
24. ^ a b Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology. ed. Francis Frascina and Charles Harrison, 1982.
25. ^ Deborah Solomon, "2003: the 3rd Annual Year in Ideas: Video Game Art", New York Times, Magazine Section, December 14, 2003
26. ^ Painter, Colin. "Contemporary Art and the Home". Berg Publishers, 2002. p. 12. ISBN 1-8597-3661-0
27. ^ Dutton, Denis Tribal Art in Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, edited by Michael Kelly (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
28. ^ Danto, Arthur. "Artifact and Art." In Art/Artifact, edited by Susan Vogel. New York, 1988.
29. ^ a b c d e f "Glossary: Anti-art", Tate. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
30. ^ Schneider, Caroline. "Asger Jorn", Artforum, 1 September 2001. Retrieved from encyclopedia.com, 24 January 2010.
31. ^ Ferguson, Euan. "In bed with Tracey, Sarah ... and Ron", The Observer, 20 April 2003. Retrieved on 2 May 2009.
32. ^ "Stuck on the Turner Prize", artnet, 27 October 2000. Retrieved on 2 May 2009.
33. ^ Sharp, Willoughby (December 1969). "An Interview with Joseph Beuys". ArtForum 8 (4): 45.
34. ^ Rorimer, Anne: New Art in the 60s and 70s Redefining Reality, page 35. Thames and Hudson, 2001.
35. ^ Fineman, Mia (2007-03-21). "YouTube for ArtistsThe best places to find video art online.". Slate. http://www.slate.com/id/2162382/. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
36. ^ Robertson, Jean and Craig McDaniel: Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art after 1980, page 16. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Bibliography
* Arthur Danto, The Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Concept of Art. 2003
* Dana Arnold and Margaret Iverson (eds.) Art and Thought. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2003.
* Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey (eds.) Art History and Visual Studies. Yale University Press, 2002.
* John Whitehead. Grasping for the Wind. 2001
* Noel Carroll, Theories of Art Today. 2000
* Evelyn Hatcher, ed. Art as Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Art. 1999
* Catherine de Zegher (ed.). Inside the Visible. MIT Press, 1996.
* Nina, Felshin, ed. But is it Art? 1995
* Stephen Davies, Definitions of Art. 1991
* Oscar Wilde, "Intentions".
* Jean Robertson and Craig McDaniel, "Themes of Contemporary Art, Visual Art after 1980." 2005
Further reading
Search Wiktionary Look up art in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Art
* Augros, Robert M., Stanciu, George N., The New Story of Science: mind and the universe, Lake Bluff, Ill.: Regnery Gateway, c1984. ISBN 0895268337 (this book has significant material on Art and Science)
* Richard Wollheim, Art and its Objects
* Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
* Benedetto Croce, Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic, 1902
* Władysław Tatarkiewicz, A History of Six Ideas: an Essay in Aesthetics, translated from the Polish by Christopher Kasparek, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1980.
* Leo Tolstoy, What Is Art?, 1897
* Kleiner, Gardner, Mamiya and Tansey (2004). Art Through the Ages, Twelfth Edition (2 volumes). Wadsworth. ISBN 0-534-64095-8 (vol 1) and ISBN 0-534-64091-5 (vol 2).
* Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, eds., Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
External links
* Art and Play from the Dictionary of the History of ideas
* In-depth directory of art
* Art and Artist Files in the Smithsonian Libraries Collection (2005) Smithsonian Digital Libraries
* Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) - online collections from UK museums, galleries, universities
* RevolutionArt - Art magazines with worldwide exhibitions, callings and competitions
* Artforum magazine - online art reviews - also previews of upcoming exhibitions
* Article on the meaning of Art in Ancient India on the website of Frontline
* "The Definition of Art" article by Thomas Adajian in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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magic
Etymology
Through late 14th century Old French magique, the word "magic" derives via Latin magicus from the Greek adjective magikos (μαγικός) used in reference to the "magical" arts of the Magicians (Greek: magoi, singular mágos, μάγος); the Zoroastrian astrologer priests. Greek mágos is first attested in Heraclitus (6th century BC, apud. Clement Protrepticus 12) who curses the Magians and others for their "impious rites". Greek magikos is attested from the 1st century Plutarch, typically appearing in the feminine, in μαγική τέχνη (magike techne, Latin ars magica) "magical art".[citation needed]
Likewise, sorcery was taken in ca. 1300 from Old French sorcerie, which is from Vulgar Latin *sortiarius, from sors "fate", apparently meaning "one who influences fate". Sorceress appears also in the late 14th century, while sorcerer is attested only from 1526.[citation needed]
[edit] Theories of magic
[edit] Definitions of relevant terminology
The foremost perspectives on magic in anthropology are functionalist, symbolist and intellectualist. These three perspectives are used to describe how magic works in a society. The functionalist perspective, usually associated with Bronisław Malinowski, maintains that all aspects of society are meaningful and interrelated.[1] In the functionalist perspective, magic performs a latent function in the society. The symbolist perspective researches the subtle meaning in rituals and myths that define a society[2] and deals with questions of theodicy -- why do bad things happen to good people. Finally the intellectualist perspective, associated with Edward Burnett Tylor and Sir James Frazer, regard magic as logical, but based on a flawed understanding of the world.
[edit] Magical thinking
Main article: Magical thinking
Magical thinking in anthropology, psychology, and cognitive science is nonscientific causal reasoning that often includes such ideas as associative thinking, the ability of the mind to affect the physical world (see the philosophical problem of mental causation), and correlation mistaken for causation. Symbolic expression may be brought into play, as well as the use of metaphor, metonym, and synchronicity. Practitioners of magic are often portrayed as irrational, but some theorists maintain that the magician’s goals are not necessarily physical, and that magical practices are, in some cases, genuinely efficacious.[citation needed]
[edit] Psychological theories of magic
Main article: Psychological theories of magic
Psychological theories treat magic as a personal phenomenon intended to meet individual needs, as opposed to a social phenomenon serving a collective purpose. Theories range from magic as neurosis to magic as bad science to magic as anxiety relief.[citation needed]
[edit] Theories of magic and religion
Magic and religion are categories of beliefs and systems of knowledge used within societies. While generally considered distinct categories in western cultures, the interactions, similarities, and differences have been central to the study of magic for many theorists in sociology and anthropology, including Frazer, Mauss, S. J. Tambiah and Malinowski. From the intellectualist and functionalist perspectives, magic is often considered most analogous to science and technology. From the symbolist perspective, it is most alike religion.[citation needed]
[edit] Marcel Mauss
In A General Theory of Magic,[3] Marcel Mauss classifies magic as a social phenomenon, akin to religion and science, but yet a distinct category. In practice, magic bears a strong resemblance to religion. Both use similar types of rites, materials, social roles and relationships to accomplish aims and engender belief. They both operate on similar principles, in particular those of consecration and sacredness of objects and places, interaction with supernatural powers mediated by an expert, employment of symbolism, sacrifice, purification and representation in rites, and the importance of tradition and continuation of knowledge. Magic and religion also share a collective character and totality of belief. The rules and powers of each are determined by the community’s ideals and beliefs and so may slowly evolve. Additionally neither supports partial belief. Belief in one aspect of the phenomena necessitates belief in the whole, and each incorporates structural loopholes to accommodate contradictions.
The distinction Mauss draws between religion and magic is both of sentiment and practice. He portrays magic as an element of pre-modern societies and in many respects an antithesis of religion. Magic is secretive and isolated, and rarely performed publicly in order to protect and to preserve occult knowledge. Religion is predictable and proscribed and is usually performed openly in order to impart knowledge to the community. While these two phenomena do share many ritual forms, Mauss concludes that “a magical rite is any rite that does not play a part in organized cults. It is private, secret, mysterious and approaches the limit of prohibited rite.”[4] In practice, magic differs from religion in desired outcome. Religion seeks to satisfy moral and metaphysical ends, while magic is a functional art which often seeks to accomplish tangible results. In this respect magic resembles technology and science. Belief in each is diffuse, universal, and removed from the origin of the practice. Yet, the similarity between these social phenomena is limited, as science is based in experimentation and development, while magic is an “a priori belief.”[5] Mauss concludes that though magical beliefs and rites are most analogous to religion, magic remains a social phenomenon distinct from religion and science with its own characteristic rules, acts and aims.
[edit] Tambiah
According to Tambiah, magic, science, and religion all have their own “quality of rationality,” and have been influenced by politics and ideology.[6] Tambiah also believes that the perceptions of these three ideas have evolved over time as a result of Western thought. The lines of demarcation between these ideas depend upon the perspective of a variety of anthropologists, but Tambiah has his own opinions regarding magic, science, and religion. According to Tambiah, religion is based on an organized community (a church), and it is supposed to encompass all aspects of life. In religion, man is obligated to an outside power and he is supposed to feel piety towards that power. Religion is effective and attractive because it is generally exclusive and strongly personal. Also, because religion affects all aspects of life, it is convenient in the sense that morality and notions of acceptable behavior are imposed by God and the supernatural. Science, on the other hand, suggests a clear divide between nature and the supernatural, making its role far less all-encompassing than that of religion.
As opposed to religion, Tambiah suggests that mankind has a much more personal control over events. Science, according to Tambiah, is “a system of behavior by which man acquires mastery of the environment.”[7] Whereas in religion nature and the supernatural are connected and essentially interchangeable, in science, nature and the supernatural are clearly separate spheres. Also, science is a developed discipline; a logical argument is created and can be challenged. The base of scientific knowledge can be extended, while religion is more concrete and absolute. Magic, the less accepted of the three disciplines in Western society, is an altogether unique idea.
Tambiah states that magic is a strictly ritualistic action that implements forces and objects outside the realm of the gods and the supernatural. These objects and events are said to be intrinsically efficacious, so that the supernatural is unnecessary. To some, including the Greeks, magic was considered a “proto-science.” Magic has other historical importance as well. Much of the debate between religion and magic originated during the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Church was attacked for its doctrine of transubstantiation because it was considered a type of sacramental magic. Furthermore, the possibility of anything happening outside of God’s purpose was denied. Spells[8] were viewed as ineffective and blasphemous, because religion required belief in "a conscious agent who could be deflected from this purpose by prayer and supplication.”[9] Prayer was the only way to effectively enact positive change. The Protestant Reformation was a significant moment in the history of magical thought because Protestantism provided the impetus for a systematic understanding of the world. In this systematic framework, there was no room for magic and its practices. Besides the Reformation, the Renaissance was an influential epoch in the history of thought concerning magic and science.
During the Renaissance, magic was less stigmatized even though it was done in secret and therefore considered "occult." Renaissance magic was based on cosmology, and its powers were said to be derived from the stars and the alignment of the planets. Newton himself began his work in mathematics because he wanted to see “whether judicial astrology had any claim to validity.”[10]
The lines of demarcation between science, magic, and religion all have origins dating to times when established thought processes were challenged. The rise of Western thought essentially initiated the differentiation between the three disciplines. Whereas science could be revised and developed through rational thought, magic was seen as less scientific and systematic than science and religion, making it the least respected of the three.
[edit] Bronisław Malinowski
Main article: Bronisław Malinowski
In his essay “Magic, Science and Religion,” Bronisław Malinowski contends that every person, no matter how primitive, uses both magic and science. To make this distinction he breaks up this category into the “sacred” and the “profane”[11] or "magic/religion" and science. He theorizes that feelings of reverence and awe rely on observation of nature and a dependence on its regularity. This observation and reasoning about nature is a type of science. Magic and science both have definite aims to help “human instincts, needs and pursuits.”[12] Both magic and science develop procedures that must be followed to accomplish specific goals. Magic and science are both based on knowledge; magic is knowledge of the self and of emotion, while science is knowledge of nature.
According to Malinowski, magic and religion are also similar in that they often serve the same function in a society. The difference is that magic is more about the personal power of the individual and religion is about faith in the power of God. Magic is also something that is passed down over generations to a specific group while religion is more broadly available to the community.
To end his essay, Malinowski poses the question, “why magic?” He writes, “Magic supplies primitive man with a number of ready-made rituals, acts and beliefs, with a definite mental and practical technique which serves to bridge over the dangerous gaps in every important pursuit or critical situation.”[13]
[edit] Robin Horton
In “African Traditional Thought and Western Science,”[14] Robin Horton compares the magical and religious thinking of non-modernized cultures with western scientific thought. He argues that both traditional beliefs and western science are applications of “theoretical thinking.” The common form, function, and purpose of these theoretical idioms are therefore structured and explained by 8 main characteristics of this type of thought.
