Davis 1993

Beginning the History of Art
Author(s): Whitney Davis

Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 51, No. 3, Philosophy and the
Histories of the Arts (Summer, 1993), pp. 327-350
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
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WHITNEY DAVIS
Beginningthe History of Art
Openingmanytextbooksof art history,one finds strong professional disposition to distrustques-

"prehistoric"images like the paleolithic cave tions of origins that our textbooks do go ahead
paintingsfrom Lascauxor Altamirastandingfor and attemptto identify them at all.
the history of pictorial art from its hypothetical Identifyorigins, maybe;but analyze, explain,
inception about forty thousandyears ago until or debate them, certainly not. For second, it is
about 10,000 B.C., that is, for the first half or obvious that a single received view has literally
three-quartersof the entire preserved duration dominatedthe "Figure 1" slot in the textbooks,
of humanimage making. For instance, the sub- namely,the Axial Gallery at Lascaux. This view
stantivehistorical narrativein the latest edition appears yet again in three other widely used
of H.W. Janson'swell-known History of Art is texts, Gardner'sArt Through the Ages, Cun-
introducedby a paintedbison from the Spanish ningham and Reich's Culture and Values, and
Magdaleniancave of Altamiraand a view of the Fleming's Arts and Ideas.3 Lascaux has been
so-called Axial Gallery at Lascaux (fig. 1), with nominatedfor this obsessiveregard,to use Levin-
its greatpaintedbulls.' son's terms,4 in part because the circumstances
There is much to puzzle us in these devices. of its discovery are accidental and dramatic,
First, despiteoffering variousspeculationsabout confirming two of our longstanding intuitions
the meaning or function of paleolithic images, aboutwhatan "origin"shouldfeel like-in 1940,
the textbooks never really address the problem boys chasingtheirdog stumbleduponan entrance
of their historical origins. This blindness can to the cave.5 Moreover,the story is easily nar-
be found both in conservative and in so-called ratable as one which modern audiences have
"new" art history. For conservativehistorians, heardmanytimes before-for instance,for Hein-
there simply will never be enough archaeologi- rich Schliemann at Troy in 1871 and Howard
cal evidence about origins. The issue, then, is Carter at the tomb of Tutankhamenin 1923.
condemnedas inherentlyand supposedlyfatally Lascaux alleviates the paradoxof how the "be-
theoretical.Formany "new"historians.although ginning" of the history of art will be told by
theoretical discussion is admissible, questions locating its narratibilitynot in its own historical
of origins are still banned; for them, the notion beginnings but in its historicalbeginningfor us
of an origin cannotbe reconstructedin terms of as art historians.
the founding assumption semiotics and struc- Indeed, the textbooks' standardview of the
turalismrequireaboutlanguageor language-like Axial Gallery predisposesreadersto understand
systems, namely, that such systems are conven- it as an intelligible origin. Lascaux has been
tional. That conventionality cannot be God- reproducedas an artworkpossessingseveralvery
given but must ratherbe producedin an histor- familiar properties of artworksas recent tradi-
ical and social process-and that this process tion-that is, traditionlong after Lascaux-has
must have its own history which cannot in itself establishedthem. With its long cumulatingfrieze
assumeconventionality-are questionslogically of apparently interrelated figures, which the
priorto and thus outside of the strict antirealism viewer encounters all at once in an initial view
and strongconventionalismof orthodox semiot- and then moves along, the Axial Gallery resem-
ics and structuralism.2It is thus in spite of a bles Egyptiantombpaintings,Greekpedimental
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51:3 Summer 1993
328 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
g<** o r=e v
FIGURE 1. Line sketch of paintingof horses and bison, cave of Lascaux, c. 15,000 B.C.
reliefs, medieval nave mosaics, or the Sistine pear late in a long history, perhapsto be under-
Chapelceiling-making the appropriately"prim- stoodas a developedtradition.The earliestknown
itive" exception that animals occupy the places examples of image making(as it is recognizable
of human figures. Never mind that paleolithic to us)-whatever they imply about broaderhis-
viewers could not see Lascaux this way, with toricalandphilosophicalquestions-are datedto
theirsmalllampsilluminatingvery shortstretches about 35,000 to 32,000 B.C., the period during
of wall surface at a time.6 Even if we recognize which Homo sapiens sapiens, anatomicallymod-
the unrolled,evenly illuminatedfrieze as a modern humans, are thoughtto have achievedadap-
ern photographicartwork,the individualfigures tive dominance over Neanderthals in hominid
themselves seem to us almost complete in out- ecological niches.8 In Honour and Fleming's
line, monumental,and vividly realistic in many VisualArts, the most sophisticatedtextbook on
details. To our eyes, they are fully resolved im- the market,Lascaux'sbulls do make their ritual
ages-formal, iconographic,andaestheticwholes. appearance,but only in fifth place after several
Never mind that some of them were heavily earlier"sculptures"datingbackto 30,000 B.C.9
reworkedor scratchedoverby paleolithicmakers Nonetheless, the organizationof the art his-
or viewers.7 torical chronicle, and especially its narrativiza-
Even though they are seen as wholes, the tion, seems to requiresome "Figure 1." What-
images also seem to spring from the living rock ever object it is, this "Figure 1" has a complex
itself. Like the circumstancesof discovery, this status. On the one hand, it is tied to art history's
fact can be construedto alleviate the burdenof conception of artworksas essentially historical.
explicating origins, allowing Lascaux self-evi- It asserts not only that art making somehow
dently to be an origin. As one influential argu- begins or emerges in time and space, that it is an
mentwould have it, pictorialimage makingsup- historicalobject, like a species or a person, open
posedly began as a man-maderesponse to and in principleto classificatoryanalysesandhistor-
elaborationof natural forms seen to look like icizing accounts of all stripes. "Figure 1" also
other things. Never mind that any image must implies a Figures "2," "3," and so on; it estab-
reflect some of the propertiesof its supporting lishes that art making is inherentlya matterof
medium, which can always be seen in it; that a replication,of on-going, accruing,or compound-
rock looking like a bull is not, as such, a picture ing repetition and variation. In these terms,
of a bull; and thatit was Leonardoda Vinci who "Figure 1" is understoodby all to be a place-
recommendedapprenticeartists should seek out holder. As a discursiveconvenience, a narrative
suggestive resemblances in lichen stains on a or pedagogical necessity, it is open to change
wall, not the painters at Lascaux, who mostly with any new historicaldiscoveries abouteither
avoidedthe really bumpyparts and whose solu- beginningsor replications.
tions to painter'sblock are unknown. On the other hand, however, "Figure 1" is
Now none of the textbooks is so naive as to also tied to art history's counterthrustingcon-
offer a paintingin Lascauxas being, in itself, the ception of artworks as essentially ahistorical,
"first"pictureor the beginningof the history of leaning on certain definably modernbut appar-
art. It is widely knownthatthe caves of Lascaux ently inescapableaestheticdoctrinesand critical
andAltamira,at approximately15,000 B.C., ap- conceptions.Accordingto this conception,there
Davis Historical Narratives and the Philosophy of Art 329
must be some time and place at which an art- erties? Is there an artworkthathistoriansshould
workis irreduciblyfirst, originary,or emergent. ever put on the cover of an art history?
Accordingly, any history of secondary, repeti-
tive, or derivative replications-such as the art I. ART BEYOND COMPARE
historian'stypical mosaic of sources, influences,
quotations,revisions, andthe like-is ultimately In consideringthe possibility of artworkswhich
beside the point. Moreover,to interpretthe art- stand as "Figure 1" in the strongest sense, we
work's "beginning" historically would be to could define them simply as artworks with no
misrecognize the absolute originariness of the art-historical comparisons. Such artworks are
beginning-the sense in which what the artwork outside and before art history in the straightfor-
begins is history itself. Whatremainsto us here, ward sense that an art historianis just someone
then, must be our inauguralconfrontationwith who gives substantivehistoricalexplanationsfor
the artworkas such. the possibility of comparisonbetweenartworks.
The historical and the ahistorical Figure 1 Crudely put, an art historian is just someone
may not be the same actual artwork. Lascaux who shows two slides at the same time.
has certainly been established as an historical Of course, my characterizationis simplistic.
Figure 1. The textbooks use it to exemplify For one thing, comparisons are not made only
actual historical beginning as the emergence of by academic art historians. Artists, critics, phi-
and basis for later replications. But, equally losophers, and other viewers often function as
clearly, it is not the ahistorical Figure 1. What "arthistorians"in my sense. Indeed, one cannot
motivatesits selection as the historical Figure 1 even function as a critic or philosopher of the
is a prior commitmentto a history of Greek or arts, or even as an artist, without necessarily
Michelangelo'sart and of Leonardo'screativity functioning,at least in part, as an "arthistorian."
in which Lascaux is actually understood as a For anotherthing, comparison as such does
replication, admittedlyretrochronologically.In not art history or an art historian make. The
art historical aesthetics, at best Lascaux is a comparison must be interpretedin terms of an
Figure 2, with an ahistorical Figure 1, such as historical explanation for its possibility. There
the great bronze "Zeus" from Artemision or are many such explanations.In additionto famil-
Michelangelo'sDavid, coming before it-liter- iar claims about "influences"runningfrom one
ally on the covers of the textbooks, where they artworkto the other,it mightbe a good historical
serve not as an "ArtworkNumber 1" but as the explanation of the comparison to say how the
"Artwork"to or for which a history of artworks, person showing the two slides has been able to
Figure 1 throughthe rest, will be appended.10In find them in a slide archive in the first place.
this sense, the actual prehistoricimage is thor- Recent art history, in the professionalsense, has
oughly historical,and the actualhistoricalimage been divided about how statements about art
is outside or before history, the standard,moti- history's history should be relatedto apparently
vation, and frame for a history which easily very differentstatementsaboutart'shistory."I
invents and enfolds its self-fulfillingly legible A "Figure 1" with no art-historical com-
prehistory. parison would be "pre-historic"in the strong-
Let us now suppose, however,thatthe histor- and, I will argue, the only coherent-sense be-
ical Figure 1 and the ahistoricalFigure 1 are the cause the comparisonsof art history havealways
same pictorial artwork, namely, an actual pre- been undertakenin the awareness, more or less
historic work, presumably a very early one, obscure, that the history of art, the past of art
which can be said to be outside or before art making, is essentially continuous with art his-
history. This artworkwould not just be the history. To put it anotherway, the events of making
torical inaugurationof a particularchain of rep- an artworkin the past themselvesinvolvedan art
lications. It would also be the historicalorigin of history-a taking account of, a making refer-
the very possibility of any art-historicalreplica- ence to, and a comparingwith otherobjects and
tion as such, of art making as such, or of art images, some of them artworks,as historical in
history as such. Can we make sense of this relationto, and to an extent explanatoryof, the
supposition?Do we or could we have such "pre- artworkbeing made. Ourcomparison-our jux-
historic"artworksand what could be theirprop- tapositionof Figures 1 and 2, 2 and 3, 3 and 4,
330 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
and so forth-is supposedto model this past art- Some basis for the very possibility of the
historical activity within art making, typically comparison can always be articulated;we can
an artist's use of and reference to the work of say, at least, where we got our two slides. For
other artists. (The notion that an artwork is this reason actual individualartworksare never
establishedentirelyon the basis of its legibility completelypre-art-historicalfor us. They havea
in terms of other artworks'previous legibilities rooting in our art-historical reality. But con-
would be too limited. The artist might also be versely, because the art-historicityof artworks
taking account of other objects and images not cannot be fully revealedby all of the compari-
legible as artworksatjust that, or any, moment.) sons our art-historicalrealityallows us to make,
As everyone recognizes, many forensic and artworks are always partly pre-art-historical.
hermeneuticobstacles stand in the way of suc- We cannot fully root them in their art-historical
cessfully identifying the art-historicalrelations reality. Put another way, at times or in some
intrinsic to artworks. We might not have the places we just live with artworksas part of the
direct testimony of the artist or other traces of brutefurnitureof our world. Ourencounterwith
his workingpractices;even these would be open them is ahistorical. At other times or in other
to historical criticism. The historical explana- places, we graspthem as havinghistories.More-
tion of the comparison might be an inference over, according to the intuition underlyingour
from purely "formal" facts. For example, we art historical reality, the condition of our art
might assert that an artist took account of an historical reality as partialand fluctuatingmust
earlier artist's work to the extent that the later be continuous with artworkswithin history. At
practitionerapparentlyworks in the "style" of times, artworkswerejust in the world as part of
the earlier,but frequentlythe historicalcategory its brutefurnitureand people lived with them as
of "style" (in art history, it usually refers to a such. At othermoments, people graspedthem as
productionsystem from which many artifacts, having histories. All of this is only to say, then,
by different makers, commonly descend) is in- that art-historicityand its prehistoricityare in-
ferred from formal similarities among the arti- terpenetratingand variable phenomena, histor-
facts hypotheticallythoughtto belong to it. 12 ical in themselves. They are never wholly pres-
On the basis of formalobservationsalone, we ent in but never wholly absent from an actual
cannotshow our model of art-historicalrelations individualartwork.Thus it mightbe a mistake-
embodied in a comparison to be an adequate and a major source of the apparentinsolubility
representation of the art-historical relations of the question of art's origins-to look for a
in past art making. But despite this difficulty, beginningin actualindividualartworks,chrono-
among other things art history is supposed to logically prehistoricor otherwise. A "Figure 1"
model the art-historicityof artworksin the past. which could actually be dug up and exhibited
(The past of the artwork, of course, is not the will neverbe found.
whole story. The artworkmust exist in our his-
torical present as well, otherwise its historicity II. THE GAPS BETWEEN THE WORKS
could not be modelled in the first place. And art
history serves the present histories of artworks Art-historicalcomparisonsfrequentlyleave the
as much as their past.) When the art-historicity impressionthat the historicity identified by the
of artworkscannot be described and explained, comparisonlies somewherein the space between
our comparisons among them remain as com- the two artworkscompared,in the art-historical
parisonswhose possibility or basis has not been chronicle,narrative,or otherdiscoursefilling the
accountedfor. Such works are, I will say, "pre- printedpage betweena Figure 1 and a Figure 2.
art-historical." My special term here is really After all, in themselves the two artworks(and
not that different from usual. Because archae- their reproductions) are two wholly separate
ologists define the "historical"as the "literate," physical objects made at different times and
actual "prehistoric"arts are professionally de- places. Indeed, because anyone can compare
fined as just those arts for which no written two wholly separate artworks, art historians
evidence can be adduced-barring one major seem to be just those people who are able to
avenue of the art historical explication of any write up a discursivejustificationof the compar-
comparisonsamong them. ison conformingto certain canons of reasoning.
This laborseems, as it were, to be a supplemen- art-historicalintentionalityof each maker.Hence

