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On Evolution without Progress
In _Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms_ (pg 173), Stephen Jay
Gould offers the following critique of the theories of Andre Leroi-Gourhan and
Abbe Henri Breuil on the development of cave painting in relationship to
evolution:
"After a detailed (though respectful) critique of Breuil, and an extensive
compendium of their particular differences, Leroi-Gourhan acknowledges the
fundamental similarity in their concept of progress as the key to a chronology
of Paleolithic art:
'The theory . . . is logical and rational; art apparently began with simple
outlines, then developed more elaborate forms to achieve modeling, and then
developed polychrome or bichrome painting before it eventually fell into
decadence.'
This progressivist theory of increasingly complex and supple realism in
Paleolithic painting dominated the field for decades. Writing of Leroi-Gourhan's
four-stage theory, Brigette and Gilles Delluc (in [Mario] Ruspoli's book, cited
previously [_The Cave of Lascaux_]) state simply: "the classification was fairly
soon adopted by everyone.' Any yet, I think everyone now realizes that the
hypothesis of progressivism in Paleolithic art cannot hold. The march to greater
and more complex realism doesn't make sense theoretically, and has now been
disproven empirically at Chauvet and elsewhere.
_Theoretical dubiety_. I don't want to use this essay as one more rehearsal for
my favorite theme that Darwinian evolution cannot be read as a theory of
progress, but only as a mechanism for building better adaptation to changing
local environments--and that the equation of evolution with progress represents
our strongest cultural impediment to a proper understanding of this greatest
biological revolution in the history of human thought. Still, I can't help
pointing out that this prejudice must underlie the ready proposition and
acceptance of such a manifestly improbable notion as linear progress for the
history of parietal art from thirty thousand to then thousand years ago.
But why do I label the progressivist hypothesis of Breuil and Leroi-Gourhan as
'manifestly improbable'?"
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Gould goes on to refute the arguments of progressivists and the idea that the
earliest art is necessarily the most primitive. This critique calls to question
notions of development within art. What does art develop toward? Does it have a
telos? Or does it develop in terms of something? Technology? As an adaptation to
changing environments?
In other words, does art have an end, a meaning---political, cultural, or
otherwise--unless the "local environment" calls for such performance?
To comment indirectly on the excellent essay by Robert B. Ray, "Mystery Trains,"
is our current "path dependence" a hangover from our Enlightenment celebration
of progress?
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JMC
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