It's easy to get caught up in the idea that 'art' is a neatly defined box, perhaps something exclusively European and post-Renaissance. But honestly, that feels a bit… small, doesn't it? I mean, if we're talking about the sheer human impulse to create things that stir us, that demand our attention and shape our feelings, then we're looking at something far older and much more widespread.
Think about those incredible cave paintings in France and Spain. Picasso himself saw them as art, and who are we to argue? If we dismiss them because they had a 'function' – perhaps to tell a story, to guide a hunt, or to connect with the spiritual – then we'd have to exclude the Sistine Chapel ceiling too, wouldn't we? The idea that art must be purely for self-expression or communication, a notion we've inherited from more recent times, doesn't quite capture the full picture.
What I find so compelling, as I've explored different traditions, is this fundamental drive to design things for visual effect. It's about crafting artifacts – whether they're intricate garments, grand architectural plans, or even something as simple as a well-designed tool – that are meant to grab our attention, to elicit awe, wonder, or sheer delight. This isn't about having a specific word for 'art' or 'artist' in every culture. Sometimes, what we might call 'beauty' was understood as 'spiritual power,' or the very guarantee of it. The makers of the Book of Kells, for instance, poured unimaginable effort into those pages, not by accident, but because they deliberately sought that profound response, that sense of wonder, whatever they chose to call the source of it.
It’s this focus on intent, on the deliberate shaping of visual experience to evoke a reaction, that feels like the most honest and inclusive way to understand the vast tapestry of human creativity. It acknowledges the patron, the function, and the profound visual thinking that underpins it all, regardless of the era or the continent.
