Origin of Art? Not so much...

Davis's chapter is all about origin -- both the origin of art and art history. The first few pages pose a paradox related whether art can actually have origin. I found the text quite hard to read and to understand, especially the introduction. I haven't been able to pin down the exact nature of this paradox, but I have some ideas about: Davis suggests that art historians presuppose that all art is extension of previous art ("replication"?), that every artwork is somehow one continuous entity with preceding and proceeding art (but only if art historians have connected this sequence of works in analysis?). But... this contradicts the notion of first art (!) since first art is preceded by nothing, and thus it is not an extension of anything. I think I must be often taking Davis's metaphors literally (I definitely have trouble identifying them), because I do not think she means to say that it is inherently contradictory to specify a date before which there was no art (take 10^89 BC for example) was made. And if you can do that (and supposing there are only finitely many pieces of art), there must be a first! I think she's more playing with the definition of art, and it's implications about origin and cause. And she's reacting to art history dogma, it seems, based on certain comparisons in the first few paragraphs and her "Figure 1" device.

The theme of origin is continued into the body of the text, when she begins to talk more specifically about the history of art history. She points at art history's need to connect discrete art artifacts and join them into a continuous narrative. She highlights discontinuities: e.g. the "irregular" thumb in an Egyptian hieroglyphics, and finds art historical references to these to be meaningful. I do not totally understand where the text goes with this, but it does seem to me that origin is really the prime discontinuity.