tary, specific operationwe "do" to the artworks the paradoxicalquality of the comparison. On
themselves. the one hand, it says that two differentartworks
Thusa typicaltext mightcompareEric Fischl's go together, connected by some real route of
well known painting The Power of Rock and historical association-as we can infer if we
Roll, of 1984, to Jan Vermeer'sLady at a Vir- comparethem. But on the otherhand, it says that
ginal, of about 1670, in the National Gallery in two artworks transcend comparison, or, more
London.13 Both paintingssituatea young person properly,do not need it "done"to them, for they
in domestic interiors, in a sensual or even erotic already belong together as elements in an indi-
relationto music, at the intersectionof a strong vidualartwork'sart-historicity.Therefore,com-
exteriorlight enteringfrom a window on the left parisons, in trying to take the pre-art-historical
and a recognizable image depicted hanging on and make it art-historical,end up invokingboth
the wall above and to the right of the figure. actual history, a replicatorysequence and rela-
Most art historians,or critics functioningas art tionship, and prehistory,the enfolding of every
historians,wouldprobablysaythatFischlstrongly replicationwithin the emergentintentionalityof
alludes to Vermeer. Vermeer, then, must be a single artwork.In turn, by eliminatingthe gap
placed somehow within Fischl's very nearexpe- between the artworks, since they are "in" one
rience in painting the Power of Rock and Roll, another,it must somehow reinstitutethe gap at
for example, in a visit by Fischl to the National the absolute limit of all artworks:if art-histor-
Gallery, the narrativeof which will bridge the icity is a whole, then it is, of course, separate
gap betweenthe two works. from non-art-historicity.
But part of the point of the comparison is
precisely to suggest that there is not a "gap" III. THE IMPOSSIBLE LINK
between Vermeer and Fischl, a temporal and
spatialseparationbetween two autonomousart- Art historytendsto considerpictorialartworksas
worksto be "filled in" by our historicalchroni- finished wholes, suffused through-and-through
cle. Instead, the comparison models Fischl's in their making with the maker'sintentionality,
taking account of and making reference to the which consists at least in part of art-historicity.
Vermeernot as "separate"from Fischl but pre- On this account, the workto be identifiedas our
cisely for Fischl and as Fischl encountered it. hypothetical"Figure 1" could only be imagined
Both Vermeer'sLady at a Virginaland Fischl's as a replicationand summation. As such, how
emerging Power of Rock and Roll are "in" the could it also be a beginning?
single, continuous but differentiatedhistorical I do not wantto deny replicatorinessand sum-
process of Fischl's painting his painting, what mativeness as the art-historicity of artworks.
Wollheim would call Fischl's painting "as an But strictly speaking, only the chains of replica-
art," whetheror not Fischl is consciously aware tion and summationthemselves, the art histories
of the relationshipor overtly "stages" it in his to which individualartworkspartly belong, are
final resolution.14 replicatoryand summative.Withinthese chains,
Between two separateartworksin a compari- an individualartworkis only a link, discovered
son, Figures 1 and 2, the chronicle or narrative to be such throughthe method of comparison.
text, then, is actually the historicaljustification Takenout of a chain, a link is eitherbrokenapart
for understandingFigure 1 as Figure 2, or vice or it can be soldered up as a self-contained,
versa, or both together, at least in part. Each closed unit. Art historical aesthetics has opted
figure in a comparisonis a palimpsest, a differ- for this latter conception as the essence of art-
entiated structureof the taking-account-ofand works, whatwe mightcall the "impossiblelink."
making-reference-toconstitutingthe artist's in- The artwork, this aesthetic asserts, is a self-
tentionality,disentangledby the comparisonfor contained,autonomousobject. Perhapsit can be
narrative and pedagogical convenience. Thus an available "link" for the attachmentof the
the appropriatehistoricalobject to which we are currentlybroken, unrealized,or unmadebits of
led by the comparisonis not, or not just, thatof later links, but, in itself, it is already a whole.
realhistoricalroutesof associationbetween sep- However,at the same time, art historicalarchae-
arateartworks.Rather,it is a mental entity, the ology in its modern, forensic form can at least
conceive all of the links as available, merely nostalgia, fear of inferiority, vulgarity, prag-
"broken" bits, no one of which is whole or matism,andremorselesscolonization,commodi-
finished, lying around for the possibility of a fication, and selective homogenization which
later linking up in or as a chain. The tension was bourgeoisRomanculture.
between these two perspectives-what I have To take a later stage, in early modernEurope
just distinguishedas the "aesthetic"and the "ar- it was possible to give, sell, transport,display,
chaeological" or "forensic"-derives from the or collect a discrete physical thing while that
beginning of art history as a chain of disparate thing's art-historicity,the maker'sintentionality
events in itself. in or as arthistorical,remainedlargelyunknown.
The full intellectualand social history of the The identification and exhibition of art-histo-
"impossible link" in art history and its antece- ricityas such wouldonly become the social func-
dentshas yet to be written.In the broadestterms, tions of archivesand museums, developingwell
the supposed wholeness of artworksmight be a after the adventof large-scaleEuropeancollect-
conditionor a consequenceof the largerWestern ing, and of art advertising, art history, and art
aesthetic intuition, imbibed even by Marx, that criticism (what Carrier calls "artwriting"),17
artworkstransportor redeemus fromthe vague, whose origins lie, I believe, not so much in
unresolved,unfinished, merely materialand hu- Vasari'sLives (isted. 1550, 2nded. 1568) but in
man chaos of history (or delude us with claims Winckelmann'swriting, in the 1750s and 1760s,
to do so). More to my specific purposes here, again long after the rise of big-time collecting
aestheticwholeness has persistentlybeen identi- and, most important, coincident with the first
fied with the spatiotemporallydiscrete physical real art dealing. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-
object of art ratherthan with the art-historicity century "dealers"were mostly secretariesor li-
of the maker'sintentionalityas it is distributed- brariansto the nobility or the church,diplomats,
or "disseminated"-among both elements of travel guides, and belles-lettrists. Also moving
manyartworksandelements of the maker'snon- privatecorrespondence,gossip, aristocratictrin-
artworkactivities. kets and gifts, boys, and wives, they moved
For example, to take an early stage in the whole collections of works often only vaguely
beginning of art history, Livy tells us that the tied to known history, such as Cardinal Ales-
"craze"for Greek art began with the robbingof sandroAlbani'sfirst collection of antiquitiesac-
the Greek temples in Sicily in 211 B.C.; it was quired, with the help of Baron LePlat, in the
advancedby the annexationof Greecein 148 B.C. greatpurchaseof 1728 by the King of Polandfor
and of Pergamonin 130 B.C. 15 A Romancollec- his new antiquariumin Dresden. Here young
tor of Greek art did not just want to display Winckelmannsaw it, as well as Raphael'sSis-
Greekculturein a "linguistic"sense-for exam- tine Madonna, shaping the basic idea of his
ple, by learning the koine or, like the emperor seminal essay of 1755, Thoughtson the Imita-
Hadrian,adoptingGreekcoiffure.He also wanted tion of Greek Art in Painting and Sculpture.
Greekcultureas an independent,whole thing, a After the first sale, Albani went on to rebuildhis
trophy identifying his sophisticated, luxury collection-partly with the help of Winckelmann
tastes and internationalconnections, importing himself, now transplantedto Rome andemployed
sculpturesby the shiploadto be exhibited in his as the cardinal's librarian and confidant. But
salon or garden. Despite his various errors and until arrivingin Italy and visiting Herculaneum,
prejudices, in the Natural History Pliny served Winckelmann'sactualfamiliaritywith Greekart
these purposes well by writing an art history in was based largely upon the unparalleledcollec-
which discrete, labelled sculpturalworks were tion of small ancientgems andcoins, sometimes
classified under the names of historical Greek bearingimages of lost majorworks, in the hands
sculptors.16 In discussingoratoryand rhetoric,a of the Baron Stosch, a peripateticnoblemanand
majorconcernfor the Romanpublicman, Cicero spy. The 1760 sale catalogue for Stosch's hold-
and Quintilian added stylistic judgements on ings constitutedWinckelmann'sfirst majorhis-
long-deadGreekartistsandtheirartworks.Thus torical work, setting the stage for his great His-
the physical thing within one's graspbecame the tory of AncientArt of 1764, rightly regarded,I
currencyfor art-historicitiesdefinitivelybeyond think, as the first "true"art history.18
it. Its value was constructedin the admixtureof To take a still laterstage in the developmentof
art history, the forensic interestsof nineteenth- ical objects of art has conferred wholeness-
and twentieth-centuryart history can be under- boundaries, suffusions, and finishes-on their
stood in part, I believe, as a response to a crisis supposedart-historicity.In today'sart marketit
in the autonomousartwork. The growth of art- might seem to be aesthetic value tied to the
historicalgalleries and museumstied to compet- ineffable creativity of the maker's intentions
ing German, British, and French nationalisms, which inflates the raw material worth of the
the opening of seemingly insatiableart markets mere things of art. But in the history of art
in America, and other factors, dramatizedthe history it was, in fact, the autonomyof the mere
limited availability as well as the increasingly things of art which inflated aesthetic value and
stupendouscash value and potential equity of the art-historicity of artworks or, more accu-
artworks. A hundredyears after Winckelmann rately,packagedthem as wholes.
saw Raphael'sMadonnain Dresden, it was clear However, if art history's origins lie partly in
that the Dresdeners, for example, would not recountingand securingartworks-and theiran-
likely be able to acquiresuch a workagain, even alogs in styles, periods, and careers-as autono-
though artworksof the second rank and below mies, its paradoxicalresult, increasinglyobvious
were now pouring from tomb robbing, excava- by the turn of this century, was to attenuatethe
tions, and colonial enterprise.19 ways in which artworkscan plausibly be con-
However, the crisis could be circumvented, ceived to be such wholes. At the same time as a
and relativevalues secured, by minutely identi- forensic scrutiny will pick out underlying es-
fying and discriminatingtraits which could be sences-the origin, cause, or regularityin diver-
found in some measurein many lesser as well as sity-it will simultaneously identify the irreg-
the greaterworks. Applying his forensics to the ularand variable.In principle,variabilityshould
galleries in Dresden and elsewhere, Giovanni be ruledout as irrelevantto underlyingessence.
Morelli's art history of the 1890s and its suc- But in practice, the more underlyingwholes one
cessors differentiatednot only separateartworks picks out-not only autonomous artworks but
and artists but also separate styles, manners, also styles, periods, and "careers"-the more
schools, traditions,andperiods. These were now likely an irregularitycan be discovered as an
interpretedas collectable wholes in themselves, index of some essence or other.
with the organicist cultural histories of Burck- There thus arose the fatally unsystematic
hardt and Wolfflin producing the text of com- character of the magnificent descriptive-com-
parisons among them.20 Through the work of parative compendia forming the vast bulk of
Bernard Berenson and other early twentieth- modern art historical scholarship in the twen-
centuryart historians,more styles and periods- tieth century. For example, consider William
primitive, exotic, archaeological, "modern" StevensonSmith'sHistoryof EgyptianSculpture
were added to the list. Even when the artwork and Paintingin the Old Kingdom,preparedjust
could be found only as a brokenand mysterious before WorldWarII at Harvardunderthe super-
fragment,fragmentsthemselveswere often inter- vision of classical archaeologists deeply influ-
preted as aesthetic wholes, ratherthan energet- enced by Sir JohnBeazley. (Althoughwithinthe
ically restored, as in the seventeenthand eigh- study of prehistoric and ancient art Beazley's
teenthcenturies,to an "original"whole. Finally, treatiseson Greekvase paintingbest embodythe
living artists were constructed not only as the paradoxI am considering, his procedurescan be
authorsof autonomousindividual artworksbut difficult to reconstructbecause he often merely
also as the engines of an open-ended art-histo- listed his results without providinga discursive
ricity known as a "career,"also constitutedas a narrativeor justification.)21 When Smith scru-
whole. In the connoisseurshipof Berenson, Sir tinizes a work of Egyptian art, like a wooden
JohnBeazley, andotherart historians, "careers" relief of the royal official Hesire, dated about
were retroactivelyconferred on long-dead art 2700 B.C. (fig. 2), throughcomparisonhe finds
producersin remotehistoricalcontexts. The dis- close parallels with other works, like the earlier
covery of the wholeness of "artists"in the past, Paletteof Narmer,about3,000 B.C. (fig. 3). For
andtheiranalogs in styles, periods, and careers, him the parallelindexes one aspect of the work's
came to obsess scholarlyart history. art-historicity,namely, its period style associ-
In sum, the palpable wholeness of the phys- ated with particular high-status patrons. But
sometimes Smith cannot find a parallel. For