1.) In all cultures the majority of human experience can be explained by common sense. The purpose then of theory is to explain forces that operate behind and within the commonsense world. Theory should impose order and reason on everyday life by attributing cause to a few select forces.[15]
2.) Theories also help place events in a causal context that is greater than common sense alone can provide, because commonsense causation is inherently limited by what we see and experience. Theoretical formulations are therefore used as intermediaries to link natural effects to natural causes.[16]
3.) “Common sense and theory have complementary roles in everyday life.”[17] Common sense is more handy and useful for a wide range of everyday circumstances, but occasionally there are circumstances that can only be explained using a wider causal vision, so a jump to theory is made.
4.) “Levels of theory vary with context.”[18] There are widely and narrowly-encompassing theories, and the individual can usually chose which to use in order to understand and explain a situation as is deemed appropriate.
5.) All theory breaks up aspects of commonsense events, abstracts them and then reintegrates them into the common usage and understanding.[19]
6.) Theory is usually created by analogy between unexplained and familiar phenomena.[20]
7.) When theory is based on analogy between explained and unexplained observations, “generally only a limited aspect of the familiar phenomena is incorporated into (the) explanatory model”.[21] It is this process of abstraction that contributes to the ability of theories to transcend commonsense explanation. For example, gods have the quality of spirituality by omission of many common aspects of human life.
8.) Once a theoretical model has been established, it is often modified to explain contradictory data so that it may no longer represent the analogy on which is was based.[22]
While both traditional beliefs and western science are based on theoretical thought, Horton argues that the differences between these knowledge systems in practice and form are due to their states in open and closed cultures.[23] He classifies scientifically oriented cultures as ‘open’ because they are aware of other modes of thought, while traditional cultures are ‘closed’ because they are unaware of alternatives to the established theories. The varying sources of information in these systems results in differences in form which, Horton asserts, often blinds observers from seeing the similarities between the systems as two applications of theoretical thought.
[edit] Common features of magical practice
[edit] Magical language
The performance of magic almost always involves the use of language (in Western civilization, mainly Latin). Whether spoken out loud or unspoken, words are frequently used to access or guide magical power. In "The Magical Power of Words" (1968) S. J. Tambiah argues that the connection between language and magic is due to a belief in the inherent ability of words to influence the universe. Bronsilaw Malinowski, in Coral Gardens and their Magic (1935), suggests that this belief is an extension of man’s basic use of language to describe his surroundings, in which “the knowledge of the right words, appropriate phrases and the more highly developed forms of speech, gives man a power over and above his own limited field of personal action.”[24] Magical speech is therefore a ritual act and is of equal or even greater importance to the performance of magic than non-verbal acts.[25] Yet not all speech is considered magical. Only certain words and phrases or words spoken in a specific context are considered to have magical power.[26] Magical language, according to C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards's (1923) categories of speech, is distinct from scientific language because it is emotive and it converts words into symbols for emotions; whereas in scientific language words are tied to specific meanings and refer to an objective external reality.[27] Magical language is therefore particularly adept at constructing metaphors that establish symbols and link magical rituals to the world.[28]
Malinowski argues that “the language of magic is sacred, set and used for an entirely different purpose to that of ordinary life.”[29] The two forms of language are differentiated through word choice, grammar, style, or by the use of specific phrases or forms: prayers, spells, songs, blessings, or chants, for example. Sacred modes of language often employ archaic words and forms in an attempt to invoke the purity or “truth” of a religious or a cultural ‘golden age.’ The use of Hebrew in Judaism is an example.[30] Another potential source of the power of words is their secrecy and exclusivity. Much sacred language is differentiated enough from common language that it is incomprehensible to the majority of the population and it can only be used and interpreted by specialized practitioners, (magicians, priests, shamans, even mullahs.).[31][32] In this respect, Tambiah argues that magical languages violate the primary function of language: communication.[33] Yet adherents of magic are still able to use and to value the magical function of words by believing in the inherent power of the words themselves and in the meaning that they must provide for those who do understand them. This leads Tambiah to conclude that “the remarkable disjunction between sacred and profane language which exists as a general fact is not necessarily linked to the need to embody sacred words in an exclusive language.”[30]
[edit] Witchcraft
Main article: Witchcraft
Often linked to magical beliefs and practices, witchcraft is a means for people to magically affect the world around them through various spells, rituals or even desires, in either a harmful or benevolent way. The ability to perform witchcraft is sometimes viewed as a biological trait and is sometimes said to be an acquired skill. In relation, sorcery is generally seen as the manipulation of magic. The intent behind witchcraft has been the object of much debate. Historically, witchcraft has been cited as the source of tragedy or misfortune in communities. Occasionally, as in the case of the Salem witch trials,[34] social or economic strain can manifest in witchcraft accusations, suggesting that it is sometimes the alleged witch who is actually innocent. Many witches, moreover, claim to practice white magic, which is a benevolent form of the craft.
[edit] Magicians
Main article: Magician (paranormal)
A magician is any practitioner of magic; therefore a magician may be a specialist or a common practitioner, even if he or she does not consider himself a magician.[35] All that is required is the possession of esoteric knowledge, traits, or expertise that are culturally acknowledged to harbor magical powers.
Magical knowledge is usually passed down from one magician to another through family or apprenticeships, though in some cultures it may also be purchased[36]. The information transferred usually consists of instructions on how to perform a variety of rituals, manipulate magical objects, or how to appeal to gods or to other supernatural forces. Magical knowledge is often well guarded, as it is a valuable commodity to which each magician believes that he has a proprietary right.[37]
Yet the possession of magical knowledge alone may be insufficient to grant magical power; often a person must also possess certain magical objects, traits or life experiences in order to be a magician. Among the Azande, for example, in order to question an oracle a man must have both the physical oracle (poison, or a washboard, for example) and knowledge of the words and the rites needed to make the object function.[36]
A variety of personal traits may be credited to magical power, though frequently they are associated with an unusual birth into the world.[38] For example, in 16th century Friuli, babies born with the caul were believed to be good witches, benandanti, who would engage evil witches in nighttime battles over the bounty of the next year’s crops.[39]
Certain post-birth experiences may also be believed to convey magical power. For example a person’s survival of a near-death illness may be taken as evidence of their power as a healer: in Bali a medium’s survival is proof of her association with a patron deity and therefore her ability to communicate with other gods and spirits.[40] Initiations are perhaps the most commonly used ceremonies to establish and to differentiate magicians from common people. In these rites the magician’s relationship to the supernatural and his entry into a closed professional class is established, often through rituals that simulate death and rebirth into a new life.[41]
Given the exclusivity of the criteria needed to become a magician, much magic is performed by specialists.[42] Laypeople will likely have some simple magical rituals for everyday living, but in situations of particular importance, especially when health or major life events are concerned, a specialist magician will often be consulted.[43] The powers of both specialist and common magicians are determined by culturally accepted standards of the sources and the breadth of magic. A magician may not simply invent or claim new magic; the magician is only as powerful as his peers believe him to be.[44] In different cultures, various types of magicians may be differentiated based on their abilities, their sources of power, and on moral considerations, including divisions into different categories like sorcerer, witch, healer and others.
[edit] Rituals
Magical rituals are the precisely defined actions (including speech) used to work magic. Bronisław Malinowski describes ritual language as possessing a high “coefficient of weirdness,” by which he means that the language used in ritual is archaic and out of the ordinary, which helps foster the proper mindset to believe in the ritual.[45] S. J. Tambiah notes, however, that even if the power of the ritual is said to reside in the words, “the words only become effective if uttered in a very special context of other action.”[46] These other actions typically consist of gestures, possibly performed with special objects at a particular place or time. Object, location, and performer may require purification beforehand. This caveat draws a parallel to the felicity conditions J. L. Austin requires of performative utterances.[47] By “performativity” Austin means that the ritual act itself achieves the stated goal. For example, a wedding ceremony can be understood as a ritual, and only by properly performing the ritual does the marriage occur. Émile Durkheim stresses the importance of rituals as a tool to achieve “collective effervescence,” which serves to help unify society. Psychologists, on the other hand, describe rituals in comparison to obsessive-compulsive rituals, noting that attentional focus falls on the lower level representation of simple gestures.[48] This results in goal demotion, as the ritual places more emphasis on performing the ritual just right than on the connection between the ritual and the goal. However, the purpose of ritual is to act as a focus and the effect will vary depending on the individual.
[edit] Magical symbols
Magic often utilizes symbols that are thought to be intrinsically efficacious. Anthropologists, such as Sir James Frazer (1854–1938), have characterized the implementation of symbols into two primary categories: the “principle of similarity,” and the “principle of contagion.” Frazer further categorized these principles as falling under “sympathetic magic,” and “contagious magic.” Frazer asserted that these concepts were “general or generic laws of thought, which were misapplied in magic.”[49]
[edit] The Principle of Similarity
The principle of similarity, also known as the “association of ideas,” which falls under the category of “sympathetic magic,” is the thought that if a certain result follows a certain action, then that action must be responsible for the result. Therefore, if one is to perform this action again, the same result can again be expected. One classic example of this mode of thought is that of the rooster and the sunrise. When a rooster crows, it is a response to the rising of the sun. Based on sympathetic magic, one might interpret these series of events differently. The law of similarity would suggest that since the sunrise follows the crowing of the rooster, the rooster must have caused the sun to rise.[50] Causality is inferred where it should not have been. Therefore, a practitioner might believe that if he is able to cause the rooster to crow, he will be able to control the timing of the sunrise.
[edit] The Principle of Contagion
Another primary type of magical thinking includes the principle of contagion. This principle suggests that once two objects come into contact with each other, they will continue to affect each other even after the contact between them has been broken. One example that Tambiah gives is related to adoption. Among some American Indians, for example, when a child is adopted his or her adoptive mother will pull the child through some of her clothes, symbolically representing the birth process and thereby associating the child with herself.[51] Therefore, the child emotionally becomes hers even though their relationship is not biological. As Claude Lévi-Strauss would put it: the birth “would consist, therefore, in making explicit a situation originally existing on the emotional level and in rendering acceptable to the mind pains which the body refuses to tolerate…the woman believes in the myth and belongs to a society which believes in it.”[52]
Symbols, for many cultures that utilize magic, are seen as a type of technology. Natives might use symbols and symbolic actions to bring about change and improvements, much like Western cultures might use advanced irrigation techniques to promote soil fertility and crop growth. Michael Brown discusses the use of nantag stones among the Aguaruna as being similar to this type of “technology.”[53] These stones are brought into contact with stem cuttings of plants like manioc before they are planted in an effort to promote growth. Nantag are powerful, tangible symbols of fertility, so they are brought into contact with crops in order to transmit their fertility to the plants.
Others argue that ritualistic actions are merely therapeutic. Tambiah cites the example of a native hitting the ground with a stick. While some may interpret this action as symbolic (i.e. the man is trying to make the ground yield crops through force), others would simply see a man unleashing his frustration at poor crop returns. Ultimately, whether or not an action is symbolic depends upon the context of the situation as well as the ontology of the culture. Many symbolic actions are derived from mythology and unique associations, whereas other ritualistic actions are just simple expressions of emotion and are not intended to enact any type of change.
[edit] History of Western magic
Further information: History of astrology and History of religion
[edit] Classical antiquity
Main article: Magic in the Greco-Roman world
Hecate, the ancient Greek goddess of magic.
The prototypical magicians were a class of priests, the Magi of Zoroastrianism, and their reputation together with that of Ancient Egypt shaped the hermeticism of Hellenistic religion.[citation needed]
The Greek mystery religions had strongly magical components, and in Egypt, a large number of magical papyri, in Greek, Coptic, and Demotic, have been recovered. These sources contain early instances of much of the magical lore that later became part of Western cultural expectations about the practice of magic, especially ceremonial magic.[citation needed] They contain early instances of:
* the use of "magic words" said to have the power to command spirits;
* the use of wands and other ritual tools;
* the use of a magic circle to defend the magician against the spirits that he is invoking or evoking; and
* the use of mysterious symbols or sigils which are thought to be useful when invoking or evoking spirits.[54]
The use of spirit mediums is also documented in these texts; many of the spells call for a child to be brought to the magic circle to act as a conduit for messages from the spirits.[citation needed] The time of the Emperor Julian of Rome, marked by a reaction against the influence of Christianity, saw a revival of magical practices associated with neo-Platonism under the guise of theurgy.[citation needed]
[edit] Middle Ages
Several medieval scholars were considered to be magicians in popular legend, notably Gerbert d'Aurillac and Albertus Magnus: both men were active in the scientific research of their day as well as in ecclesiastical matters, which was enough to attach to them a nimbus of the occult.
