Re: How art invented humanity

On Fri, 31 Jul 2026 23:46:11 -0000 (UTC), Tara <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Noah Sombrero <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Fri, 31 Jul 2026 22:23:00 +0000, Creon <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>>> At Fri, 31 Jul 2026 17:52:45 -0000 (UTC), Tara <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> In 1940, rumours of secret passageways to an old manor lured four teenage boys
>>>> into a hole in the ground near the village of Montignac in southwestern
>>>> France. Instead of a tunnel laden with gold, they found a series of natural
>>>> chambers bejewelled with exquisite paintings: horses and elk, ibex and bulls,
>>>> almost perfectly preserved on the limestone walls. Experts examining the
>>>> Lascaux caves in subsequent years using radiocarbon dating estimated that the
>>>> paintings had been made some 19,000 years ago. Today, the images are believed
>>>> to be around 20,000 years old. But Lascaux is far from the oldest example of
>>>> human art. Since 1940, many other caves have been found in Europe, Australia,
>>>> Indonesia and Africa containing art no less astounding. Some of it is more
>>>> than twice the age of the Lascaux murals.
>>>> Cave painting of prehistoric animals in earthy tones on a textured rock
>>>> surface.
>>>> 
>>>> These discoveries have turned the questions of when and why humans invented
>>>> art into central problems of the human sciences. As fair and poignant as such
>>>> questions may be, they leave unaddressed the deeper mystery of what art is in
>>>> the first place, where it comes from in the human soul, and what it might
>>>> reveal to us about the nature of reality.
>>>> 
>>>> Popular legend holds that when Pablo Picasso visited the Lascaux cave a few
>>>> years after its discovery, he emerged exclaiming: ?We have invented nothing? ?
>>>> art had appeared full-grown from its earliest instance. The common
>>>> interpretation is that Picasso was humbly attributing the invention of art to
>>>> our prehistoric ancestors rather than claiming it for himself and his
>>>> contemporaries, or any human of the modern age. But perhaps this apocryphal
>>>> story conveys a weirder truth, namely that no one really invented art.
>>>> Instead, it was the other way around: art invented humanity..........
>>>> 
>>>> Art has never been a celebration of humanity, but always an exploration of
>>>> those borderlands where the human ends and something else begins. This applies
>>>> even to art dealing with seemingly human ideas, feelings and things. Only
>>>> through art can a city become a jungle, a house an alien structure, a sadness
>>>> a kind of weather event....................
>>>> 
>>>> https://aeon.co/essays/humans-did-not-invent-art-it-was-the-other-way-around?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=48f001c5bc-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_07_24_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-49ad69cbc2-71577312
>>> 
>>> Which brings to mind a question I've seen before...
>>> 
>>> Which came first:  music, or speech?
>> 
>> There is a peculiar form of singing among indigenous inuit.  I can't
>> think of what they call it now.
>
>Throat singing 

That's it.
-- 
Noah Sombrero mustachioed villain
Don't get political with me young man
or I'll tie you to a railroad track and
<<<talk>>> to <<<YOOooooo>>>
Who dares to talk to El Sombrero?
dares: Ned
does not dare: Julian  shrinks in horror and warns others away