Karl and Davis

As often happens to me when I read lengthy texts, I seem to always be trying to find some singular point of the entire article that I don't really see all the while reading the text, but then realize that all the seemingly random digressions I've been reading are actually the focus of the article. In any case, despite the strange obsession with "Figure 1" and the ridiculous hyphenated words such as "pre-pre-art-historical", I eventually concluded that the article is talking about how the art-history of different pieces of art should be connected.

Lots of the talk seems to be centered upon prehistoric cave drawings, or other objects around this time period. There isn't much known about these pieces of art, other than the fact that they were made and they are old. How can things such as these cave drawings be connected to the historic and modern art that we know? Due to the lack of intermediary art, it is hard to say whether technique X found in a cave drawing is the same as technique Y in a more modern work. This seems to be the task at hand, trying to extend art-history farther back than recorded history. It does sound like something that would be neat to do.

The main problem is that every connection made will have less proof than most art connections. I could draw something right now and say I was influenced by Picaso, and that wouldn't be disputed. Beyond that, every connection made between pieces of art is based on a guess, looking at things such as time, location, and techniques to determine just how much each work of art is influenced by the other. While these comparisons have the benefit of knowing which artist did what, and the history of that artist which may indicate their influences, the cave drawings are only as they are seen. We don't know why they were drawn, by who they were drawn, or even whether one drawing is related to another in any way. It is mainly just conjecture. With educated inferences, the assumptions are probably correct, but still are founded on a much weaker base than the historic connections.

Through the 20 or so pages of solid text, this is more or less what Davis is trying to say. In my view, it is a valid topic to bring up, and I believe that art historians should simply go ahead and try to draw connections where they can. I think it's better to have something rather than nothing, even if most of it turns out to be wrong. What is the purpose of studying art history? The cave drawings are useless if no attempt is made to attempt to patch them into the rest of art.

I can't actually tell if Davis is taking any sides on this issue. I've said what I think she is trying to say and what I think about what she said. All I know is that I'm tired and I don't even care what figure 1 is anymore.

(http://www.google.com/notebook/public/02785633991418050926/BDR7cIgoQqIKS8sIj)