Magical practice was actively discouraged by the church, but it remained widespread in folk religion throughout the medieval period. Magical thinking became syncretized with Christian dogma, expressing itself in practices like the judicial duel and the veneration of relics. In many cases, relics became amulets, and various churches strove to purchase scarce or valuable examples, hoping to become places of pilgrimage. As in any other economic endeavor, demand gave rise to supply.[55][clarification needed] Tales of the miraculous effects of relics of the saints were later compiled into popular collections like the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, or the Dialogus miraculorum of Caesar of Heisterbach.
From the 13th century, the Jewish Kabbalah exerted influence on Christian occultism, giving rise to the first grimoires and the scholarly occultism that would evolve into Renaissance magic. The demonology and angelology contained in the earliest grimoires assume a life surrounded by Christian implements and sacred rituals. The underlying theology in these works of Christian demonology encourages the magician to fortify himself with fasting, prayers, and sacraments, so that by using the holy names of God in the sacred languages, he could use divine powers to coerce demons into appearing and serving his usually lustful or avaricious magical goals.[56]
13th century astrologers include Johannes de Sacrobosco and Guido Bonatti.
[edit] Renaissance
Further information: Renaissance magic
Renaissance humanism saw resurgence in hermeticism and Neo-Platonic varieties of ceremonial magic. The Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, on the other hand, saw the rise of scientism, in such forms as the substitution of chemistry for alchemy, the dethronement of the Ptolemaic theory of the universe assumed by astrology, the development of the germ theory of disease, that restricted the scope of applied magic and threatened the belief systems upon which it relied.[55]
The seven artes magicae or artes prohibitae, arts prohibited by canon law, as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456, their sevenfold partition reflecting that of the artes liberales and artes mechanicae, were:
1. nigromancy ("black magic", "demonology", linked by popular etymology with necromancy)
2. geomancy
3. hydromancy
4. aeromancy
5. pyromancy
6. chiromancy
7. scapulimancy
Both bourgeoisie and nobility in the 15th and 16th century showed great fascination with these arts, which exerted an exotic charm by their ascription to Arabic, Jewish, Gypsy and Egyptian sources. There was great uncertainty in distinguishing practices of superstition, occultism, and perfectly sound scholarly knowledge or pious ritual. The intellectual and spiritual tensions erupted in the Early Modern witch craze, further reinforced by the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation, especially in Germany, England, and Scotland.[55]
[edit] Baroque
Further information: 17th-century philosophy and natural magic
A talisman from the Black Pullet, a late grimoire containing instructions on how a magician might cast rings and craft amulets for various magical applications, culminating in the Hen that Lays Golden Eggs.
Study of the occult arts remained intellectually respectable well into the 17th century, and only gradually divided into the modern categories of natural science, occultism, and superstition. The 17th century saw the gradual rise of the "age of reason", while belief in witchcraft and sorcery, and consequently the irrational surge of Early Modern witch trials, receded, a process only completed at the end of the Baroque period circa 1730. Christian Thomasius still met opposition as he argued in his 1701 Dissertatio de crimine magiae that it was meaningless to make dealing with the devil a criminal offence, since it was impossible to really commit the crime in the first place. In Britain, the Witchcraft Act of 1735 established that people could not be punished for consorting with spirits, while would-be magicians pretending to be able to invoke spirits could still be fined as con artists.
Further information: Isaac Newton's occult studies
"Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians." — John Maynard Keynes
[edit] Romanticism
From 1776 to 1781 AD, Jacob Philadelphia performed feats of magic, sometimes under the guise of scientific exhibitions, throughout Europe and Russia. Baron Carl Reichenbach's experiments with his Odic force appeared to be an attempt to bridge the gap between magic and science. More recent periods of renewed interest in magic occurred around the end of the nineteenth century, where Symbolism and other offshoots of Romanticism cultivated a renewed interest in exotic spiritualities. European colonialism put Westerners in contact with India and Egypt and re-introduced exotic beliefs. Hindu and Egyptian mythology frequently feature in nineteenth century magical texts.[57] The late 19th century spawned a large number of magical organizations, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, and specifically magical variants on Freemasonry. The Golden Dawn represented perhaps the peak of this wave of magic, attracting cultural celebrities like William Butler Yeats, Algernon Blackwood, and Arthur Machen.[58]
[edit] 20th century
In general, the 20th century has seen a sharp rise in public interest in various forms of magical practice, and the foundation of a number of traditions and organisations, ranging from the distinctly religious to the philosophical.
In England, a further revival of interest in magic was heralded by the repeal of the last Witchcraft Act in 1951. This was the cue for Gerald Gardner to publish his first witchcraft-themed book, Witchcraft Today, in which he claimed to reveal the existence of a witch-cult that dated back to pre-Christian Europe. Although many of Gardner's claims have since come under intensive criticism from sources both within and without the neopagan community, his works remain the most important founding stone of Wicca. Gardner combined magic and religion in a way that was later to cause people to question the Enlightenment's boundaries between the two subjects.[citation needed]
Gardner's newly created religion, and many others, took off in the atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s, when the counterculture of the hippies also spawned another period of renewed interest in magic, divination, and other occult practices.[59] The various branches of Neopaganism and other Earth religions that have emerged since Gardner's publication tend to follow a pattern in combining the practice of magic and religion, although this combination is not exclusive to them. Following the trend of magic associated with counterculture, some feminists launched an independent revival of goddess worship. This brought them into contact with the Gardnerian tradition of magical religion (or religious magic), and deeply influenced that tradition in return.[58]
The pentagram, an ancient geometrical symbol known from many cultures, is often associated with magic. In Europe, the Pythagoreans first used the pentagram as a symbol of their movement.
Some people in the West believe in or practice various forms of magic. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley's Thelema and their subsequent offshoots, influenced by Eliphas Levi, are most commonly associated with the resurgence of magical tradition in the English speaking world of the 20th century. Other, similar resurgences took place at roughly the same time, centered in France and Germany. The western traditions acknowledging the natural elements, the seasons, and the practitioner's relationship with the Earth, Gaia, or a primary Goddess have derived at least in part from these magical groups, and are mostly considered Neopagan. Long-standing indigenous traditions of magic are regarded as Pagan.
Allegedly for gematric reasons Aleister Crowley preferred the spelling magick, defining it as "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will." By this, he included "mundane" acts of change as well as ritual magic. In Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter XIV, Crowley says:
What is a Magical Operation? It may be defined as any event in nature which is brought to pass by Will. We must not exclude potato-growing or banking from our definition. Let us take a very simple example of a Magical Act: that of a man blowing his nose.
Western magical traditions include hermetic magic and its many offshoots predominantly inspired by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as well as Wicca and some other Neopagan religions. Definitions, concepts and uses of magic tend to vary even within magical traditions and indeed often between individuals.
Wicca is one of the more publicly known traditions within Neopaganism, a magical religion inspired by medieval witchcraft, with influences including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Crowley. Ruickbie (2004:193-209) shows that Wiccans and witches define magic in many different ways and use it for a number of different purposes. Despite that diversity of opinion, he concludes that the result upon the practitioner is generally perceived as a positive one.
The belief in Magic is often considered superstitious, although it could be argued that some magical practices rely upon widely accepted psychological principles and are only intended to promote internal personal changes within the practitioner themselves[citation needed]. Visualization techniques, for instance, widely used by magicians, are also used in somewhat different contexts in fields such as clinical psychology and sports training.[60]
[edit] Theories of magic
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[edit] Anthropological and psychological origins
Further information: Myth and ritual
The belief that one can influence supernatural powers, by prayer, sacrifice or invocation goes back to prehistoric religion and is present in early records such as the Egyptian pyramid texts and the Indian Vedas.[61]
James George Frazer believed that magic was a fallacious system and asserted that magical observations are the result of an internal dysfunction: "Men mistook the order of their ideas for the order of nature, and hence imagined that the control which they have, or seem to have, over their thoughts, permitted them to exercise a corresponding control over things."[62]
Others, such as N. W. Thomas[63] and Sigmund Freud have rejected this explanation. Freud explains that "the associated theory of magic merely explains the paths along which magic proceeds; it does not explain its true essence, namely the misunderstanding which leads it to replace the laws of nature by psychological ones".[64] Freud emphasizes that what led primitive men to come up with magic is the power of wishes: "His wishes are accompanied by a motor impulse, the will, which is later destined to alter the whole face of the earth in order to satisfy his wishes. This motor impulse is at first employed to give a representation of the satisfying situation in such a way that it becomes possible to experience the satisfaction by means of what might be described as motor hallucinations. This kind of representation of a satisfied wish is quite comparable to children's play, which succeeds their earlier purely sensory technique of satisfaction. [...] As time goes on, the psychological accent shifts from the motives for the magical act on to the measures by which it is carried out—that is, on to the act itself. [...] It thus comes to appear as though it is the magical act itself which, owing to its similarity with the desired result, alone determines the occurrence of that result."[65]
See also: Shamanism
[edit] Theories of adherents
Adherents to magic believe that it may work by one or more of the following basic principles:[citation needed]
* Natural forces that cannot be detected by science at present, and which may not be detectable at all. These magical forces are said to exist in addition to and alongside the four fundamental forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear strong force and the nuclear weak force.
* Intervention of spirits, similar to hypothetical natural forces, but with their own consciousness and intelligence. Believers in spirits will often describe a whole cosmos of beings of many different kinds, sometimes organized into a hierarchy.
* A mystical power, such as mana, numen, chi, or kundalini, that exists in all things. Sometimes this power is concentrated in a magical object, such as a ring, a stone, a charm, or dehk, which the magician can manipulate.
* Manipulation of the Elements, by using the will of the magician and symbols or objects which are representative of the element(s). Western practitioners typically use the Classical elements of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire.
* Manipulation of Energy. Also believed to be the manipulation of energy from the human body. Most commonly referred to by the usage of the hands while the mouth uses a command of power.
* Manipulation of symbols. Adherents of magical thinking believe that symbols can be used for more than representation: they can magically take on a physical quality of the phenomenon or object that they represent. Another view is that sigils) in particular can be "charged" with magical powers. By manipulating symbols or sigils, one is said to be able to impact reality, or the reality that this symbol represents.
* The principles of sympathetic magic of Sir James George Frazer, explicated in his The Golden Bough (third edition, 1911–1915). These principles include the "law of similarity" and the "law of contact" or "contagion." These are systematized versions of the manipulation of symbols. Frazer defined them this way:
If we analyze the principles of thought on which magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve themselves into two: first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and, second, that things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed. The former principle may be called the Law of Similarity, the latter the Law of Contact or Contagion. From the first of these principles, namely the Law of Similarity, the magician infers that he can produce any effect he desires merely by imitating it: from the second he infers that whatever he does to a material object will affect equally the person with whom the object was once in contact, whether it formed part of his body or not.[66]
* Concentration or meditation. A certain amount of focusing or restricting the mind to some imagined object (or will), according to Aleister Crowley, produces mystical attainment or "an occurrence in the brain characterized essentially by the uniting of subject and object." (Book Four, Part 1: Mysticism) Magic, as defined previously, seeks to aid concentration by constantly recalling the attention to the chosen object (or Will), thereby producing said attainment. For example, if one wishes to concentrate on a god, one might memorize a system of correspondences (perhaps chosen arbitrarily, as this would not affect its usefulness for mystical purposes) and then make every object that one sees "correspond" to said God.
Aleister Crowley wrote that ". . . the exaltation of the mind by means of magickal practices leads (as one may say, in spite of itself) to the same results as occur in straightforward Yoga." Crowley's magick thus becomes a form of mental, mystical, or spiritual discipline, designed to train the mind to achieve greater concentration. Crowley also made claims for the paranormal effects of magick, suggesting a connection with the first principle in this list. However, he defined any attempt to use this power for a purpose other than aiding mental or mystical attainment as "black magick".
* The magical power of the subconscious mind. To believers who think that they need to convince their subconscious mind to make the changes that they desire, all spirits and energies are projections and symbols that make sense to the subconscious. A variant of this belief is that the subconscious is capable of contacting spirits, who in turn can work magic.