example, he identifiesseveraluniquefeaturesof
the relief in small details, such as the arrange-
ment of the thumb. Nevertheless, this irreg-
ularity in itself becomes an index, for him, of
just anotheraspectof the work'sart-historicity-
namely, the supposed "inventiveness" of its
maker.22Forensic method, pressed to identify
regularitiesbetween Figures 1 and 2, 2 and 3, 3
and 1, and so on, simultaneouslyensures that
everyfigurewill becomepartiallya "Figure1"-
as I have put it, beyond compare-in order to
handlethe parallelfact of irregularityobserved
between Figures 1, 2, and 3: of course, Smith
needs some occasional "invention"in his period
style to accountfor the variabilityhis own foren- l
sic comparisonsrevealto him. Such scholarship ltain,
appearsto generatedescriptive-comparative his-
tories revealingthe rich art-historicitiesof whole
artworksandtheiranalogs. Butone suspectsthat
in manycases its dubiousmethods-like Smith's
observationof the absence of a parallel turned
into an argumentfor the presence of inventive-
ness-stitch up a largely fictitious account.
Overlyambitiousin establishingwholes through
any means, it is often grossly underdetermined
by forensicstandardsthemselves.Nowheredoes FIGURE 2. Detail of wooden relief of vizier Hesire,
Smith evaluate alternatescenarios, such as the
EgyptianOld Kingdom,c. 2,700 B.C. CourtesyCairo
possibility that Hesire's sculptor was not espe- Museum.
ciallyinventivebutsimplycouldnotdrawthumbs.
Putting my point the other way around, we
must search hard through the literatureof art sor. Workingleft to rightand top to bottom, the
history-with some exceptions in the last fifteen sculptorneededto turnthe paletteat rightangles
years-to find an adequateforensics, let alone to drawthe ten decapitatedenemies of the king.
any historical interpretation,of the unfinished- He placed the first small enemy in the top row
ness or overall half-bakednessof artworks.For againstthe side edge, drawingthe enemy's two
example, art historianscan usually provideonly feet both facing right. Doing the same thing for
a garbled, severely qualified account of what the next enemy, second from the left in the top
would have counted as outright error for the row, he recognizedthe "error"he hadjust made,
artists or in the styles and periods they know thatis, the compositionaldifficultyhe was creat-
best. They are predisposedto reconstructwhat ing for himself. Withthe thirdenemy in fromthe
seems to be an errorprecisely as a whole inten- left, he turnedthe two feet to face inward;now,
tion suffusing that supposed error and fulfilled he could be sure to fit in all ten enemies. In one
in it-for example, an ambitionto do it differ- sense, his makingis drivenby a forward-looking
ently from predecessorsor, like Hesire's sculp- intentionto include ten enemies, but in another
tor, to be "inventive"or the like.23 sense the making, although threaded through
It is not as if candidatesfor a forensicsof half- with this intention, is not suffused with it. In-
bakednessdo not exist. Forexample, if Hesire's stead, the making is a loose tissue of partially
thumb is not error but "inventiveness," then realized intentions, of matterescaping form or
considerthe artist'sslip on the top zone of the ob- artifactsliding out from underneathimage.
verse (saucer)side of the NarmerPalette(fig. 3), An "error"belongs to a complex continuum
Hesire'smost importantart-historicalpredeces- of pre-art-historicalphenomena. They range
Davis Historical Narrativesand the Philosophy of Art 335
/ )
FIGURE 3. The NarmerPalette (schist cosmetic palette), EgyptianFirst Dynasty, c. 3,000 B.c. From Quibell.
from what forensic interpretationconstruesas a mainderor disruption. At the same time, how-
renditionjust barely missing its evident inten- ever,art-historicalarchaeology,a forensicinquiry
tional target, such as the enemies' feet on the in part dedicated to identifying art-historical
Narmer Palette, to works manifesting so little wholes, constantly discovers such remainders
apparentemergence of an intentionaltargetthat and disruptions.
we cannot say what, if anything, has been tar-
geted and missed in the first place. Many actual IV. THE BROKEN LINK
prehistoricartworkswould have to be included
here. "Errors" and other formations are not Worksof prehistoricart often cannotbe related
without their own histories, but they are rarely to artistsor even to periodsand styles. Thusthey
written as the text bridging art-historicalcom- could be pre-art-historical,beyondor, more ex-
parisons:histories of non-, of pre-, and of para- actly, before compare. Even though many of
intentionalphenomenawould not recounta tak- them are intensively understood in forensic
ing-account-of and making-reference-to other terms, the inquiry seems to be going nowhere-
artworks but rather some uniquely contingent or, at least, nowhere art-historical.But art his-
circumstanceof the maker'ssituationandhistory. tory has not rested content, of course, with the
To sum up, art historical aesthetics has con- pre-art-historicalityof prehistoric art. As we
ceived the artwork, as an autonomous whole would expect, art history necessarily seeks out
thing, to be one or a whole with the inherentart- whole art-historicitiesin the mosaic of regular-
historicity of maker's intentions, with no re- ities among comparisons at the same time as
some prehistoric art seems to include art his- art in their lack of darkening, in their realism,
tory's equally necessary pre-historic artwork, and in their skillfulness.25It was even put about
its ahistoricalFigure 1. that Don Marcellino had been duped by a con-
Fromthe beginning,forensicevidenceimplied temporary French painter who had visited his
that the first cave paintings to be discovered estate. Takento its logical conclusion, this self-
were paleolithic in date. The evidence, in fact, fulfilling blindness would have ruled out the
did not dependwholly or even substantiallyupon very possibility of an art history which could
art-historical comparison. Altamira, the first ever adopt such strictures against a possible
paintedcave known to modern scholarship,was "prehistoric"art in the first place.
discovered in 1879 by Don Marcellino de Sau- For the next twenty years, forensic historic-
tuola on his estate in northernSpain. Don Mar- ities like Don Marcellino'sdeposits at Altamira
cellino was struck by the resemblancebetween became tighter.However,even when engravings
the paintingsin his cave and engravingson bone were found on the ceiling of the cave of Chabot
objects he had seen exhibited in the Exposition right above Magdaleniandeposits on the floor,
Universellein Paris in 1878, alreadywell-known in 1878,26 and Emile Riviere opened the totally
from a monograph by the antiquariansLartet sealed decoratedcave of La Mouthe, in 1895,27
and Christy,theirReliquiaeAquitanicaeof 1875. for many observers the proper comparison re-
In turn,these objectswereacceptedas prehistoric mainedthe known, whole art-historicityof mod-
because several of them had been excavated in ern paintingtechnique.The cave painters,it was
prehistoricstrata, including Lartet's own 1864 said, must have used artificial light, steel tools,
excavations at La Madeleine, datable through and the like. As we would expect, to preservean
the forensic means established in Boucher de established, whole art-historicitythis forensics
Perthes' Celtic and Antediluvian Antiquities reconstructedany apparentlynon- or para-inten-
(1846) and SirJohnLubbock'sPrehistoricTimes tional phenomena, those elements of image
(1863). But, as critics pointed out, the resem- making beyond compare, to fit its scheme. For
blances were not complete: whereasthe engrav- instance, the fact that Altamira'saurochssome-
ings were small and frequently somewhat ab- times exhibit features not to be observed in
stract,the paintingsat Altamirawerelarge, vivid, "real" aurochs implied that the modern painter
and mostly naturalistic.In fact, then, compari- did not understandthe anatomy of the beast,
son between the decoratedcaves and the porta- now extinct, while a prehistoricpainter surely
ble objects was not fully accepted until 1902. would have. Ironically, then, the paintings of
However, in his 1880 publication of Altamira Altamirawere comparedwith the art-historicity
Don Marcellinodid not rest his case on a com- being denied, what a paleolithiccave painter(if
parison which was, itself, pre-art-historical such a personhad everexisted) wouldhavedone,
since the art-historicityconstitutingit-namely, in orderto preservethe comparisonwith the art-
the existence of a paleolithic style common to historicitybeing promoted, what modernpaint-
the portable objects and the caves-did not yet ers do. Thus the cave paintings'sstatus as "be-
exist for art history. Instead, he detailed his yond compare" was erased: no matterhow one
discoveryof middle Magdaleniantools, hearths, cut it, the cave paintingswere comparablewithin
and debris at the entrance of Altamira, some the field of a known art-historicity,it being the
meters away from the images, urging that the case merely that the paleolithic art-historicity,
archaeologicaldeposits provideda firm forensic one possible comparison,did not exist. Here art
date independent of the possible comparison history found a temporarysolution to the prob-
among artworks.24 lem of origins. The beginning of art history is
In response to Don Marcellino'snon-art-his- recognized as a logical necessity precisely to
torical forensics, professional archaeology and servethe claimthatit does not historicallyexist in
art history (they were not wholly distinguished this case: if we compareAltamira,the artworkwe
at the time) mobilized art-historicalcomparison have, to what the beginningof art history would
to deny the possibility of a whole paleolithicart- be like, we can see that the artworkwe have is
historicityestablishedby forensic meansoutside not thatbeginning.
strictly art-historical comparison. Altamira's Nonetheless, by the turn of the century the
paintings, it was said, best resembled modern art-historicityof prehistoric art became possi-
FIGURE 4. Line copy of paintedpanel, cave of La Mouthe, Dordogne, c. 15,000 B.C. From Breuil.
ble. In a magisterial 1907 work, EdouardPiette entrance, but they had been swept aside; and at
fully acceptedthe formerly bannedcomparison any ratethe engravingwas deep withinthe cave,
between dated paleolithic decoratedobjects and raising the old objection that there was no con-
the undated cave art.28 Two general concerns nection between tools and artworks. Nonethe-
motivated Piette and his immediate contempo- less, the excavatorof the interiorgalleries, Emile
raries. First, French archaeology became more Riviere, clearingback throughthe cave to about
receptive to the idea of prehistoricart as more 130 meters, invited Emile Cartailhac, a leader
cave art began to be discoveredin France, espe- of French archaeology, to visit the site. Al-
cially around the village of Les Eyzies in the though he had earlier written on prehistoric
Dordogneheartland.A paleolithic art could po- objects, Cartailhachad long refusedto admitthe
tentiallyroot the whole art-historicityof French paleolithic antiquity of cave art, leading the
national culture well before Carolingian and chargeagainstAltamira.However,at La Mouthe
Celtic art-shared, unfortunately,with the Ger- it was Cartailhachimselfwho removeduntouched
mans and others-and prove its pre-Romanvi- soil of paleolithicantiquityto uncoverpaintingun-
tality and glory, outshining British standing derneath-establishing an absolute stratigraphic
stones or the "eoliths" from southern England association, the only kind of evidence for date
now displacingFrance'sSomme valley flints for admitted in the strictest archaeological foren-
pride of place in paleontological research.29 sics (it had not quite been achievedat Altamira).
Second, the anti-Darwinianshad been defeated In 1901, two impressive caves were discovered
by Thomas Huxley and others, in part invoking and soon visited by Henri Breuil-Font-de-
the new evidence of prehistoric archaeology. Gaume, with beautifulpaintedbisons like those
Advancementwithin scientific culture now re- in Altamira,and Les Combarelles,with thirteen
quired evolutionist opinions; and evolution engravedmammoths,an extinctanimal,andmany
requiredan ever longer humanprehistory. other figures.30In 1902, Cartailhacreturnedto
But for our purposes the real turning point La Moutheandothercaves, preparinghis famous
came in 1895 at the newly opened cave of La " 'Mea culpa' d'un sceptique"in orderto declare
Mouthe outside Les Eyzies. Here adventurous his acceptanceof the paleolithicantiquityof cave
boys discoveredan engravedbison, soon seen to art: "I have been an accompliceto an errorcom-
be part of an enormous panel (fig. 4). Pre- mitted twenty years ago [at Altamira]which I
historic tools had been found earlier at the cave mustconfess to openly and rectify."'3
338 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
Cave
Wall
Palimpsest Stratigraphic Associations
2 1
2
3~~~~~~~~
6
7
77
- { l | { l F ~~~~~~~--47
- Internal Art-Historicity 4*-External Historical Context
FIGURE 5. Cartaihac'spalimpsest.
In his surprisefind, Cartailhacestablishedthe context of the artworkand its internalart-histo-