* A mysterious interconnection in the cosmos that connects and binds all things, above and beyond the natural forces, or in some cases thought to be an as-yet undiscovered or unquantifiable natural force, such as akasha, the "aether," or "etheric field."
* The Oneness of All. Based on the fundamental concepts of monism and Non-duality, this philosophy holds that Magic is little more than the application of one's own inherent unity with the universe. Hinging upon the personal realization, or "illumination," that the self is limitless, one may live in unison with nature, seeking and preserving balance in all things. For monism to allow for magic, it cannot be a materialist or physicalist monism. It must be an idealist and/or pantheist version of monism.
Many more theories exist. Practitioners will often mix these concepts, and sometimes even invent some themselves. In the contemporary current of chaos magic in particular, it is not unusual to believe that any concept of magic works.
Key principles of utilizing Magic are often said to be Concentration and Visualization. Many of those who purportedly cast spells attain a mental state called the "Trance State" to enable the spell. The Trance State is often described as an emptying of the mind, akin to meditation.
[edit] Magic, ritual, and religion
Main articles: Magic and religion and Myth and ritual
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Viewed from a non-theistic perspective, many religious rituals and beliefs seem similar to, or identical to, magical thinking.
Related to both magic and prayer is religious supplication. This involves a prayer, or even a sacrifice to a supernatural being or god. This god or being is then asked to intervene on behalf of the person offering the prayer.
The difference, in theory, is that prayer requires the assent of a deity with an independent will, who can deny the request. Magic, by contrast is thought to be effective:
* by virtue of the operation itself;
* or by the strength of the magician's will;
* or because the magician believes he can command the spiritual beings addressed by his spells.
In practice, when prayer doesn't work, it means that the god has chosen not to hear nor grant it; when magic fails, it is because of some defect in the casting of the spell itself. Consequently magical rituals tend to place more emphasis on exact formulaic correctness and are less extempore than prayer. Ritual is the magician's failsafe, the key to any hope for success, and the explanation for failure.
A possible exception is the practice of word of faith, where it is often held that it is the exercise of faith in itself that brings about a desired result.
[edit] Magic in animism and folk religion
An 1873 Victorian illustration of a "Ju-ju house" on the Gold Coast showing fetishised skulls and bones.
Juju charm protecting dugout canoe on riverbank, in Suriname.1954.
Appearing from aboriginal tribes in Australia and Māori tribes in New Zealand to rainforest tribes in South America, bush tribes in Africa and ancient Pagan tribal groups in Europe, some form of shamanic contact with the spirit world seems to be nearly universal in the early development of human communities. Much of the Babylonian and Egyptian pictorial writing characters appear derived from the same sources.
Although indigenous magical traditions persist to this day, very early on some communities transitioned from nomadic to agricultural civilizations, and with this shift, the development of spiritual life mirrored that of civic life. Just as tribal elders were consolidated and transformed in kings and bureaucrats, so too were shamans and adepts changed into priests and a priestly caste.
This shift is by no means in nomenclature alone. While the shaman's task was to negotiate between the tribe and the spirit world, on behalf of the tribe, as directed by the collective will of the tribe, the priest's role was to transfer instructions from the deities to the city-state, on behalf of the deities, as directed by the will of those deities. This shift represents the first major usurpation of power by distancing magic from those participating in that magic. It is at this stage of development that highly codified and elaborate rituals, setting the stage for formal religions, began to emerge, such as the funeral rites of the Egyptians and the sacrifice rituals of the Babylonians, Persians, Aztecs and Mayans.
In 2003, Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, told the UN's Indigenous People's Forum that during the Congo Civil War, his people were hunted down and eaten as though they were game animals. Both sides of the war regarded them as "subhuman" and some say their flesh can confer magical powers.[67][68]
On April, 2008, Kinshasa, the police arrested 14 suspected victims (of penis snatching) and sorcerers accused of using black magic or witchcraft to steal (make disappear) or shrink men's penises to extort cash for cure, amid a wave of panic.[69] Arrests were made in an effort to avoid bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 alleged penis snatchers were beaten to death by mobs.[70]
[edit] Native American medicine
Main article: Shamanism#Americas
The Shamanism practiced by the indigenous peoples of the Americas was called "medicine" and was practiced by medicine men. In addition to healing, medicine served many other purposes, for example among the Cheyenne, one of Plains Indians that lived in the Great Plains of North America, medicine such as war paint, war shields, war shirts, and war bonnets, such as the famous war bonnet of Roman Nose, served to protect a warrior from wounding during battle.[71][72]
[edit] Magic in Hinduism
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Traditional welcome performance, Mitral, Kheda district, Gujarat
It has been often stated that India is a land of magic, both supernatural and mundane. Hinduism is one of the few religions that has sacred texts like the Vedas that discuss both white and black magic. The Atharva Veda is a veda that deals with mantras that can be used for both good and bad. The word mantrik in India literally means "magician" since the mantrik usually knows mantras, spells, and curses which can be used for or against forms of magic. Tantra is likewise employed for ritual magic by the tantrik. Many ascetics after long periods of penance and meditation are alleged to attain a state where they may utilize supernatural powers. However, many say that they choose not to use them and instead focus on transcending beyond physical power into the realm of spirituality. Many siddhars are said to have performed miracles that would ordinarily be impossible to perform. The Aghoris consume human flesh in pursuit of immortality and the supernatural. They distinguish themselves from other Hindu sects and priests by their alcoholic and cannibalistic rituals.[73]
[edit] Magic and monotheism
Officially, Christianity and often Islam characterize magic as forbidden witchcraft, and have often prosecuted alleged practitioners of it with varying degrees of severity. Other religions, such as Judaism and Zoroastrianism have rather more ambiguous positions towards it. Trends in monotheistic thought have dismissed all such manifestations as trickery and illusion, nothing more than dishonest gimmicks.
[edit] In Judaism
Further information: Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah
In Judaism the Torah prohibits Jews from being superstitious or engaging in astrology (Lev. 19, 26), from muttering incantations (Deut. 18, 11), from consulting an ov (mediums), yidoni (seers), or attempting to contact the dead (Deut. 18, 11), from going into a trance to foresee events, etc., and from performing acts of magic (Deut. 18, 10). See 613 Mitzvot. Some scholars have viewed Kabbalistic aspects of Medieval Judaism as embellishing on practices of Greco-Roman magic.[citation needed] Virtually all works pseudepigraphically claim, or are ascribed, ancient authorship. For example, Sefer Raziel HaMalach, an astro-magical text partly based on a magical manual of late antiquity, Sefer ha-Razim, was, according to the kabbalists, transmitted to Adam by the angel Raziel after he was evicted from Eden.
Another famous work, the Sefer Yetzirah, supposedly dates back to the patriarch Abraham. This tendency toward pseudepigraphy has its roots in Apocalyptic literature, which claims that esoteric knowledge such as magic, divination and astrology was transmitted to humans in the mythic past by the two angels, Aza and Azaz'el (in other places, Azaz'el and Uzaz'el) who 'fell' from heaven (see Genesis 6:4).
However, genuine Kabbalah is meant to delve into the hidden and mystical aspects of the Torah which God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, and should not be confused with superstitious or magical practices, which are antithetical to an traditional Jewish values.
[edit] In Christianity
Further information: Renaissance magic, Grimoire, Christian views on witchcraft, and Theurgy
Magia was viewed with suspicion by Christianity from the time of the Church fathers. It was, however, never completely settled whether there may be permissible practices, e.g. involving relics or holy water as opposed to "blasphemous" necromancy (nigromantia) involving the invocation of demons (goetia). The distinction became particularly pointed and controversial during the Early Modern witch-hunts, with some authors such as Johannes Hartlieb denouncing all magical practice as blasphemous, while others portrayed natural magic as not sinful.
The position taken by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, one of the foremost Renaissance magicians, is ambiguous. The character of Faustus, likely based on a historical 16th century magician or charlatan, became the prototypical popular tale of a learned magician who succumbs to a pact with the devil.
The current Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses divination and magic under the heading of the First Commandment.[74]
It is careful to allow for the possibility of divinely inspired prophecy, but it rejects "all forms of divination":
(2116) All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.
The section on "practices of magic or sorcery" is less absolute, specifying "attempts to tame occult powers" in order to "have supernatural power over others". Such are denounced as "gravely contrary to the virtue of religion", notably avoiding a statement on whether such attempts can have any actual effect (that is, attempts to employ occult practices are identified as violating the First Commandment because they in themselves betray a lack of faith, and not because they may or may not result in the desired effect).
The Catechism expresses skepticism towards widespread practices of folk Catholicism without outlawing them explicitly:
(2117) [...] Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.
Some argue that the recent popularity of the prosperity gospel constitutes a return to magical thinking within Christianity. Note also that Gnostic Christianity has a strong mystical current, but shies away from practical magic and focuses more on theurgy.
[edit] In Islam
Any discussion of Muslim magic poses a double set of problems. On the one hand, like its counterpart in predominantly Christian cultures, magic is forbidden by orthodox leaders and legal opinions. However, in islam, black magic is actively being used rather than preventing the practice of magic, this classification has forced a more complicated nomenclature in Muslim cultures. Nor has the prohibition of "magic" staved its influence on European magical traditions and the early stages of scientific thought. On the other hand, translating various Arabic terms as ‘magic’ causes another set of problems with no clear answers.
As with any question regarding the behavior of Muslims in relation to authorized practices, theological decisions begin by consulting the Qur’an. The second chapter introduces an explanation for the introduction of magic into the world:
They followed what the evil ones gave out (falsely) against the power of Solomon: the blasphemers were, not Solomon, but the evil ones, teaching men magic, and such things as came down at Babylon to the angels Harut and Marut. But neither of these taught anyone (such things) without saying: “We are only for trial; so do not blaspheme.” They learned from them the means to sow discord between man and wife. But they could not thus harm anyone except by Allah’s permission. And they learned what harmed them, not what profited them. And they knew that the buyers of (magic) would have no share in the happiness of the Hereafter. And vile was the price for which they did sell their souls, if they but knew! (Q 2:102).
Though it presents a generally contemptuous attitude towards magic (Muhammad was accused by his detractors of being a magician),[75] the Qur’an distinguishes between apparent magic (miracles sanctioned by Allah) and real magic. The first is that used by Solomon, who being a prophet of Allah, is assumed to have used miraculous powers with Allah’s blessing.[76] The second form is the magic that was taught by the “evil ones,” or al-shayatin. Al-shayatin has two meanings; the first is similar to the Christian Satan. The second meaning, which is the one used here, refers to a djinn of superior power.[77] The al-shayatin taught knowledge of evil and “pretended to force the laws of nature and the will of Allah . . .”[78] According to this belief, those who follow this path turn themselves from Allah and cannot reach heaven. The Arabic word translated in this passage as “magic” is sihr. The etymological meaning of sihr suggests that “it is the turning . . . of a thing from its true nature . . . or form . . . to something else which is unreal or a mere appearance . . .”[79] However, the seriousness with which the passage treats it reveals that sihr, in the context of the Qur’an, is no mere illusion. Sowing discord between a married couple and harming others with sihr are very real consequences. If one uses sihr for such malevolent purposes, then its assault on marital harmony and social justice probably influenced the contempt for which it is generally viewed in the Qur’an.
By the first millennium C.E., sihr became a fully developed system in Islamic society. Within this system, all magicians “assert[ed] that magic is worked by the obedience of spirits to the magician.”[80] The efficacy of this system comes from the belief that every Arabic letter, every word, verse, and chapter in the Qur’an, every month, day, time and name were created by Allah a priori, and that each has an angel and a djinn servant.[81] It is through the knowledge of the names of these servants that an actor is able to control the angel and djinn for his or her purposes.[82]
The Sunni and Shia sects of Islam typically forbid all use of magic. The Sufis within these two sects are much more ambiguous about its use as seen in the concept of "Barakah". If magic is understood in terms of Frazer’s principle of contagion, then barakah is another term that can refer to magic. Barakah, variously defined as “blessing,” or “divine power,” is a quality one possesses rather than a category of activity. According to Muslim conception, the source of barakah is solely from Allah; it is Allah’s direct blessing and intervention conferred upon special, pious Muslims.[83] Barakah has a heavily contagious quality in that one can transfer it by either inheritance or contact. Of all the humans who have ever lived, it is said that the Prophet Muhammad possessed the greatest amount of barakah and that he passed this to his male heirs through his daughter Fatima.[84] Barakah is not just limited to Muhammad’s family line; any person who is considered holy may also possess it and transfer it to virtually anyone else. In Morocco, barakah transfer can be accomplished by sharing a piece of bread from which the possessor has eaten because saliva is the vessel of barakah in the human body.[85] However, the transference of barakah may also occur against the will of its possessor through other forms of physical contact such as hand shaking and kissing.[86] The contagious element of barakah is not limited to humans as it can be found in rocks, trees, water, and even in some animals, such as horses.[87]
Just how the actor maintained obedience depended upon the benevolence or malevolence of his practice. Malevolent magicians operated by enslaving the spirits through offerings and deeds displeasing to Allah. Benevolent magicians, in contrast, obeyed and appeased Allah so that Allah exercised His will upon the spirits.[88] Al-Buni provides the process by which this practice occurs:
First: the practitioner must be of utterly clean soul and garb. Second, when the proper angel is contacted, this angel will first get permission from God to go to the aid of the person who summoned him. Third: the practitioner “must not apply . . .[his power] except to that purpose [i.e. to achieve goals] which would please God.[89]
However, not all Islamic groups accept this explanation of benevolent magic. The Wahhabis particularly view this as shirk, denying the unity of Allah. Consequently, the Wahhabis renounce appellations to intermediaries such as saints, angels, and djinn, and renounce magic, fortune-telling, and divination.[90] This particular brand of magic has also been condemned as forbidden by a fatwa issued by Al-Azhar University.[91] Further, Egyptian folklorist Hasan El-Shamy, warns that scholars have often been uncritical in their application of the term sihr to both malevolent and benevolent forms of magic. He argues that in Egypt, sihr only applies to sorcery. A person who practices benevolent magic “is not called saahir or sahhaar (sorcerer, witch), but is normally referred to as shaikh (or shaikha for a female), a title which is normally used to refer to a clergyman or a community notable or elder, and is equal to the English title: ‘Reverend.’”[92]
Through late 14th century Old French magique, the word "magic" derives via Latin magicus from the Greek adjective magikos (μαγικός) used in reference to the "magical" arts of the Magicians (Greek: magoi, singular mágos, μάγος); the Zoroastrian astrologer priests. Greek mágos is first attested in Heraclitus (6th century BC, apud. Clement Protrepticus 12) who curses the Magians and others for their "impious rites". Greek magikos is attested from the 1st century Plutarch, typically appearing in the feminine, in μαγική τέχνη (magike techne, Latin ars magica) "magical art".[citation needed]
Likewise, sorcery was taken in ca. 1300 from Old French sorcerie, which is from Vulgar Latin *sortiarius, from sors "fate", apparently meaning "one who influences fate". Sorceress appears also in the late 14th century, while sorcerer is attested only from 1526.[citation needed]
[edit] Theories of magic
[edit] Definitions of relevant terminology
The foremost perspectives on magic in anthropology are functionalist, symbolist and intellectualist. These three perspectives are used to describe how magic works in a society. The functionalist perspective, usually associated with Bronisław Malinowski, maintains that all aspects of society are meaningful and interrelated.[1] In the functionalist perspective, magic performs a latent function in the society. The symbolist perspective researches the subtle meaning in rituals and myths that define a society[2] and deals with questions of theodicy -- why do bad things happen to good people. Finally the intellectualist perspective, associated with Edward Burnett Tylor and Sir James Frazer, regard magic as logical, but based on a flawed understanding of the world.
[edit] Magical thinking
Main article: Magical thinking
Magical thinking in anthropology, psychology, and cognitive science is nonscientific causal reasoning that often includes such ideas as associative thinking, the ability of the mind to affect the physical world (see the philosophical problem of mental causation), and correlation mistaken for causation. Symbolic expression may be brought into play, as well as the use of metaphor, metonym, and synchronicity. Practitioners of magic are often portrayed as irrational, but some theorists maintain that the magician’s goals are not necessarily physical, and that magical practices are, in some cases, genuinely efficacious.[citation needed]
[edit] Psychological theories of magic
Main article: Psychological theories of magic
Psychological theories treat magic as a personal phenomenon intended to meet individual needs, as opposed to a social phenomenon serving a collective purpose. Theories range from magic as neurosis to magic as bad science to magic as anxiety relief.[citation needed]
[edit] Theories of magic and religion
Magic and religion are categories of beliefs and systems of knowledge used within societies. While generally considered distinct categories in western cultures, the interactions, similarities, and differences have been central to the study of magic for many theorists in sociology and anthropology, including Frazer, Mauss, S. J. Tambiah and Malinowski. From the intellectualist and functionalist perspectives, magic is often considered most analogous to science and technology. From the symbolist perspective, it is most alike religion.[citation needed]
[edit] Marcel Mauss
In A General Theory of Magic,[3] Marcel Mauss classifies magic as a social phenomenon, akin to religion and science, but yet a distinct category. In practice, magic bears a strong resemblance to religion. Both use similar types of rites, materials, social roles and relationships to accomplish aims and engender belief. They both operate on similar principles, in particular those of consecration and sacredness of objects and places, interaction with supernatural powers mediated by an expert, employment of symbolism, sacrifice, purification and representation in rites, and the importance of tradition and continuation of knowledge. Magic and religion also share a collective character and totality of belief. The rules and powers of each are determined by the community’s ideals and beliefs and so may slowly evolve. Additionally neither supports partial belief. Belief in one aspect of the phenomena necessitates belief in the whole, and each incorporates structural loopholes to accommodate contradictions.
The distinction Mauss draws between religion and magic is both of sentiment and practice. He portrays magic as an element of pre-modern societies and in many respects an antithesis of religion. Magic is secretive and isolated, and rarely performed publicly in order to protect and to preserve occult knowledge. Religion is predictable and proscribed and is usually performed openly in order to impart knowledge to the community. While these two phenomena do share many ritual forms, Mauss concludes that “a magical rite is any rite that does not play a part in organized cults. It is private, secret, mysterious and approaches the limit of prohibited rite.”[4] In practice, magic differs from religion in desired outcome. Religion seeks to satisfy moral and metaphysical ends, while magic is a functional art which often seeks to accomplish tangible results. In this respect magic resembles technology and science. Belief in each is diffuse, universal, and removed from the origin of the practice. Yet, the similarity between these social phenomena is limited, as science is based in experimentation and development, while magic is an “a priori belief.”[5] Mauss concludes that though magical beliefs and rites are most analogous to religion, magic remains a social phenomenon distinct from religion and science with its own characteristic rules, acts and aims.
[edit] Tambiah
According to Tambiah, magic, science, and religion all have their own “quality of rationality,” and have been influenced by politics and ideology.[6] Tambiah also believes that the perceptions of these three ideas have evolved over time as a result of Western thought. The lines of demarcation between these ideas depend upon the perspective of a variety of anthropologists, but Tambiah has his own opinions regarding magic, science, and religion. According to Tambiah, religion is based on an organized community (a church), and it is supposed to encompass all aspects of life. In religion, man is obligated to an outside power and he is supposed to feel piety towards that power. Religion is effective and attractive because it is generally exclusive and strongly personal. Also, because religion affects all aspects of life, it is convenient in the sense that morality and notions of acceptable behavior are imposed by God and the supernatural. Science, on the other hand, suggests a clear divide between nature and the supernatural, making its role far less all-encompassing than that of religion.
As opposed to religion, Tambiah suggests that mankind has a much more personal control over events. Science, according to Tambiah, is “a system of behavior by which man acquires mastery of the environment.”[7] Whereas in religion nature and the supernatural are connected and essentially interchangeable, in science, nature and the supernatural are clearly separate spheres. Also, science is a developed discipline; a logical argument is created and can be challenged. The base of scientific knowledge can be extended, while religion is more concrete and absolute. Magic, the less accepted of the three disciplines in Western society, is an altogether unique idea.
Tambiah states that magic is a strictly ritualistic action that implements forces and objects outside the realm of the gods and the supernatural. These objects and events are said to be intrinsically efficacious, so that the supernatural is unnecessary. To some, including the Greeks, magic was considered a “proto-science.” Magic has other historical importance as well. Much of the debate between religion and magic originated during the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Church was attacked for its doctrine of transubstantiation because it was considered a type of sacramental magic. Furthermore, the possibility of anything happening outside of God’s purpose was denied. Spells[8] were viewed as ineffective and blasphemous, because religion required belief in "a conscious agent who could be deflected from this purpose by prayer and supplication.”[9] Prayer was the only way to effectively enact positive change. The Protestant Reformation was a significant moment in the history of magical thought because Protestantism provided the impetus for a systematic understanding of the world. In this systematic framework, there was no room for magic and its practices. Besides the Reformation, the Renaissance was an influential epoch in the history of thought concerning magic and science.
During the Renaissance, magic was less stigmatized even though it was done in secret and therefore considered "occult." Renaissance magic was based on cosmology, and its powers were said to be derived from the stars and the alignment of the planets. Newton himself began his work in mathematics because he wanted to see “whether judicial astrology had any claim to validity.”[10]
The lines of demarcation between science, magic, and religion all have origins dating to times when established thought processes were challenged. The rise of Western thought essentially initiated the differentiation between the three disciplines. Whereas science could be revised and developed through rational thought, magic was seen as less scientific and systematic than science and religion, making it the least respected of the three.
[edit] Bronisław Malinowski
Main article: Bronisław Malinowski
In his essay “Magic, Science and Religion,” Bronisław Malinowski contends that every person, no matter how primitive, uses both magic and science. To make this distinction he breaks up this category into the “sacred” and the “profane”[11] or "magic/religion" and science. He theorizes that feelings of reverence and awe rely on observation of nature and a dependence on its regularity. This observation and reasoning about nature is a type of science. Magic and science both have definite aims to help “human instincts, needs and pursuits.”[12] Both magic and science develop procedures that must be followed to accomplish specific goals. Magic and science are both based on knowledge; magic is knowledge of the self and of emotion, while science is knowledge of nature.
According to Malinowski, magic and religion are also similar in that they often serve the same function in a society. The difference is that magic is more about the personal power of the individual and religion is about faith in the power of God. Magic is also something that is passed down over generations to a specific group while religion is more broadly available to the community.
To end his essay, Malinowski poses the question, “why magic?” He writes, “Magic supplies primitive man with a number of ready-made rituals, acts and beliefs, with a definite mental and practical technique which serves to bridge over the dangerous gaps in every important pursuit or critical situation.”[13]
[edit] Robin Horton
In “African Traditional Thought and Western Science,”[14] Robin Horton compares the magical and religious thinking of non-modernized cultures with western scientific thought. He argues that both traditional beliefs and western science are applications of “theoretical thinking.” The common form, function, and purpose of these theoretical idioms are therefore structured and explained by 8 main characteristics of this type of thought.
1.) In all cultures the majority of human experience can be explained by common sense. The purpose then of theory is to explain forces that operate behind and within the commonsense world. Theory should impose order and reason on everyday life by attributing cause to a few select forces.[15]
2.) Theories also help place events in a causal context that is greater than common sense alone can provide, because commonsense causation is inherently limited by what we see and experience. Theoretical formulations are therefore used as intermediaries to link natural effects to natural causes.[16]
3.) “Common sense and theory have complementary roles in everyday life.”[17] Common sense is more handy and useful for a wide range of everyday circumstances, but occasionally there are circumstances that can only be explained using a wider causal vision, so a jump to theory is made.
4.) “Levels of theory vary with context.”[18] There are widely and narrowly-encompassing theories, and the individual can usually chose which to use in order to understand and explain a situation as is deemed appropriate.
5.) All theory breaks up aspects of commonsense events, abstracts them and then reintegrates them into the common usage and understanding.[19]
6.) Theory is usually created by analogy between unexplained and familiar phenomena.[20]
7.) When theory is based on analogy between explained and unexplained observations, “generally only a limited aspect of the familiar phenomena is incorporated into (the) explanatory model”.[21] It is this process of abstraction that contributes to the ability of theories to transcend commonsense explanation. For example, gods have the quality of spirituality by omission of many common aspects of human life.
8.) Once a theoretical model has been established, it is often modified to explain contradictory data so that it may no longer represent the analogy on which is was based.[22]
While both traditional beliefs and western science are based on theoretical thought, Horton argues that the differences between these knowledge systems in practice and form are due to their states in open and closed cultures.[23] He classifies scientifically oriented cultures as ‘open’ because they are aware of other modes of thought, while traditional cultures are ‘closed’ because they are unaware of alternatives to the established theories. The varying sources of information in these systems results in differences in form which, Horton asserts, often blinds observers from seeing the similarities between the systems as two applications of theoretical thought.