art-historicityof pre-art-historicalartworks.The ricity. Links usually sunderedseemed available
forensic evidence for history-for a date and for forensic analysis precisely as linked.
technological context-was literally superim- Indeed, Cartailhac and Breuil's discoveries
posed upon the artwork in the layer of pre- forged such an apparentlycomplete art-historic-
historic soils covering it, justifying a compari- ity for cave art that forensic analysis overesti-
son between cave art and the tools or other mated its own success. After 1902, cave art
objects from such strata. To revert to terms I became suffused with art-historicity,quicklyas-
used earlier, like Vermeer within Fischl, at La similatedto familiarforms of art making. In the
Moutheits historicitywas literally "in" the cave 1910s and '20s Breuil worked out an elaborate
artwork;the cave artworkwas part of a palimp- art history in which prehistoricart makingwent
sest directlyexhibitingits historicity.Moreover, through two major "cycles" of development, a
quite unlike what could be seen at Altamira, at scheme replaced in the 1950s, in its turn, by
La Mouthe, Font-de-Gaume, and Les Coin- Andre Leroi-Gourhan'sidentification of four
barellesthe archaeologistsfoundartworkswhich sequential"styles."n32
were literally palimpsests, accumulations of In general, the pre-art-historicalartworkbe-
several images superimposedin complex ways came prehistoricart; the pre-historical"Figure
upon one another (fig. 4). It was immediately 1" which could not exist became an historical
understood,by Breuil above all, that the super- "Figure 1" which did exist precisely by finding
impositions combined with the stratigraphic it to be suffused with whole art-historicities.But
associations provided the key to the internal obviously a problem was side-stepped. What
historicalchronology of paleolithic image mak- about the pre-art-historicalprehistoricartwork,
ing fromthe earlyUpperPaleolithicto the meso- the prehistoric artwork remaining outside and
lithic, a 30,000-year span. Minute scrutiny before the art-historicities discovered for pre-
would show which lines and pigments lie on top historic art?What happenedto the beginning of
of othersandthus in whattemporalsequencethe the beginningof art?
elements of the images were laid down. In sum,
V. AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PALIMPSEST
"Cartailhac'spalimpsest" (fig. 5) provided the
archaeologistwith a directly exhibited, continu- On first glance, the question seems to have an
ous correlation between the external historical obvious answer. Even with their growing pale-
ontological knowledge about the evolution of More important,just becausethe debateabout

the humanspecies, it would not have occurredto art-historicityhas shifted from the Upperto the
historiansbefore 1900 to seek the beginning of Middle Paleolithic does not, in itself, insulate
art before the "ReindeerAge," the Upper Pa- forensic interpretationfrom its desire to identify
leolithic. As the controversiesover cave art sug- whole art-historicalintentionalities.Once iden-
gest, the Upper Paleolithic was pre-art-histor- tified, these will instituteregress all over again,
ical in itself. Before the opening of La Mouthein ensuring that the beginning of art-historicity
1895, there was no need to consider anything cannotbe identified. In principle, forensic inter-
pre-pre-art-historical.However, once artifacts pretationshould be forced to displace its quest
and images of the Upper Paleolithic had been for the beginning of art from the Middle Paleo-
reconstructedas fully art-historical, as repli- lithic to a yet earlier history-for instance, to
catory and summative,the prehistoryof this art much earlier hominids like Australopithecusor
historywouldhaveto be foundbefore it, namely, even to the great apes. In fact, this displacement
in the MiddlePaleolithic, before 35,000 B.C., or began to occur by the 1950s, in Paul Schiller's
even before. studies of chimp marking.It was well underway
Prehistoricarchaeologyhas still not resolved with the publicationof Desmond Morris' Biol-
this possibility to its own satisfaction. Among ogy of Art in 1962 and E.H. Gombrich'sattempt
other things, we are still working with a very to root depictionin the responsesof animalsand
short list of possible candidates for an actual even fish to substituteperceptualstimuli.36
"Figure 1" conceived as a physical artwork-like As we would expect, in orderto take them as
object. In a recent review, Davidson and Noble beginning art history the Middle Paleolithic
list only thirteen candidates for "documented materialshave inevitablybeen reconstructedas
early [pre-UpperPaleolithic]objects with delib- art-historical wholes. But this reconstruction
erate marks,"to be up-datedto about twenty or exerts much greaterstrainon forensic adequacy
so with the more recent publicationof the sup- than the Upper Paleolithic materials we have
posed "deliberateengravings"on the four Mid- alreadyexamined in this respect. In fact, so far
dle Paleolithic bones from Bilzingsleben and a art history is unableto framethe archaeologyof
few othercandidates.33The list could be broad- this period. In turn, then, the Middle-to-Upper
ened to include instances of the coloring of soil Paleolithic transitionmight index a real evolu-
by Neanderthalsand of so-called "ritualdecora- tionary transformation.It is best characterized
tion" associated with supposed Neanderthal for our purposes by saying that art-historical
burials,but not in such a way thatthe coloring or aesthetics cannot be applied to history before
supposeddecorationcould easily have served as this threshold, however that history should be
the art-historical beginning for the supposed written in its own right-for example, in terms
deliberatemarking.34 of the replacementof Neanderthalpopulations
As Davidson and Noble noted for the thirteen by Homo sapiens sapiens, of the emergence of
candidatesthey cite, we cannot easily identify language, or of other large-scale biological and
what they call "tradition"or "sharedmeaning" historical factors.37The regress seems to termi-
in this material,whatI havebeen calling replica- nate;there is indeeda "beyondcompare"for art
toriness and summativeness.35 In itself, strictly history.
speaking this does not tell against the thirteen
candidates as possible Figure Is in my strong VI. THE MISSING LINK: DEPICTIONS
sense, for a Figure 1 in my strong sense cannot
be art-historicallyreplicatory or summative in The Acheulean grooved pebble from Berekhat
the first place. But it would be difficult to dis- Ram in the Golan Heights (fig. 6), dated
cover art-historicalreplicatorinessand summa- 230,000 B.C. at the youngest, has been thought
tiveness in any selection of only twenty dis- to exemplify one of the cherisheddramasof art-
persedobjectsanyway-so the fact thatit has not historical aesthetics, the story of the beginning
been identified does not imply that the candi- of art in the "seeing-as" of natural shapes re-
dates were not art-historical.Prehistoric, in our sembling other objects. According to the exca-
strong sense, or art-historical,then, the twenty vator, "It seems that the occupants of the site
candidatesare at least pre-art-historical. selected a pebble that bore some characteristics
us what the original materiallooked like-as if,