[edit] Common features of magical practice
[edit] Magical language
The performance of magic almost always involves the use of language (in Western civilization, mainly Latin). Whether spoken out loud or unspoken, words are frequently used to access or guide magical power. In "The Magical Power of Words" (1968) S. J. Tambiah argues that the connection between language and magic is due to a belief in the inherent ability of words to influence the universe. Bronsilaw Malinowski, in Coral Gardens and their Magic (1935), suggests that this belief is an extension of man’s basic use of language to describe his surroundings, in which “the knowledge of the right words, appropriate phrases and the more highly developed forms of speech, gives man a power over and above his own limited field of personal action.”[24] Magical speech is therefore a ritual act and is of equal or even greater importance to the performance of magic than non-verbal acts.[25] Yet not all speech is considered magical. Only certain words and phrases or words spoken in a specific context are considered to have magical power.[26] Magical language, according to C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards's (1923) categories of speech, is distinct from scientific language because it is emotive and it converts words into symbols for emotions; whereas in scientific language words are tied to specific meanings and refer to an objective external reality.[27] Magical language is therefore particularly adept at constructing metaphors that establish symbols and link magical rituals to the world.[28]
Malinowski argues that “the language of magic is sacred, set and used for an entirely different purpose to that of ordinary life.”[29] The two forms of language are differentiated through word choice, grammar, style, or by the use of specific phrases or forms: prayers, spells, songs, blessings, or chants, for example. Sacred modes of language often employ archaic words and forms in an attempt to invoke the purity or “truth” of a religious or a cultural ‘golden age.’ The use of Hebrew in Judaism is an example.[30] Another potential source of the power of words is their secrecy and exclusivity. Much sacred language is differentiated enough from common language that it is incomprehensible to the majority of the population and it can only be used and interpreted by specialized practitioners, (magicians, priests, shamans, even mullahs.).[31][32] In this respect, Tambiah argues that magical languages violate the primary function of language: communication.[33] Yet adherents of magic are still able to use and to value the magical function of words by believing in the inherent power of the words themselves and in the meaning that they must provide for those who do understand them. This leads Tambiah to conclude that “the remarkable disjunction between sacred and profane language which exists as a general fact is not necessarily linked to the need to embody sacred words in an exclusive language.”[30]
[edit] Witchcraft
Main article: Witchcraft
Often linked to magical beliefs and practices, witchcraft is a means for people to magically affect the world around them through various spells, rituals or even desires, in either a harmful or benevolent way. The ability to perform witchcraft is sometimes viewed as a biological trait and is sometimes said to be an acquired skill. In relation, sorcery is generally seen as the manipulation of magic. The intent behind witchcraft has been the object of much debate. Historically, witchcraft has been cited as the source of tragedy or misfortune in communities. Occasionally, as in the case of the Salem witch trials,[34] social or economic strain can manifest in witchcraft accusations, suggesting that it is sometimes the alleged witch who is actually innocent. Many witches, moreover, claim to practice white magic, which is a benevolent form of the craft.
[edit] Magicians
Main article: Magician (paranormal)
A magician is any practitioner of magic; therefore a magician may be a specialist or a common practitioner, even if he or she does not consider himself a magician.[35] All that is required is the possession of esoteric knowledge, traits, or expertise that are culturally acknowledged to harbor magical powers.
Magical knowledge is usually passed down from one magician to another through family or apprenticeships, though in some cultures it may also be purchased[36]. The information transferred usually consists of instructions on how to perform a variety of rituals, manipulate magical objects, or how to appeal to gods or to other supernatural forces. Magical knowledge is often well guarded, as it is a valuable commodity to which each magician believes that he has a proprietary right.[37]
Yet the possession of magical knowledge alone may be insufficient to grant magical power; often a person must also possess certain magical objects, traits or life experiences in order to be a magician. Among the Azande, for example, in order to question an oracle a man must have both the physical oracle (poison, or a washboard, for example) and knowledge of the words and the rites needed to make the object function.[36]
A variety of personal traits may be credited to magical power, though frequently they are associated with an unusual birth into the world.[38] For example, in 16th century Friuli, babies born with the caul were believed to be good witches, benandanti, who would engage evil witches in nighttime battles over the bounty of the next year’s crops.[39]
Certain post-birth experiences may also be believed to convey magical power. For example a person’s survival of a near-death illness may be taken as evidence of their power as a healer: in Bali a medium’s survival is proof of her association with a patron deity and therefore her ability to communicate with other gods and spirits.[40] Initiations are perhaps the most commonly used ceremonies to establish and to differentiate magicians from common people. In these rites the magician’s relationship to the supernatural and his entry into a closed professional class is established, often through rituals that simulate death and rebirth into a new life.[41]
Given the exclusivity of the criteria needed to become a magician, much magic is performed by specialists.[42] Laypeople will likely have some simple magical rituals for everyday living, but in situations of particular importance, especially when health or major life events are concerned, a specialist magician will often be consulted.[43] The powers of both specialist and common magicians are determined by culturally accepted standards of the sources and the breadth of magic. A magician may not simply invent or claim new magic; the magician is only as powerful as his peers believe him to be.[44] In different cultures, various types of magicians may be differentiated based on their abilities, their sources of power, and on moral considerations, including divisions into different categories like sorcerer, witch, healer and others.
[edit] Rituals
Magical rituals are the precisely defined actions (including speech) used to work magic. Bronisław Malinowski describes ritual language as possessing a high “coefficient of weirdness,” by which he means that the language used in ritual is archaic and out of the ordinary, which helps foster the proper mindset to believe in the ritual.[45] S. J. Tambiah notes, however, that even if the power of the ritual is said to reside in the words, “the words only become effective if uttered in a very special context of other action.”[46] These other actions typically consist of gestures, possibly performed with special objects at a particular place or time. Object, location, and performer may require purification beforehand. This caveat draws a parallel to the felicity conditions J. L. Austin requires of performative utterances.[47] By “performativity” Austin means that the ritual act itself achieves the stated goal. For example, a wedding ceremony can be understood as a ritual, and only by properly performing the ritual does the marriage occur. Émile Durkheim stresses the importance of rituals as a tool to achieve “collective effervescence,” which serves to help unify society. Psychologists, on the other hand, describe rituals in comparison to obsessive-compulsive rituals, noting that attentional focus falls on the lower level representation of simple gestures.[48] This results in goal demotion, as the ritual places more emphasis on performing the ritual just right than on the connection between the ritual and the goal. However, the purpose of ritual is to act as a focus and the effect will vary depending on the individual.
[edit] Magical symbols
Magic often utilizes symbols that are thought to be intrinsically efficacious. Anthropologists, such as Sir James Frazer (1854–1938), have characterized the implementation of symbols into two primary categories: the “principle of similarity,” and the “principle of contagion.” Frazer further categorized these principles as falling under “sympathetic magic,” and “contagious magic.” Frazer asserted that these concepts were “general or generic laws of thought, which were misapplied in magic.”[49]
[edit] The Principle of Similarity
The principle of similarity, also known as the “association of ideas,” which falls under the category of “sympathetic magic,” is the thought that if a certain result follows a certain action, then that action must be responsible for the result. Therefore, if one is to perform this action again, the same result can again be expected. One classic example of this mode of thought is that of the rooster and the sunrise. When a rooster crows, it is a response to the rising of the sun. Based on sympathetic magic, one might interpret these series of events differently. The law of similarity would suggest that since the sunrise follows the crowing of the rooster, the rooster must have caused the sun to rise.[50] Causality is inferred where it should not have been. Therefore, a practitioner might believe that if he is able to cause the rooster to crow, he will be able to control the timing of the sunrise.
[edit] The Principle of Contagion
Another primary type of magical thinking includes the principle of contagion. This principle suggests that once two objects come into contact with each other, they will continue to affect each other even after the contact between them has been broken. One example that Tambiah gives is related to adoption. Among some American Indians, for example, when a child is adopted his or her adoptive mother will pull the child through some of her clothes, symbolically representing the birth process and thereby associating the child with herself.[51] Therefore, the child emotionally becomes hers even though their relationship is not biological. As Claude Lévi-Strauss would put it: the birth “would consist, therefore, in making explicit a situation originally existing on the emotional level and in rendering acceptable to the mind pains which the body refuses to tolerate…the woman believes in the myth and belongs to a society which believes in it.”[52]
Symbols, for many cultures that utilize magic, are seen as a type of technology. Natives might use symbols and symbolic actions to bring about change and improvements, much like Western cultures might use advanced irrigation techniques to promote soil fertility and crop growth. Michael Brown discusses the use of nantag stones among the Aguaruna as being similar to this type of “technology.”[53] These stones are brought into contact with stem cuttings of plants like manioc before they are planted in an effort to promote growth. Nantag are powerful, tangible symbols of fertility, so they are brought into contact with crops in order to transmit their fertility to the plants.
Others argue that ritualistic actions are merely therapeutic. Tambiah cites the example of a native hitting the ground with a stick. While some may interpret this action as symbolic (i.e. the man is trying to make the ground yield crops through force), others would simply see a man unleashing his frustration at poor crop returns. Ultimately, whether or not an action is symbolic depends upon the context of the situation as well as the ontology of the culture. Many symbolic actions are derived from mythology and unique associations, whereas other ritualistic actions are just simple expressions of emotion and are not intended to enact any type of change.
[edit] History of Western magic
Further information: History of astrology and History of religion
[edit] Classical antiquity
Main article: Magic in the Greco-Roman world
Hecate, the ancient Greek goddess of magic.
The prototypical magicians were a class of priests, the Magi of Zoroastrianism, and their reputation together with that of Ancient Egypt shaped the hermeticism of Hellenistic religion.[citation needed]
The Greek mystery religions had strongly magical components, and in Egypt, a large number of magical papyri, in Greek, Coptic, and Demotic, have been recovered. These sources contain early instances of much of the magical lore that later became part of Western cultural expectations about the practice of magic, especially ceremonial magic.[citation needed] They contain early instances of:
* the use of "magic words" said to have the power to command spirits;
* the use of wands and other ritual tools;
* the use of a magic circle to defend the magician against the spirits that he is invoking or evoking; and
* the use of mysterious symbols or sigils which are thought to be useful when invoking or evoking spirits.[54]
The use of spirit mediums is also documented in these texts; many of the spells call for a child to be brought to the magic circle to act as a conduit for messages from the spirits.[citation needed] The time of the Emperor Julian of Rome, marked by a reaction against the influence of Christianity, saw a revival of magical practices associated with neo-Platonism under the guise of theurgy.[citation needed]
[edit] Middle Ages
Several medieval scholars were considered to be magicians in popular legend, notably Gerbert d'Aurillac and Albertus Magnus: both men were active in the scientific research of their day as well as in ecclesiastical matters, which was enough to attach to them a nimbus of the occult.
Magical practice was actively discouraged by the church, but it remained widespread in folk religion throughout the medieval period. Magical thinking became syncretized with Christian dogma, expressing itself in practices like the judicial duel and the veneration of relics. In many cases, relics became amulets, and various churches strove to purchase scarce or valuable examples, hoping to become places of pilgrimage. As in any other economic endeavor, demand gave rise to supply.[55][clarification needed] Tales of the miraculous effects of relics of the saints were later compiled into popular collections like the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, or the Dialogus miraculorum of Caesar of Heisterbach.
From the 13th century, the Jewish Kabbalah exerted influence on Christian occultism, giving rise to the first grimoires and the scholarly occultism that would evolve into Renaissance magic. The demonology and angelology contained in the earliest grimoires assume a life surrounded by Christian implements and sacred rituals. The underlying theology in these works of Christian demonology encourages the magician to fortify himself with fasting, prayers, and sacraments, so that by using the holy names of God in the sacred languages, he could use divine powers to coerce demons into appearing and serving his usually lustful or avaricious magical goals.[56]
13th century astrologers include Johannes de Sacrobosco and Guido Bonatti.
[edit] Renaissance
Further information: Renaissance magic
Renaissance humanism saw resurgence in hermeticism and Neo-Platonic varieties of ceremonial magic. The Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, on the other hand, saw the rise of scientism, in such forms as the substitution of chemistry for alchemy, the dethronement of the Ptolemaic theory of the universe assumed by astrology, the development of the germ theory of disease, that restricted the scope of applied magic and threatened the belief systems upon which it relied.[55]
The seven artes magicae or artes prohibitae, arts prohibited by canon law, as expounded by Johannes Hartlieb in 1456, their sevenfold partition reflecting that of the artes liberales and artes mechanicae, were:
1. nigromancy ("black magic", "demonology", linked by popular etymology with necromancy)
2. geomancy
3. hydromancy
4. aeromancy
5. pyromancy
6. chiromancy
7. scapulimancy
Both bourgeoisie and nobility in the 15th and 16th century showed great fascination with these arts, which exerted an exotic charm by their ascription to Arabic, Jewish, Gypsy and Egyptian sources. There was great uncertainty in distinguishing practices of superstition, occultism, and perfectly sound scholarly knowledge or pious ritual. The intellectual and spiritual tensions erupted in the Early Modern witch craze, further reinforced by the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation, especially in Germany, England, and Scotland.[55]
[edit] Baroque
Further information: 17th-century philosophy and natural magic
A talisman from the Black Pullet, a late grimoire containing instructions on how a magician might cast rings and craft amulets for various magical applications, culminating in the Hen that Lays Golden Eggs.
Study of the occult arts remained intellectually respectable well into the 17th century, and only gradually divided into the modern categories of natural science, occultism, and superstition. The 17th century saw the gradual rise of the "age of reason", while belief in witchcraft and sorcery, and consequently the irrational surge of Early Modern witch trials, receded, a process only completed at the end of the Baroque period circa 1730. Christian Thomasius still met opposition as he argued in his 1701 Dissertatio de crimine magiae that it was meaningless to make dealing with the devil a criminal offence, since it was impossible to really commit the crime in the first place. In Britain, the Witchcraft Act of 1735 established that people could not be punished for consorting with spirits, while would-be magicians pretending to be able to invoke spirits could still be fined as con artists.
Further information: Isaac Newton's occult studies
"Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians." — John Maynard Keynes
[edit] Romanticism
From 1776 to 1781 AD, Jacob Philadelphia performed feats of magic, sometimes under the guise of scientific exhibitions, throughout Europe and Russia. Baron Carl Reichenbach's experiments with his Odic force appeared to be an attempt to bridge the gap between magic and science. More recent periods of renewed interest in magic occurred around the end of the nineteenth century, where Symbolism and other offshoots of Romanticism cultivated a renewed interest in exotic spiritualities. European colonialism put Westerners in contact with India and Egypt and re-introduced exotic beliefs. Hindu and Egyptian mythology frequently feature in nineteenth century magical texts.[57] The late 19th century spawned a large number of magical organizations, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, and specifically magical variants on Freemasonry. The Golden Dawn represented perhaps the peak of this wave of magic, attracting cultural celebrities like William Butler Yeats, Algernon Blackwood, and Arthur Machen.[58]
[edit] 20th century
In general, the 20th century has seen a sharp rise in public interest in various forms of magical practice, and the foundation of a number of traditions and organisations, ranging from the distinctly religious to the philosophical.
In England, a further revival of interest in magic was heralded by the repeal of the last Witchcraft Act in 1951. This was the cue for Gerald Gardner to publish his first witchcraft-themed book, Witchcraft Today, in which he claimed to reveal the existence of a witch-cult that dated back to pre-Christian Europe. Although many of Gardner's claims have since come under intensive criticism from sources both within and without the neopagan community, his works remain the most important founding stone of Wicca. Gardner combined magic and religion in a way that was later to cause people to question the Enlightenment's boundaries between the two subjects.[citation needed]
Gardner's newly created religion, and many others, took off in the atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s, when the counterculture of the hippies also spawned another period of renewed interest in magic, divination, and other occult practices.[59] The various branches of Neopaganism and other Earth religions that have emerged since Gardner's publication tend to follow a pattern in combining the practice of magic and religion, although this combination is not exclusive to them. Following the trend of magic associated with counterculture, some feminists launched an independent revival of goddess worship. This brought them into contact with the Gardnerian tradition of magical religion (or religious magic), and deeply influenced that tradition in return.[58]
The pentagram, an ancient geometrical symbol known from many cultures, is often associated with magic. In Europe, the Pythagoreans first used the pentagram as a symbol of their movement.
Some people in the West believe in or practice various forms of magic. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley's Thelema and their subsequent offshoots, influenced by Eliphas Levi, are most commonly associated with the resurgence of magical tradition in the English speaking world of the 20th century. Other, similar resurgences took place at roughly the same time, centered in France and Germany. The western traditions acknowledging the natural elements, the seasons, and the practitioner's relationship with the Earth, Gaia, or a primary Goddess have derived at least in part from these magical groups, and are mostly considered Neopagan. Long-standing indigenous traditions of magic are regarded as Pagan.
Allegedly for gematric reasons Aleister Crowley preferred the spelling magick, defining it as "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will." By this, he included "mundane" acts of change as well as ritual magic. In Magick in Theory and Practice, Chapter XIV, Crowley says:
What is a Magical Operation? It may be defined as any event in nature which is brought to pass by Will. We must not exclude potato-growing or banking from our definition. Let us take a very simple example of a Magical Act: that of a man blowing his nose.
Western magical traditions include hermetic magic and its many offshoots predominantly inspired by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as well as Wicca and some other Neopagan religions. Definitions, concepts and uses of magic tend to vary even within magical traditions and indeed often between individuals.
Wicca is one of the more publicly known traditions within Neopaganism, a magical religion inspired by medieval witchcraft, with influences including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Crowley. Ruickbie (2004:193-209) shows that Wiccans and witches define magic in many different ways and use it for a number of different purposes. Despite that diversity of opinion, he concludes that the result upon the practitioner is generally perceived as a positive one.
The belief in Magic is often considered superstitious, although it could be argued that some magical practices rely upon widely accepted psychological principles and are only intended to promote internal personal changes within the practitioner themselves[citation needed]. Visualization techniques, for instance, widely used by magicians, are also used in somewhat different contexts in fields such as clinical psychology and sports training.[60]
[edit] Theories of magic
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[edit] Anthropological and psychological origins
Further information: Myth and ritual
The belief that one can influence supernatural powers, by prayer, sacrifice or invocation goes back to prehistoric religion and is present in early records such as the Egyptian pyramid texts and the Indian Vedas.[61]
James George Frazer believed that magic was a fallacious system and asserted that magical observations are the result of an internal dysfunction: "Men mistook the order of their ideas for the order of nature, and hence imagined that the control which they have, or seem to have, over their thoughts, permitted them to exercise a corresponding control over things."[62]
Others, such as N. W. Thomas[63] and Sigmund Freud have rejected this explanation. Freud explains that "the associated theory of magic merely explains the paths along which magic proceeds; it does not explain its true essence, namely the misunderstanding which leads it to replace the laws of nature by psychological ones".[64] Freud emphasizes that what led primitive men to come up with magic is the power of wishes: "His wishes are accompanied by a motor impulse, the will, which is later destined to alter the whole face of the earth in order to satisfy his wishes. This motor impulse is at first employed to give a representation of the satisfying situation in such a way that it becomes possible to experience the satisfaction by means of what might be described as motor hallucinations. This kind of representation of a satisfied wish is quite comparable to children's play, which succeeds their earlier purely sensory technique of satisfaction. [...] As time goes on, the psychological accent shifts from the motives for the magical act on to the measures by which it is carried out—that is, on to the act itself. [...] It thus comes to appear as though it is the magical act itself which, owing to its similarity with the desired result, alone determines the occurrence of that result."[65]
See also: Shamanism
[edit] Theories of adherents
Adherents to magic believe that it may work by one or more of the following basic principles:[citation needed]
* Natural forces that cannot be detected by science at present, and which may not be detectable at all. These magical forces are said to exist in addition to and alongside the four fundamental forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear strong force and the nuclear weak force.
* Intervention of spirits, similar to hypothetical natural forces, but with their own consciousness and intelligence. Believers in spirits will often describe a whole cosmos of beings of many different kinds, sometimes organized into a hierarchy.
* A mystical power, such as mana, numen, chi, or kundalini, that exists in all things. Sometimes this power is concentrated in a magical object, such as a ring, a stone, a charm, or dehk, which the magician can manipulate.
* Manipulation of the Elements, by using the will of the magician and symbols or objects which are representative of the element(s). Western practitioners typically use the Classical elements of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire.
* Manipulation of Energy. Also believed to be the manipulation of energy from the human body. Most commonly referred to by the usage of the hands while the mouth uses a command of power.
* Manipulation of symbols. Adherents of magical thinking believe that symbols can be used for more than representation: they can magically take on a physical quality of the phenomenon or object that they represent. Another view is that sigils) in particular can be "charged" with magical powers. By manipulating symbols or sigils, one is said to be able to impact reality, or the reality that this symbol represents.
* The principles of sympathetic magic of Sir James George Frazer, explicated in his The Golden Bough (third edition, 1911–1915). These principles include the "law of similarity" and the "law of contact" or "contagion." These are systematized versions of the manipulation of symbols. Frazer defined them this way:
If we analyze the principles of thought on which magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve themselves into two: first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and, second, that things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed. The former principle may be called the Law of Similarity, the latter the Law of Contact or Contagion. From the first of these principles, namely the Law of Similarity, the magician infers that he can produce any effect he desires merely by imitating it: from the second he infers that whatever he does to a material object will affect equally the person with whom the object was once in contact, whether it formed part of his body or not.[66]
* Concentration or meditation. A certain amount of focusing or restricting the mind to some imagined object (or will), according to Aleister Crowley, produces mystical attainment or "an occurrence in the brain characterized essentially by the uniting of subject and object." (Book Four, Part 1: Mysticism) Magic, as defined previously, seeks to aid concentration by constantly recalling the attention to the chosen object (or Will), thereby producing said attainment. For example, if one wishes to concentrate on a god, one might memorize a system of correspondences (perhaps chosen arbitrarily, as this would not affect its usefulness for mystical purposes) and then make every object that one sees "correspond" to said God.
Aleister Crowley wrote that ". . . the exaltation of the mind by means of magickal practices leads (as one may say, in spite of itself) to the same results as occur in straightforward Yoga." Crowley's magick thus becomes a form of mental, mystical, or spiritual discipline, designed to train the mind to achieve greater concentration. Crowley also made claims for the paranormal effects of magick, suggesting a connection with the first principle in this list. However, he defined any attempt to use this power for a purpose other than aiding mental or mystical attainment as "black magick".
* The magical power of the subconscious mind. To believers who think that they need to convince their subconscious mind to make the changes that they desire, all spirits and energies are projections and symbols that make sense to the subconscious. A variant of this belief is that the subconscious is capable of contacting spirits, who in turn can work magic.
* A mysterious interconnection in the cosmos that connects and binds all things, above and beyond the natural forces, or in some cases thought to be an as-yet undiscovered or unquantifiable natural force, such as akasha, the "aether," or "etheric field."
* The Oneness of All. Based on the fundamental concepts of monism and Non-duality, this philosophy holds that Magic is little more than the application of one's own inherent unity with the universe. Hinging upon the personal realization, or "illumination," that the self is limitless, one may live in unison with nature, seeking and preserving balance in all things. For monism to allow for magic, it cannot be a materialist or physicalist monism. It must be an idealist and/or pantheist version of monism.
Many more theories exist. Practitioners will often mix these concepts, and sometimes even invent some themselves. In the contemporary current of chaos magic in particular, it is not unusual to believe that any concept of magic works.
Key principles of utilizing Magic are often said to be Concentration and Visualization. Many of those who purportedly cast spells attain a mental state called the "Trance State" to enable the spell. The Trance State is often described as an emptying of the mind, akin to meditation.
[edit] Magic, ritual, and religion
Main articles: Magic and religion and Myth and ritual
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Viewed from a non-theistic perspective, many religious rituals and beliefs seem similar to, or identical to, magical thinking.
Related to both magic and prayer is religious supplication. This involves a prayer, or even a sacrifice to a supernatural being or god. This god or being is then asked to intervene on behalf of the person offering the prayer.
The difference, in theory, is that prayer requires the assent of a deity with an independent will, who can deny the request. Magic, by contrast is thought to be effective:
* by virtue of the operation itself;
* or by the strength of the magician's will;
* or because the magician believes he can command the spiritual beings addressed by his spells.
In practice, when prayer doesn't work, it means that the god has chosen not to hear nor grant it; when magic fails, it is because of some defect in the casting of the spell itself. Consequently magical rituals tend to place more emphasis on exact formulaic correctness and are less extempore than prayer. Ritual is the magician's failsafe, the key to any hope for success, and the explanation for failure.