paradoxically,the wholeness and finish of the
final productwere not so whole andfinishedthat
the original materialcondition cannotbe recog-
nized in it.
Strictly speaking, an account of depiction as
seeing-as, or seeing-in, does not require that
what is seen-as alreadyresembleswhat it is then
a b seen in it. In depiction the maker shapes brute
materials, not necessarily resemblingwhat will
be seen-in them, into patternswhich can then be
so seen. In other words, in the case of depiction
in general the makermust alreadyknow what a
depiction is, and how to make one, in order to
shape materialsso thatthey resemblesomething
or support seeing-in. It begs the question to
derive this ability from one of its particular
expressions, namely, the narrow case in which
the maker makes a depiction using pre-resem-
c d blantmaterials-for, how, fromthis narrowcase,
could the generalconditionbe achieved,when in
the generalcase the pre-resemblantmaterial,the
o 2cm supposed required basis for depiction, is not
present? At the very least, the depiction-from-
FIGURE 6. "Figurine" from Berekhat Ram, Golan
Heights, Archeuleanperiod, c. 230,000 B.C. Repro-
pre-resemblant-materials stage in evolutionwould
have to be supplementedby a copying-of-that-
duced by permission.
depiction-in-nonresemblant-materialsstage of
development. But then, of course, we would
have a replicatoryand summativesequence, an
of a femalebody.These wereenhancedby adding art-historicity as the beginning rather than a
the incised grooves delimiting the head and beginning for art-historicity.
arms."38Here I will not doubt that the grooves Even setting aside the fact that "enhanced"
are man-made(althoughno forensic evidence is naturally resemblant shapes would have to be
cited). I will not even doubtthatto us the pebble copied to yield depictionin the generalcase, art-
mightlook somethinglike a female figure. Note, historicalinterpretationhas suffusedthe Berekhat
however, that this "looking like" is probably Ram pebble with an art-historicity in another
influencedin partby an anachronisticart-histor- way as well. Any depiction anywhere must al-
ical comparisonbetween the pebble and Upper ways accommodatethe qualitiesof its surfaceor
Paleolithic images of women, recalled by the medium. If an Acheulean sculptor wanted to
excavator at the end of the publication of the workwith pebbles, he or she necessarilyworked
pebble, and by a long-standingdiscursive asso- with whateverpebbles were to be found; if their
ciation in both neolithic and industrialsocieties surfaceswere irregular,then the depictionwould
betweenfemininityand origins.39 incorporateirregularities-although, in the gen-
Whatis notablefor our immediatepurposes is eral case, the irregularity as such might not
thatthe excavator'sforensics takes the unworked depict anything. Presumingthat the sculptoral-
pebble to have naturally looked like a female readyknew how to depict, then he or she reason-
body. There is no evidence whatsoeverthat this ably made use of natural features aiding the
was so, apart from the later (re)workingitself. project, perhapsthreadingthe discovery of pre-
(Justas nothing is cited to prove the grooves are resemblantshapes seen in the materialthrough
man-made,nothingis cited to provethatonly the the on-going intention to depict something. In
grooves are man-made.)Thus it is the art-histo- otherwords, an art-historicityintervenesbetween
ricity of the final product,as it were, which tells the mere perception of the object-resembling
propertiesof the naturalshape and the intention wholes such as artist's identity and intention,
to "enhance"them or incorporatethem (or not) style and period, and productionand reception.
in a depiction. Since we will likely neverrecoverartists'identi-
Thus, however we cut it, in the excavator's ties, styles, or receptionhistories in the Middle
forensics the pebble exemplifies an art-histor- Paleolithic, in recent archaeologydepictiveness
ical intentionality-either a prior knowledge of has become the most attainable sought-after
depictiontransferredonto the pebble in orderto originary whole. And if not depictiveness (the
make it depict, or a prior belief that "enhanc- BerekhatRam pebble, as we have seen, might
ing" the pebble will make it into a depiction of not do the job), then, of course, a more general
what it alreadyresembles. In both cases, depic- symbolicity.
tivenessserves as the art-historicalwhole sewing Once we have symbol making in the Middle
together the otherwise broken links of pre-re- or Lower Paleolithic or among primates, then it
semblant natural shapes, the man-made "en- is apparentlya quick step to the history of differ-
hancement"of materials,andthe final so-called ent proliferatingproducers, modes, styles, and
"figurine,"no one of which necessarilyrequires, periods of symbol making in the Upper Paleo-
implies, or generatesthe others. lithic andlater.40No doubtit is inconvenientthat
Depictiveness as such has materialized out the materialrelationsamongmodes of sign mak-
of nowhere in this account. More precisely, it ing like gesturing, speaking, or building and
emerges not out of the past of the pebble but out picturinghas often not been well defined. (And
of its future, where the art-historicityof depic- it is even more inconvenientthat when the rela-
tion already fully suffuses-indeed, consti- tion is well defined-for example, in Peirce's
tutes-image making. Depictiveness is the miss- semeiotic or Goodman'stypology of notation-
ing link, discovered in the present tense of art strong logical differences between pictures and
history, which has the power to turn the broken other signs must be observed, for example, in
links into the impossiblelink of an artworkat the the degree and role of so-called "iconicity,"
beginning of the history of art. Within the his- nondiscreteness, or "continuouscorrelation.")
tory of art, such a missing link-identified in the Nevertheless, within art history, archaeology,
art-historicalpresent-always retroactivelyforges and anthropology we find an easy elision be-
broken links into the impossible link of an art- tween sign making sui generis and picturing
work, the link which the brokenlinks cannot be such that the former somehow serves as the
in themselves but will only be seen to be from a historical origin of the latter-not just, as in
later replicatory and summativevantage point. Peirce's semeiotic, its typological context in a
Becoming whole, as both Darwin and Freud theoreticalmodel of humanknowledge.
knew, is a matter of Nachtrdglichkeitor "de- Sometimesthis relationis achievedby sleight
layed activation." But needless to say, for bio- of hand. Forexample, in derivingpicturesmade
logical species, for human persons, or for art- of marksfrom handgestures, the questionof the
works, we have great difficulty in conceiving derivationof pictorial referenceas such is side-
how Nachtrdglichkeit,the meaning coming out stepped: what Davidson and Noble have called
of the future, can literally be the historical pro- "imitativegesturalsignalling" as the evolution-
cess of origin itself as the possibility coming out ary first step towarddepictionis, in fact, already
of the past. depicting, namely,by waving one's hands in the
air.4' Sometimesthe relationis achievedthrough
VI. THE MISSING LINK: SIGNS conflation, for example, in denying the very
typology motivatingthe move to derive pictures
Despite the complete lack of forensic evidence from other signs by assimilating pictures to
for the scenario of origins it supposedly exem- signs like pointing. And sometimes the relation
plifies, the pebble from BerekhatRam has been is secured simply by assuming its wholeness, in
taken as a plausible missing link because the what we mightcall pansemioticessentialism. As
wholeness of depictiveness-of seeing-as, shap- an influential movement in recent art history
ing, copying, and seeing-in as (an) art-histo- would have it, once we have semiosis, we neces-
ricity-is so well-establishedin art-historicalaes- sarily haveart history:the questionof the histor-
thetics,along with complementaryart-historical ical status of reference, conventionality, and
;'ti'4'X ' R,-;

,,D . , i X
FIGURE 7. Reconstructionof "hut" at TerraAmata

(Nice), Acheulean period, c. 220,000 B.C. Repro- U~\
ducedby permission.
semiotic arbitrarinessas such is avoidedby tak-

ing them as essential in and throughoutthe his-
tory we write. Here, semiotics is the beginning
of art history-the study of the art-historicityof
reference, convention, and arbitrarinessin pic-
tures-by assuming, but not explaining, it to be
the beginningof the history of art.42
Accordingto this general logic, because pic-
turingcan apparentlybe datedto the very early
UpperPaleolithic,about32,000 B.C., sign mak-
ing mustbe assignedto the MiddlePaleolithicor
before as what can be assumed as essential for
and throughoutthe later art-historicity. Con- FIGURE 8. "Interiorof the hutof the ReindeerAge,"
sider, for example, the Acheulean archaeolog- lithographby Emile Bayardfor Figuier's L'homme
ical scatter at the site of Terra Amata, about primitif, 1870.
220,000 B.C., dug by Henryde Lumleyin 1966-
69. De Lumley reconstructedan "ovoid hut" at
this site; the hut was supposedlymaintainedfor of the world," a "carefullyorganized," "com-
several seasonal occupations by its inhabitants plex sign." As a sign, it is shot through with
(fig. 7). sign-historicity.Specifically, as a "mark"in its
Although De Lumley does not quite include environment,it is not just a whole hut but also
the neat clothesline Louis Figuier had imagined the on-going sign for a particularlivability to
in an 1870 imagination of a paleolithic hut which Acheulean hunters were supposedly
(fig. 8), his depictions certainly express ar- returningseasonafterseasonandto whichthe hut
chaeology'swish to locate a familiarly"whole" materials refer. Like depictiveness sewing up
site-a site in which no disjunctionexists be- the brokenlinks of the BerekhatRampebbleand
tween the traces and the unified intentionality at the same time supposedlybeing the forensic
responsible for them-in order to fill a gap in evidencefor the beginningof suchdepictiveness,
prehistory,which in the 1960s knew little about for Preziosi a general symbolicity sews up the
Acheuleanliving arrangements.43 broken links of Terra Amata and at the same
Donald Preziosi, promoting semiotic treat- time becomes the forensic evidence for the very
ments of art, recently goes a step further. For beginningof suchsymbolicityin "remarkably ad-
him, TerraAmata is "no randomaggregate of vancedartifactualbehaviors"like TerraAmata.44
materials ... [but] a highly complex, regular, TerraAmataserves as Preziosi'ssemioticequiv-
systematicobject," "a buildingessentially iden- alent of "Cartailhac'spalimpsest" (fig. 5), a
tical in form to manyfoundtodayin variousarts continuitybetweenexternalhistory and the art-
Davis Historical Narrativesand the Philosophy of Art 343
0 5 10cm
10 cm
V~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~C
5 10cm ~ I
FIGUR9 Mre
. oe rmBliglbn Gray cel eid .30,0 ..AtrMnaadMna
historicityof the work, because it is an historical only "meaningful" within a "total system,"
semiotic whole, established on independentfo- why not say language, cuisine, or games are the
rensic grounds, which contains its own internal beginningof pictorialartwork,or the makingof
sign-historicity. fires, fashioningof tools, or DNA?
Lest his readerswonderwhat TerraAmata, as But the questionis moot. Decoupled from the
a living place and its sign at 220,000 B.C., has to urge to establish art-historicalwholes, careful
do with pictorial art at 32,000 B.C. and later, forensic analysis shows that the archaeological
Preziosi hastens to assert "a certain conceptual landscape at Terra Amata, with many broken
resemblancebetween the structure[of the hut] bits of many objects mixed throughseveral lev-
and the imagery [of the caves]." Advancingthe els, cannotbe resolved as De Lumley'sscenario
hypothesis of semiotic wholeness, both the hut must have it. Terra Amata is probablyjust an
and the pictures, he says, "are built up out of arrayof stuff neverlinkedup to be brokenin the
elements whose meaningfulnessis a function of firstplace, at leastas a seasonallyrebuilt"hut."46
a total system"45-sticks and stones in the case
of TerraAmata, lines and blobs of paint in the VII. THE MISSING LINK: MARKS
case of cave art. In yet a further sewing-up,
then, Terra Amata becomes "Cartailhac'spa- The four marked bones from Bilzingsleben, a
limpsest"(fig. 5) for cave artworkin the dubious Homo erectus site dated 300,000 B.C. at the
move of establishingthe "complexsign" of Terra youngest, have taken center stage in recent dis-
Amataas the relevantexternalhistorywith which cussions (fig. 9). Forensicinspectionshows that
the art-historicityof cave artworks is continu- all the lines on each bone were cut by "the same
ous. This can only be accomplishedby thread- tool," probably "in the course of one single
ing symbolicity throughthe two sets of objects process." Among the four bones, however,dif-
as if it were the same symbolicity, a whole. And ferent tools were used and there are severaldif-
a very general symbolicity it has to be. If Terra ferences in the number,orientation,lengths, and
mata qualifies as an art-historicalbeginning or apparent pattern of the supposed "rhythmic
pictorialcave artworksbecause its elements are sequences of linearmarks."47
Forthe excavators,the bones implythatHomo Now according to the logic of art-historical

erectushad "gainedthe faculty of abstractthink- comparison, such differences must somehow
ing" and spoke a language, supposedlybecause index an art-historicalwhole-in this case, the
"verbalcommunicationis a prerequisitefor the replicatorynatureof the markmaking. Thus the
creationof deliberatemarkingswhich must have palpabledifferences among the markscould be
conveyed informationof some form,"48such as explained by claiming that the tradition had
a countingor coding scheme. As most observers internal distinctions or developments, as might
have stressed, these inferences are unnecessary. have been the case with Hesire's sculptor, who
Nothingshows thatthe markscountedor encoded doesn't just carve in his own utterlynonconven-
anything;they could just be marksin sequences tional way but supposedly carves differently-
or patterns.Moreover,spoken language is not a say, "inventively"-in relationto the comparanda.
prerequisitefor otherkinds of communication. But there is no forensic evidence that the bones
Nonetheless, even sceptics have wantedto say constitute a replicatoryclass or sequence apart
thatthe bones provide a relevanthistorical con- from their having been found together at the
text for the specifically pictorial artworkof the same whole site. Several scenarios could ac-
Upper Paleolithic. In other words, althoughthe count for the propertiesof each bone which do
bones are not, in themselves, the impossible link not assume makersat this site intendedanything
of the first symbolic-let alone depictive-mark- at all in relationto the otherbones, even if each
ing, they are possibly the suitablebrokenlinks, a bone's markingsare "deliberate"or "symbolic."
necessaryraw materialof whatwill laterbecome Putting the point metaphorically, the whole
pictorialimage making. But why shouldthis be? of the Upper Paleolithic palimpsest must be
Why are the bones of Bilzingsleben, materials overlaid on the group of bones in order to con-
which supposedly could later be linked up as a stitute them as the broken links for such later
whole sign or picture, not just like the stones of palimpsests.
TerraAmata, materialswhich cannot be linked Cross-cuttingthis concern for the bones as a
up as a whole artifact or sign except through replicatory whole is the status of the supposed
wishful thinking? "deliberateness"of the marks. Forensic analy-
Twointuitionsunderlieeven the sceptics'sense sis, decoupled from art-historical comparison
that Bilzingsleben says something about the be- and its search for wholes, quickly implied that
ginning of sign and art making. First, whereas the markings could be the nondeliberate by-
otherMiddle Paleolithicsupposedly"symbolic" product of other processes, either naturalpro-
markingsturn up as unique specimens, the four cesses or hominid activities such as defleshing
bones as a group might documentprecisely that the bones or using them as cutting platforms.50
replicatorinessor art-historicitythought, in art- Indeed, the Bilzingslebenbones do not even pass
historicalaesthetics, to be essentialto the whole- the easy test of forensic similarity to accepted
ness of artworks or signs.49 The four bones instances of deliberatesymbolic markingof the
togetherpossibly index a particular"tradition" very earlyUpperPaleolithic.As the markson the
or "style," whetheror not it is a traditionor style side of the Hohlenstein-Stadelfigurine (approx.
of making meaning, such as counting or encod- 32,000 B.c.?) show, in deliberatemarkingspac-
ing, as the excavatorswould have it. ing and length tends to be much more consistent
However, in orderto take the bones as a rep- one markto the next and throughoutthe set than
licatory whole, the argument requires "Car- on the Bilzingsleben bones. Moreover,in "de-
tailhac's palimpsest" (fig. 5): the wholeness of liberate" markingeach of the visually discrete
the externalhistoricity,the site of Bilzingsleben marksis often producedby multiple ratherthan
as a whole, must be threadedthrough the four by single tool cuts: we might say that the rep-
individual objects-for, of course, the marks licatoriness literally "in" the mark is good fo-
themselves (fig. 9) are not an actual palimpsest rensic evidence for its having been made de-
of accumulatedmarkstaking-account-ofor mak- liberately as just that mark (or, at least, as
ing-reference-toone another.The marksarejust what can finally be seen as the re-markedpa-
next to each other. And in themselves, just as limpsest). No such over- or re-markingoccurs at
fourindividualobjectswith marks,the bones are Bilzingsleben.51
as differentfrom one anotheras they are similar. Needless to say, these findings do not fatally
compromisethe Bilzingsleben bones as the bro- The brokenlinks, the nonpictorialmarks,and