A possible exception is the practice of word of faith, where it is often held that it is the exercise of faith in itself that brings about a desired result.
[edit] Magic in animism and folk religion
An 1873 Victorian illustration of a "Ju-ju house" on the Gold Coast showing fetishised skulls and bones.
Juju charm protecting dugout canoe on riverbank, in Suriname.1954.
Appearing from aboriginal tribes in Australia and Māori tribes in New Zealand to rainforest tribes in South America, bush tribes in Africa and ancient Pagan tribal groups in Europe, some form of shamanic contact with the spirit world seems to be nearly universal in the early development of human communities. Much of the Babylonian and Egyptian pictorial writing characters appear derived from the same sources.
Although indigenous magical traditions persist to this day, very early on some communities transitioned from nomadic to agricultural civilizations, and with this shift, the development of spiritual life mirrored that of civic life. Just as tribal elders were consolidated and transformed in kings and bureaucrats, so too were shamans and adepts changed into priests and a priestly caste.
This shift is by no means in nomenclature alone. While the shaman's task was to negotiate between the tribe and the spirit world, on behalf of the tribe, as directed by the collective will of the tribe, the priest's role was to transfer instructions from the deities to the city-state, on behalf of the deities, as directed by the will of those deities. This shift represents the first major usurpation of power by distancing magic from those participating in that magic. It is at this stage of development that highly codified and elaborate rituals, setting the stage for formal religions, began to emerge, such as the funeral rites of the Egyptians and the sacrifice rituals of the Babylonians, Persians, Aztecs and Mayans.
In 2003, Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, told the UN's Indigenous People's Forum that during the Congo Civil War, his people were hunted down and eaten as though they were game animals. Both sides of the war regarded them as "subhuman" and some say their flesh can confer magical powers.[67][68]
On April, 2008, Kinshasa, the police arrested 14 suspected victims (of penis snatching) and sorcerers accused of using black magic or witchcraft to steal (make disappear) or shrink men's penises to extort cash for cure, amid a wave of panic.[69] Arrests were made in an effort to avoid bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 alleged penis snatchers were beaten to death by mobs.[70]
[edit] Native American medicine
Main article: Shamanism#Americas
The Shamanism practiced by the indigenous peoples of the Americas was called "medicine" and was practiced by medicine men. In addition to healing, medicine served many other purposes, for example among the Cheyenne, one of Plains Indians that lived in the Great Plains of North America, medicine such as war paint, war shields, war shirts, and war bonnets, such as the famous war bonnet of Roman Nose, served to protect a warrior from wounding during battle.[71][72]
[edit] Magic in Hinduism
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Traditional welcome performance, Mitral, Kheda district, Gujarat
It has been often stated that India is a land of magic, both supernatural and mundane. Hinduism is one of the few religions that has sacred texts like the Vedas that discuss both white and black magic. The Atharva Veda is a veda that deals with mantras that can be used for both good and bad. The word mantrik in India literally means "magician" since the mantrik usually knows mantras, spells, and curses which can be used for or against forms of magic. Tantra is likewise employed for ritual magic by the tantrik. Many ascetics after long periods of penance and meditation are alleged to attain a state where they may utilize supernatural powers. However, many say that they choose not to use them and instead focus on transcending beyond physical power into the realm of spirituality. Many siddhars are said to have performed miracles that would ordinarily be impossible to perform. The Aghoris consume human flesh in pursuit of immortality and the supernatural. They distinguish themselves from other Hindu sects and priests by their alcoholic and cannibalistic rituals.[73]
[edit] Magic and monotheism
Officially, Christianity and often Islam characterize magic as forbidden witchcraft, and have often prosecuted alleged practitioners of it with varying degrees of severity. Other religions, such as Judaism and Zoroastrianism have rather more ambiguous positions towards it. Trends in monotheistic thought have dismissed all such manifestations as trickery and illusion, nothing more than dishonest gimmicks.
[edit] In Judaism
Further information: Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah
In Judaism the Torah prohibits Jews from being superstitious or engaging in astrology (Lev. 19, 26), from muttering incantations (Deut. 18, 11), from consulting an ov (mediums), yidoni (seers), or attempting to contact the dead (Deut. 18, 11), from going into a trance to foresee events, etc., and from performing acts of magic (Deut. 18, 10). See 613 Mitzvot. Some scholars have viewed Kabbalistic aspects of Medieval Judaism as embellishing on practices of Greco-Roman magic.[citation needed] Virtually all works pseudepigraphically claim, or are ascribed, ancient authorship. For example, Sefer Raziel HaMalach, an astro-magical text partly based on a magical manual of late antiquity, Sefer ha-Razim, was, according to the kabbalists, transmitted to Adam by the angel Raziel after he was evicted from Eden.
Another famous work, the Sefer Yetzirah, supposedly dates back to the patriarch Abraham. This tendency toward pseudepigraphy has its roots in Apocalyptic literature, which claims that esoteric knowledge such as magic, divination and astrology was transmitted to humans in the mythic past by the two angels, Aza and Azaz'el (in other places, Azaz'el and Uzaz'el) who 'fell' from heaven (see Genesis 6:4).
However, genuine Kabbalah is meant to delve into the hidden and mystical aspects of the Torah which God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, and should not be confused with superstitious or magical practices, which are antithetical to an traditional Jewish values.
[edit] In Christianity
Further information: Renaissance magic, Grimoire, Christian views on witchcraft, and Theurgy
Magia was viewed with suspicion by Christianity from the time of the Church fathers. It was, however, never completely settled whether there may be permissible practices, e.g. involving relics or holy water as opposed to "blasphemous" necromancy (nigromantia) involving the invocation of demons (goetia). The distinction became particularly pointed and controversial during the Early Modern witch-hunts, with some authors such as Johannes Hartlieb denouncing all magical practice as blasphemous, while others portrayed natural magic as not sinful.
The position taken by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, one of the foremost Renaissance magicians, is ambiguous. The character of Faustus, likely based on a historical 16th century magician or charlatan, became the prototypical popular tale of a learned magician who succumbs to a pact with the devil.
The current Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses divination and magic under the heading of the First Commandment.[74]
It is careful to allow for the possibility of divinely inspired prophecy, but it rejects "all forms of divination":
(2116) All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.
The section on "practices of magic or sorcery" is less absolute, specifying "attempts to tame occult powers" in order to "have supernatural power over others". Such are denounced as "gravely contrary to the virtue of religion", notably avoiding a statement on whether such attempts can have any actual effect (that is, attempts to employ occult practices are identified as violating the First Commandment because they in themselves betray a lack of faith, and not because they may or may not result in the desired effect).
The Catechism expresses skepticism towards widespread practices of folk Catholicism without outlawing them explicitly:
(2117) [...] Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.
Some argue that the recent popularity of the prosperity gospel constitutes a return to magical thinking within Christianity. Note also that Gnostic Christianity has a strong mystical current, but shies away from practical magic and focuses more on theurgy.
[edit] In Islam
Any discussion of Muslim magic poses a double set of problems. On the one hand, like its counterpart in predominantly Christian cultures, magic is forbidden by orthodox leaders and legal opinions. However, in islam, black magic is actively being used rather than preventing the practice of magic, this classification has forced a more complicated nomenclature in Muslim cultures. Nor has the prohibition of "magic" staved its influence on European magical traditions and the early stages of scientific thought. On the other hand, translating various Arabic terms as ‘magic’ causes another set of problems with no clear answers.
As with any question regarding the behavior of Muslims in relation to authorized practices, theological decisions begin by consulting the Qur’an. The second chapter introduces an explanation for the introduction of magic into the world:
They followed what the evil ones gave out (falsely) against the power of Solomon: the blasphemers were, not Solomon, but the evil ones, teaching men magic, and such things as came down at Babylon to the angels Harut and Marut. But neither of these taught anyone (such things) without saying: “We are only for trial; so do not blaspheme.” They learned from them the means to sow discord between man and wife. But they could not thus harm anyone except by Allah’s permission. And they learned what harmed them, not what profited them. And they knew that the buyers of (magic) would have no share in the happiness of the Hereafter. And vile was the price for which they did sell their souls, if they but knew! (Q 2:102).
Though it presents a generally contemptuous attitude towards magic (Muhammad was accused by his detractors of being a magician),[75] the Qur’an distinguishes between apparent magic (miracles sanctioned by Allah) and real magic. The first is that used by Solomon, who being a prophet of Allah, is assumed to have used miraculous powers with Allah’s blessing.[76] The second form is the magic that was taught by the “evil ones,” or al-shayatin. Al-shayatin has two meanings; the first is similar to the Christian Satan. The second meaning, which is the one used here, refers to a djinn of superior power.[77] The al-shayatin taught knowledge of evil and “pretended to force the laws of nature and the will of Allah . . .”[78] According to this belief, those who follow this path turn themselves from Allah and cannot reach heaven. The Arabic word translated in this passage as “magic” is sihr. The etymological meaning of sihr suggests that “it is the turning . . . of a thing from its true nature . . . or form . . . to something else which is unreal or a mere appearance . . .”[79] However, the seriousness with which the passage treats it reveals that sihr, in the context of the Qur’an, is no mere illusion. Sowing discord between a married couple and harming others with sihr are very real consequences. If one uses sihr for such malevolent purposes, then its assault on marital harmony and social justice probably influenced the contempt for which it is generally viewed in the Qur’an.
By the first millennium C.E., sihr became a fully developed system in Islamic society. Within this system, all magicians “assert[ed] that magic is worked by the obedience of spirits to the magician.”[80] The efficacy of this system comes from the belief that every Arabic letter, every word, verse, and chapter in the Qur’an, every month, day, time and name were created by Allah a priori, and that each has an angel and a djinn servant.[81] It is through the knowledge of the names of these servants that an actor is able to control the angel and djinn for his or her purposes.[82]
The Sunni and Shia sects of Islam typically forbid all use of magic. The Sufis within these two sects are much more ambiguous about its use as seen in the concept of "Barakah". If magic is understood in terms of Frazer’s principle of contagion, then barakah is another term that can refer to magic. Barakah, variously defined as “blessing,” or “divine power,” is a quality one possesses rather than a category of activity. According to Muslim conception, the source of barakah is solely from Allah; it is Allah’s direct blessing and intervention conferred upon special, pious Muslims.[83] Barakah has a heavily contagious quality in that one can transfer it by either inheritance or contact. Of all the humans who have ever lived, it is said that the Prophet Muhammad possessed the greatest amount of barakah and that he passed this to his male heirs through his daughter Fatima.[84] Barakah is not just limited to Muhammad’s family line; any person who is considered holy may also possess it and transfer it to virtually anyone else. In Morocco, barakah transfer can be accomplished by sharing a piece of bread from which the possessor has eaten because saliva is the vessel of barakah in the human body.[85] However, the transference of barakah may also occur against the will of its possessor through other forms of physical contact such as hand shaking and kissing.[86] The contagious element of barakah is not limited to humans as it can be found in rocks, trees, water, and even in some animals, such as horses.[87]
Just how the actor maintained obedience depended upon the benevolence or malevolence of his practice. Malevolent magicians operated by enslaving the spirits through offerings and deeds displeasing to Allah. Benevolent magicians, in contrast, obeyed and appeased Allah so that Allah exercised His will upon the spirits.[88] Al-Buni provides the process by which this practice occurs:
First: the practitioner must be of utterly clean soul and garb. Second, when the proper angel is contacted, this angel will first get permission from God to go to the aid of the person who summoned him. Third: the practitioner “must not apply . . .[his power] except to that purpose [i.e. to achieve goals] which would please God.[89]
However, not all Islamic groups accept this explanation of benevolent magic. The Wahhabis particularly view this as shirk, denying the unity of Allah. Consequently, the Wahhabis renounce appellations to intermediaries such as saints, angels, and djinn, and renounce magic, fortune-telling, and divination.[90] This particular brand of magic has also been condemned as forbidden by a fatwa issued by Al-Azhar University.[91] Further, Egyptian folklorist Hasan El-Shamy, warns that scholars have often been uncritical in their application of the term sihr to both malevolent and benevolent forms of magic. He argues that in Egypt, sihr only applies to sorcery. A person who practices benevolent magic “is not called saahir or sahhaar (sorcerer, witch), but is normally referred to as shaikh (or shaikha for a female), a title which is normally used to refer to a clergyman or a community notable or elder, and is equal to the English title: ‘Reverend.’”[92]
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