ken links of some "deliberate," "symbolic," the impossible link, the art-historicalartwork.
replicatory whole-just as the broken links of are physical objects. The missing link which
the markmaking, as such, taken as that whole. sews them together, however, is an intentional
The markscould have been producednondelib- object. It is the psychological and social mea-
erately in the course of a deliberate, symbolic, sure of the difference between what otherwise
replicatoryactivity in which the bones, or what could be physically similar and perceptuallyin-
was cut on or from them, were employed. For discernible sets of marks.As some have argued,
example, the bones could be the forensic index, this intentionalstructuremight be the "institu-
the broken links, of the fashioning of animal tional" relationsin which pictorialartworksare
skin costumes for ritual use. Perhapsthey were identified as such by a group. If this specifica-
even its symbol, since in principlethey could be tion begs the question, then the missing link
recognized as "standingfor" the ritual through might be, as others have argued, one of several
an indexicalconnectionto its preparations. kinds of mental processes in which nonpictorial
However, such speculations encounter the marks are taken to depict: the acceptance of
problemwe have alreadynoted at TerraAmata. substitutes;55the discoveryof similaritybetween
Nondeliberateor deliberate,naturalor artificial, marking and depictions in another medium,
the bones at Bilzingsleben might be forensic such as gestures indicatingobjects by outlining
evidence for a Middle Paleolithic sign making them;56the disambiguationof perceptualambi-
practice. But the bearing of any such sign mak- guity accordingto establishedexpectations;57or
ing on pictorial artworkremains to be demon- a complex episode of seeing-as and seeing-in,
strated.The mere identificationof symbolicities that is, of simultaneouslyseeing the object "in"
in the MiddlePaleolithicwould not, in itself, es- the mark (or what Wollheim calls "twofold-
tablishany causal or genetic connectionsamong ness") and seeing the mark "as" having been
their differentmodes. And at any rate, no avail- made as a particularmark (or seeing the style
able forensic evidence locates any particular "in" the mark).58
symbolic activity in the Middle Paleolithic any- Without evaluating the cogency of any of
way, let alone how it should be attachedto later these scenarios, note that none of them actually
pictorial artwork.52One had wanted to see the requiresmarkingpre-existingthose markswhich
Bilzingsleben marks, as such, as symbolic rep- do, themselves, become depictive. A "substi-
lication precisely because a causal or genetic tute" need not have been made before its actual
connection can be assumed between something use. Althougha stick formed by naturecould be
like sequential, patternedmarkingand specifi- picked up by a child and used as a substitute
cally pictorialmarking. horse, the horse-substitutabilitycould also be
Or can it? The second argumentfor the inter- producedin the child's very whittlingof a block
est of the Bilzingsleben bones-deliberate and of wood withoutits whittlingas a horse. A mark
symbolic or not-has been the feeling that the supposedly "freezing" a pre-existingdepiction,
historical emergence of pictorial artwork pre- such as a gesturalpictureof an object, need not
supposesa historyof nonpictorialmarkingwhich have been made before the "freezing" takes
picturingcan inherit,replicate,and transform.53 place. (In makinga markfor the very first time,
On this view, the marksof Bilzingsleben(as well one could notice its visual or kinaestheticsim-
as all other pre-Upper Paleolithic marks) are ilarityto the depictivegesture. In the most literal
necessary conditions, part of the requiredraw versionof this scenario, a depictivegestureacci-
materials,of depiction. They are, then, genuine dentally leaves a trace in a permanent mark;
broken links.54 In turn, the very existence of here, "freezing"is occurringat the very moment
broken links promotes the view that a missing of making both gesture and mark.) Finally, the
link can transformthem into the impossible link disambiguation of ambiguous marks or their
of the pictorial artwork, by definition suffused seeing-as/seeing-in can be encountered in the
with its own art-historicity-in the case of our initial makingof a markfor whateverreason. In
absolutelyinaugural"Figure 1," an art-historic- each case, pre-existing marks might be turned
ity of the inheritance,replication, and transfor- into depictions. But the process can transpire
mationof pre-existingnonpictorialmarks. simultaneously with the manufactureof marks
which are its materialbasis and one of its inten- not discussed this inquiry as such. For my pur-
tional objects. These or anythinglike them need poses here, being comparableand being histor-
neverhave been made before. ical are cross-cuttingmatterswhich specifically
Even if no marks had ever been accidentally art-historical aesthetics has conflated. For art
or deliberatelymade by Middle Paleolithic peo- history, since being-in-history is being-compara-
ples, then, depictive markingcould begin in the ble, what is withoutcomparisoncould not be in
Upper Paleolithic; and even if marks had been history and what is in history must be compara-
accidentally or deliberately made by Middle ble at all costs. Art history thus cannot easily
Paleolithic peoples, depictive marking of the conceptualize what is without comparison but
Upper Paleolithic might not have begun. Thus, within history, that is, its Figure is, the error,
eventhoughBilzingslebenmightbe reconstructed halfbakedness, or general unwholeness of rep-
in its own context as a whole symbolicity at a lications and the beginnings of styles, periods,
whole site, in relationto the beginningof depic- or art history itself. By the same token, although
tive marking in the Upper Paleolithic it is not I have not consideredthe issue here, art history
even a broken link. Like Terra Amata, it is equally cannot conceptualize what is compara-
probablyjust an array of stuff which happens ble but without history-namely, "Figure O"s,
to be archaeologically-but not intentionally- those objects which have yet to be renderedart-
contiguouswith laterdepictive marking. historically interesting to art history. Forensic
comparison has gradually been approaching
VIII. COMPARISON WITH ITSELF some popular,folk, and "outsider"arts. But the
art of the mentallyill or of childrenremainswell
To avoid instituting regress and circularity or outside. Although everyone knows that chil-
chasing red herrings in ever more ancient histo- dren'sdrawingshave styles, traditions,and his-
ries, such as Middle Paleolithic sign making, or tories of reception, and even though forensic
diffuse contexts, such as undocumentablesce- historical study of such materials might reveal
narios about signalling, gesturing, and the like, far more about processes of signification, com-
we should conceive the beginning of depiction munication, ideology, gender formation, or
as a complex palimpsestof intentionsdirectedat class consciousness than self-conscious art-
a mark made at the same time as, althoughnot productsmade in the artworld,theirart histories
caused by, these intentions. The mark could remainunwritten.
have been made long ago, even, like Leonardo's Strictly speaking, depiction begins as a pa-
stainsof lichen, by natureitself. Forensichistor- limpsest of intentions, however they are to be
ical analysis might establish that this mark was characterized, directed at a single persisting
the initial targetor supportof the relevantinten- mark. Art-historicalcomparison, however, sets
tions turningit into a depiction. But this kind of out to distributethis palimpsestamong different
pre-existinglink is not required.The markneed marks in time and space. Thus the pebble from
have no history of replicationsoutside the very BerekhatRam, the scatterat TerraAmata, or the
historyof intentionsin which it becomes a depic- bones of Bilzingslebenare constitutedas broken
tion, and these intentions do not require any- links for Upper Paleolithic artworksin almost
thing but the replicationof just that markbeing the same way that Vermeer seems to be the
made at the moment. Unique in many properties historically pre-existingbrokenlink for the art-
and "beyond compare" with any other marks, historicity of Fischl's painting. The difference,
but nonetheless a spatially and temporally per- however,is thatBerekhatRam, TerraAmata, or
sistingobjectto whichpeopledirectthemselves,a Bilzingsleben are supposed to provide forensic
single markdevelopsin its own internalcognitive evidence for the very origin of such art-historic-
history for someone-through Nachtrdglichkeit ities in addition to merely exemplifying them.
or "delayed activation"-as broken link, miss- Thus art history distributeseven originary art-
ing link, and impossible link. In its intentional historicityamongthe whole objectsof a corpusof
constitutionas an artwork,then, a single markis supposed comparanda,for art-historicalwhole-
alwaysa palimpsest. ness always requires a whole object linked to
So much should, I think, be clear to a foren- other artworks. But, as we have seen, to begin
sics of aestheticcognition, althoughhere I have such art-historicitieswithoutregress, tautology,
or other fallacies, wholeness must actually be reworking, overmarking, and so on, have been variously
found elsewhere-namely, in the intrinsic his- interpreted;for a review, see Paul G. Bahn and Jean Vertut,
Images of the Ice Age (London: Windward, 1988), p. 184.
toricity of objects neitherwhole nor comparable For reasonsthatwill lateremerge, I would like to see them as
in the art historian'ssense. Here, "Cartailhac's partiallyconstitutiveof the "origins"of image makingitself
palimpsest"(fig. 5), an on-going internalhisto- (see Whitney Davis, "The Origin of Image Making," Cur-
ricity continuouswith the externalhistory of the rent Anthropology27 [1986]: 193-215, and "Replication
and Depictionin PaleolithicArt," Representations19 [1987]:
context of making, is all we need. In all cases of 111-144).
a Figure 1 for art history-of error or other 8. For the two-dimensional Aurignacian images, see
unwholeness within an artworkand of origins Brigitte and Gilles Delluc, "Les manifestationsgraphiques
for art-historicalwholes or for art history itself- aurignaciennessur supportrocheuxdes environsdes Eyzies
the historicity of the artworkis a matterof the (Dordogne)," Gallia Prehistoire21 (1978): 213-438; for the
Vogelherdfigurines, see AlexanderMarshack,The Rootsof
whole produced in the work's comparison not Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man's First Art,
with other whole artworks, the possibility of Symbol, and Notation (New York: McGraw Hill, 1962),
which cannot be assumed, but only with itself. pp. 246-256. For other early paleolithic arts, see Bahn and
At the end of an artwork'sbecoming whole, art Vertut,Images of the Ice Age, pp. 26-40, 53-60.
9. Hugh Honour and John Fleming, The VisualArts: A
history begins. Before that point, there is only History, 2nd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall,
the beginningof the history of art. 1982), pp. 18-25, figs. 1.1- 1.5.
10. Janson'sArtwork, in this sense, is the "Zeus" from
WHITNEY DAVIS Artemision; Gardner's is the palace at Persepolis; Cun-
Departmentof Art History ninghamand Reich's is Poussin'sLandscapewiththe Burial
of Phocion; Fleming's is Manet's Portrait of Emile Zola;
NorthwesternUniversity Honourand Fleming's is Michelangelo'sDavid.
Evanston,IL 60208 11. Forone view, see Donald Preziosi,RethinkingArt His-
tory: Meditationson a Coy Science (Yale UniversityPress,
1989), with WhitneyDavis, Art Bulletin72 (1990): 156-166.
1. H.W. Janson, History of Art, 4th ed., rev. Anthony F. 12. See Whitney Davis, "Style and History in Art His-
Janson (New York:Abrams, 1990), vol. 1, 1st color plate tory," in eds. MargaretConkey and ChristineHastorf, The
("Key Monumentsin the History of Art"), and also pp. 74- Uses of Style in Archaeology (CambridgeUniversityPress,
76, figs. 30-32. 1990), pp. 18-31.
2. For a powerful recent statement of the "antirealist" 13. See Eric Fischl, essay by Peter Schjedahl, ed. David
position in "new" art history, see Mieke Bal and Norman Whitney (New York:Stewart,Tabori,andChang, 1988), pl.
Bryson, "Semioticsand Art History,"ArtBulletin73 (1991): 66; Ludwig Goldscheider,Jan Vermeer:ThePaintingsCom-
174-209; for a "naturalistic" alternative, see Whitney plete Edition(London:Phaidon, 1958), pl. 78.
Davis, "FindingSymbols in History," in Animals Into Art, 14. RichardWollheim,Paintingas an Art (PrincetonUni-
ed. Howard Morphy (London: Unwin Hyman, 1959), versity Press, 1987); and see also Michael Podro, "Depic-
pp. 179-189. tion and the Golden Calf," in eds. Norman Bryson, Keith
3. Gardner'sArt Throughthe Ages, 9th ed., eds. H. de la Moxey, and Michael Ann Holly, Visual Theory: Painting
Croix, R.G. Tansey, and D. Kirkpatrick(New York: Har- and Interpretation (New York: Harper Collins, 1991),
court BraceJovanovitch,1991), p. 29, fig. 1.1;LawrenceS. pp. 163-189.
Cunningham and John J. Reich, Culture and Values: A 15. Documentary information is collected by Cornelius
Surveyof the WesternHumanities,alternatevolume, 2nd ed. C. Vermeule, GreekSculptureand RomanTaste(University
(Fort Worth:Holt Rinehartand Winston, 1990), p. 12, fig. of Michigan Press, 1977); fine interpretiveessays, which I
1.1; William Fleming, Arts and Ideas, 8th ed. (Fort Worth: depend upon here, are Paul Zanker, "Zur Funktion und
Holt RinehartandWinston, 1991), p. 2, fig. 1. Bedeutung griechischer Skulptur in der Rdmerzeit,"
4. JerroldLevinson, "Defining Art Historically,"British Entretienssur l'antiquiteclassique 25 (1979): 283-314, and
Journal of Aesthetics 29 (1979): 232-250; see now his J.J. Pollitt, Art in the HellenisticAge (CambridgeUniversity
"Refining Art Historically,"Journal of Aesthetics and Art Press, 1986), pp. 150-163.
Criticism47 (1989): 21-33. 16. The clearest picture of Pliny's approachto recording
5. For the latest photographs, see Mario Ruspoli, The Greek art emerges from Andrew Stewart'scomprehensive
Cavweof Lascaux: The Final Photographs (New York: and exacting analysis of the literaryand epigraphicsources
Abrams, 1986); the essential archaeological account is for Greek art in his GreekSculpture:An Exploration(Yale
Lascaux inconnu, Gallia Prehistoire 12e suppl. (1979), eds. UniversityPress, 1990), I, pp. 237-3 10.
ArletteLeroi-GourhanandJ. Allain. 17. DavidCarrier,Artwriting(Universityof Massachusetts
6. A strikingattemptwas madeto reproducethis effect by Press, 1987).
Ruspoli, Lascaux, cover, andpp. 102 (top left), 108 (bottom 18. For the Dresden collection, see Paul Herrmann, Ver-
left); for the original lighting system, see B. and G. Delluc zeichnis der antiken Originalbildwerke der Staatlichen
in Lascaux inconnu, eds. Leroi-Gourhanand Allain. Skulpturensammlungzu Dresden (Berlin/Dresden: Bard/
7. This is fully apparentin any good reproductions(e.g., Bertha, 1925); for Winckelmann'sknowledge of it in the
Ruspoli, Lascaux, pp. 51, 136-137). The phenomena of 1750s, see Die Dresdener Antiken und Winckelmann,ed.
Konrad Zimmermann (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1977), Using it as historicalevidence requiresanachronisticreason-

Schriften der Winckelmann-Gesellschaft4; for a general ing, however rationalizedby an appeal to the maker'sown
interpretationof Winckelmann'sknowledge of Greek art, supposedprospectiveintentionto make somethingfor an ex-
see Alex Potts, "Winckelmann'sConstructionof History," pectedaudience.In fact, this researchassumesyet anotherart-
Art History 5 (1982): 377-407; for the Villa Albani, see historical whole without remainderor disruption, namely,
WO. Collier, "The Villa of Cardinal Alessandro Albani, the whole of artistic "production-and-reception."
F.S.A.," The AntiquariesJournal 67 (1987): 338-347; for 24. M.S. De Sautuola, Breves apuntes sobre algunos
Winckelmann'slife andpublications,CarlJusti, Winckelmann objetos prehistbricos de la provincia de Santander (San-
undseine Zeitgenossen, 5th ed., ed. WalterRehm (Cologne: tander, 1880). A relatively complete early description was
Phaidon, 1956), despite gaps, is still indispensable. widely disseminated by S. Reinach, Repertoire de lart
19. An adequatehistory of these matters remains to be quaternaire(Paris, 1913), pp. 7-19. Useful accountsof the
written, although aspects are reviewed in Heinrich Dilly, discovery of cave art can be found in Bahn and Vertut,
Kunstgeschichte als Institution: Studien zur Geschichte Images of the Ice Age, pp. 17-25, and Peter J. Ucko and
einer Disziplin (Frankfurt:Suhrkamp,1979). Andree Rosenfeld, Palaeolithic Cave Painting (New York:
20. Although his Civilizationof the Renaissance in Italy McGrawHill, 1967), pp. 31-36.
(1860) is often cited as the best expression of his approach, 25. See especially E. Harle, "La grotte d'Altamira, pres
Burckhardt'sspecifically art-historicalconceptionsare more de Santander(Espagne)," Materiauxpour i'histoireprimi-
visible in TheHistoryof RenaissanceArchitectureand Dec- tive et naturellede Ihomme 12 (1881): 275-283.
oration (1867) and his last, little-read four-volume work, 26. E. Riviere, "Surles gravuresde la grottede Chabot,"
History of Greek Civilization (1898-1902). A persuasive Bulletinde la Soci&ted 'Anthropologiede Paris 1897,p. 319;
deconstructionof W6lfflin's work suggests how unstablehis L. Chiron and C. Gaillard, "L'industrie et la faune des
comparisonsreally were: MarshallBrown, "The Classic is grottes Chabot et du Figuier sur les bords de l'Ardeche,"
the Baroque: On the Principle of Wolfflin's Art History," L 'HommePrehistorique9 (1911): 129-137, 202-212.
CriticalInquiry9 (1982): 374-404. 27. E. Riviere, "Les paroisgravees et peintes de la grotte
21. William Stevenson Smith, A History of Egyptian de la Mouthe(Dordogne),"Bulletinde la Societe d 'Anthro-
Sculptureand Paintingin the Old Kingdom, 1st ed. (Harvard pologie de Paris 1897,p. 302.
University Press, 1945); J.B. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure 28. E. Piette, L'art pendant l'age du renne (Paris: Mas-
Vase-Painters,1st ed. (OxfordUniversityPress, 1942). son, 1907).
22. Smith, History, pp. 139-141. 29. For Boucher de Perthes, see Glyn Daniel, 150 Years
23. No doubt "reader response theory," "deconstruc- of Archaeology(London:Duckworth, 1975), pp. 58-59; on
tion," and other interpretive methods in art history and the English discoveries, see especially John Evans, The
criticism have increased our sensitivity to phenomena like Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of
"constitutiveblanks"(WolfgangKemp, "Deathat Work:A GreatBritain (New York:Appleton, 1872).
Case Study on ConstitutiveBlanks in Nineteenth Century 30. See Henri Breuil, Four Hundred Centuries of Cave
Painting,"Representations10 [1985]: 102-123), "disfigura- Art, trans. Mary Boyle (Montignac:Centre d'Etudes et de
tions" (Michael Fried, Realism, Writing,Disfiguration: On DocumentationPrehistorique,1952), pp. 75-106.
ThomasEakins and Stephen Crane [Universityof Chicago 31. Emile Carthailac, "Les cavernes ornees de dessins.
Press, 1987]), "failuresto signify" (T.J. Clark, The Painting La grotte d'Altamira, Espagne. 'Mea culpa' d'un scep-
of ModernLife [New York:Knopf, 1985], esp. ch. 2), "sub- tique," LAnthropologie 13 (1902): 348-354.
versions,"andthe like. However,all too often theseproperties 32. In Four Hundred Centuries, pp. 37-41, Breuil pro-
of an artworkare made over into its supposedwhole inten- vided his final scheme; Leroi-Gourhan'sstages were ex-
tionality to constitute itself as blanked, disfigured, etc. As plained in his Treasuresof PrehistoricArt, trans. N. Guter-
JacquesDerridaironicallynotes, "the hypothesisof a rigor- man (New York: Abrams, 1967). For evaluationsof these
ous, sure, and subtle form is naturallymore fertile" (Dis- chronologies, see furtherUcko and Rosenfeld, Palaeolithic
semination,trans.BarbaraJohnson[London:Athlone Press, Cave Art, pp. 195-213, and Bahn and Vertut, Images of the
1981], p. 67). Recent "social art historians"often consult Ice Age, pp. 58-64. Both chronologiescomplementedcom-
initialcritical responsesto artworksin partbecause these are plex interpretationsof cave imagery, extracting various
thoughtto tell us aboutcanons of performance(for example, whole art-historicities,which I do not have space to consider
for the "finish" of a work) from contemporarypoints of here.
view. But just because a Salon critic, for example, tells us 33. lain DavidsonandWilliam Noble, "TheArchaeology
that somethingis wrong in a paintingdoes not mean thatthe of Perception: Traces of Depiction and Language," Current
work had this status in the intentionalityof the maker; for Anthropology30 (1989): 125-155.
him, the paintingcould be completely suffused with some 34. For Neanderthalcoloring, see discussion and refer-
particularresolved art-historicity.To complicate matters a ences in Davis, "Originsof Image Making," pp. 196-197;
bit, it is perhapspartof the particularwhole art-historicityof the Bilzingsleben bones will be discussed below. For broad
modernpaintingthat it must fail to representthe truthabout discussions of other possible evidence, see P. Chase and
modernity's own real blurring or mystification of social H. Dibble, "Middle Paleolithic Symbolism: A Review of
boundaries(see especially Clark, Paintingof ModernLife). CurrentEvidence and Interpretations,"Journal of Anthro-
Butthis could be only to say thatthe art-historicitysuffusing pological Archaeology6 (1987): 263-296, and an opposing
such paintingsassumes a different form than it had for the view by J.M. Lindly and G.A. Clark, "Symbolism and
makersof the traditionalcomparanda.At any rate, a tradi- ModernHumanOrigins," CurrentAnthropology31 (1990):
tion of subsequentcritical response does not automatically 233-261. Neither article clarifies the interpretiveissues. A
say anythingaboutthe art-historicityof makers'intentions. convincing criticism of Neanderthal burial by Robert H.
Gargett, "GraveShortcomings:The Evidence for Neander- over, they earlier claimed that the "perception of resem-
thal Burial," CurrentAnthropology 30 (1989): 157-190, blance"-what they would have to assume for a supposed
suggests how a careful forensic analysis can underminethe pure "iconic sign"-should actually be the "'cognitive
quest for apparentart-historicitiesor other whole semiotic result'of depiction"("Archaeologyof Perception,"pp. 129-
historicities, a matterI pursuebelow. 130), which "imitative gesture," again, supposedly pre-
35. Davidson and Noble, "Archaeologyof Perception," cedes. As we have seen, depictiveness is the whole which
pp. 132-134. sews together the otherwise broken links of behavior or
36. Forthe early studiesof chimp marking,see discussion practice;in Davidson and Noble's account, this whole takes
and references in Davis, "Origins of Image Making," the form of a pure, autonomous "iconicity" somehow un-
p. 197; Desmond Morris, The Biology of Art: A Study of the derlyingboth depiction and language.
Picture-MakingBehaviour of the Great Apes and Its Rela- 42. See Bal and Bryson, "Semiotics and Art History."
tionship to Human Art (London: Methuen, 1962); E.H. For a perspicuousanalysis of the logical flaws in Saussure's
Gombrich, "Meditationson a Hobby Horse," in Medita- concept of semiotic "arbitrariness,"see David Holdcroft,
tions on a Hobby Horse and OtherEssays on the Theoryof Saussure:Signs, System,and Arbitrariness(CambridgeUni-
Art (London: Phaidon, 1963), pp. 1-11. Arthur Danto's versity Press, 1991).
views on animals as "masters of the 'standing for' rela- 43. Henry de Lumley, "Les fouilles de Terra Amata a
tionship" can be found in his interesting reflection "De- Nice," Bulletindu Musee d 'AnthropologiePrehistoriquede
scriptionand the Phenomenologyof Perception," in Visual Monaco 13 (1966): 29-5 1, and "A Paleolithic Camp at
Theory, eds. Norman Bryson, Keith Moxey, and Michael Nice," Scientific American 220, no. 5 (May, 1969): 42-50;
Ann Holly (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), pp. 201-215. Henry de Lumley and Yvonne Boone, "Les structures
37. PaulMellars, ed., TheEmergenceof ModernHumans d'habitatau Paleolithiqueinferieur,"in La PrehistoireFran-
(EdinburghUniversityPress, 1990),containsmanyproposals. caise, I, Les CivilizationsPaheolithiqueset Mesolithiquesde
38. NaamaGoren-Inbar,"A Figurinefrom the Acheulian la France, ed. Henry de Lumley (Paris: Editionsdu CNRS,
Site of BerekhatRam," MitekufatHaeven 19 (1986): 7-12. 1976), pp. 625-643. Louis Figuier, L'hommeprimitif,avec
39. For the later female figurines, see Henri Delporte, 39 scenes de la vie de i'hommeprimitif (Paris: Hachette,
L 'image de lafemme dans l'art prehistorique (Paris: Picard, 1870) is an extraordinaryvisual embodimentof many of the
1979). The broaderassociation between femininity and ori- issues I am consideringin this paper.
gins is explored in an importantpaperby MargaretConkey 44. Preziosi, RethinkingArt History, pp. 129-130.
and Sarah Williams, "Original Narratives: The Political 45. Preziosi, RethinkingArt History, p. 130.
Economy of Gender in Archaeology," in Gender at the 46. Paola Villa, TerraAmataand the Middle Pleistocene
Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Archaeological Record of Southern France (University of
Post-ModernEra, ed. Micaela diLeonardo (University of California Press, 1983), especially pp. 69-75, 79-82, 165-
CaliforniaPress, 1991), pp. 68-89. 170.
40. See above, notes 33, 34, 36, 37. 47. Dietrich Mania and Ursula Mania, "Deliberate En-
41. Davidson and Noble, "Archaeologyof Perception," gravings on Bone Artefacts of Homo Erectus," Rock Art
p. 148. More recently, Davidson and Noble have added an Research5 (1988): 91-107.
uneconomicaland implausible "evolutionarysequence" in 48. Maniaand Mania, "DeliberateEngravings,"p. 95.
explanationof their unsatisfactoryearlier proposal that the 49. The point is well made by Davidson and Noble,
supposed "imitative gesture" becomes "trace" becomes "Archaeologyof Perception,"pp. 127-128.
"sign" (or picture).They now proposethatthe "one-handed 50. lain Davidson, "Bilzingsleben and Early Marking,"
aimed throwing" of hominids hunting became "pointing" Rock Art Research 7 (1990): 52-56, is the most exacting
(at the huntedtarget)and finally became the "initiallyiconic analysis.
signs"of the supposed"imitativegesture," which ultimately 51. These observationsare due to Davidson, "Bilzingsle-
"depicts"the animal when the gesture, "frozen" as a trace, ben," p. 55 and photo.
gets taken as a "sign" (see lain Davidson and William 52. See above, notes 33, 34, 41.
Noble, "The Evolutionary Emergence of Modern Human 53. In "Origins of Image Making" and "Replication
Behaviour:LanguageandIts Archaeology,"Man 26 [1991], and Depiction" I assumed this view; I now see that it is
p. 245). But, as with the first sequence (see Whitney Davis, wrong.
"Comment," CurrentAnthropology30 [1989]: 140-141), 54. In addition to the Bilzingsleben bones, of particular
they continue to smuggle symbolic reference into this se- interestare the Mousterian(Neanderthal)marksfrom Bock-
quence. As Peirce showed, thereare no pure "iconic signs," steinschmiede, Germany, discussed by Alexander Mar-
and the "initially iconic" resemblances of an "imitative shack, "La pensee symbolique et l'art," in L'homme de
gesture" could only be secured through a "symbolic" or Neandertal, Dossiers de l'Archeologie 124 (1988): 80-90;
other complementary semeiotic criterion (see especially various other examples have been proposed. For each case,
ArthurK. Bierman, "ThatThere Are No Iconic Signs the questionsdiscussed here do arise-are the marksa "rep-
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 23 [1962]: licatory sequence"? "symbolic"? "deliberate"?-but might
243-249). This matter would not be a problem for an ac- be differentlyanswered.In "Originsof Image Making"and
count which allowed the "symbolic" specification of an "Replicationand Depiction," I assumed that any pre-exist-
"icon"-what Peirce called a "hypoicon" (see A.J. Ayer, ing mark(s)would do the trick. In her interestingessay "On
The Origins of Pragmatism [San Francisco: Freeman, the Origin and Significance of Paleolithic Cave Art," Max-
1968], p. 140)-to be carried out in spoken language. But ine Sheets-Johnstone(The Roots of Thinking[Temple Uni-
Davidson and Noble are trying to show that "imitativeges- versity Press, 1990], pp. 233-274) takes me to task for
ture"precedes languagein an evolutionarysequence! More- ignoring the "experientialdimensionsof the original acts of
[pre-or nondepictive]drawing"(p. 234), such as the "digi- 55. For example, Gombrich, "Meditationson a Hobby
tal fluting" I took to be the most immediatepriorcontext of Horse."
markingfor Upper Paleolithic cave art (see Robert G. Bed- 56. For example, Davidson and Noble, "The Archae-
narik, "ParietalFinger Markingsin Europeand Australia," ology of Perception"(althoughthis is not theirinterpretation
Rock Art Research 3 [1986]: 30-61). However, it was pre- of the scenariothey sketch).
cisely my point that such nondepictive markingscan come 57. For example, E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion
in all sorts of graphic, or "experiential," varieties so long (PrincetonUniversityPress, 1962).
as they can support a (later) moment of "seeing as" (or 58. Richard Wollheim, Art and Its Objects, 2nd ed.
seeing-in). (CambridgeUniversityPress), SupplementaryEssay V.

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Beginning the History of Art

Author(s): Whitney Davis

Beginningthe History of Art

Openingmanytextbooksof art history,one finds strong professional disposition to distrustques-

This laborseems, as it were, to be a supplemen- art-historicalintentionalityof each maker.Hence

sometimes Smith cannot find a parallel. For

Palimpsest Stratigraphic Associations

In his surprisefind, Cartailhacestablishedthe context of the artworkand its internalart-histo-

ontological knowledge about the evolution of More important,just becausethe debateabout

us what the original materiallooked like-as if,

;'ti'4'X ' R,-;

FIGURE 7. Reconstructionof "hut" at TerraAmata

semiotic arbitrarinessas such is avoidedby tak-

Forthe excavators,the bones implythatHomo Now according to the logic of art-historical

compromisethe Bilzingsleben bones as the bro- The brokenlinks, the nonpictorialmarks,and

Konrad Zimmermann (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1977), Using it as historicalevidence requiresanachronisticreason-

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