The term paleoanthropsychobiological was coined by Ellen Dissanayake in her piece entitled “What is art for”. When trying to understand what paleoanthropsychobiological means we can break the word down into its roots. “Paleo” can be assumed to be short for the term paleontology, which is the study of prehistoric life. “Anthro” is short for anthropology, which is the study of humankind. “Psycho” is short for psychology, which is the study of mental functions and behaviors. “Biological” relates to the study of life and living organisms. So if we throw it all together the term paleoanthropsychobiological means the study of prehistoric human mental and physical lifestyle. Dissanayake relates this study to the origin of art and its relationship to human survival.
When Dissanayake refers to the term “making special” she is referring to the innate need to derive meaning from an event such as a ritual ceremony. By making the ceremony or occasion special our ancestors were able to easily recall what happened in the ceremony and why it was important. These ceremonies were key to human survival because they taught life lessons or key insights to survival that could be passed down through the generations. If the rituals weren’t memorable or even existent they wouldn’t pass on key information or bring together people as a group. This all relates to art because it made art a detrimental necessity. It was “art for life itself” as she says multiple times in the reading.
Dissanayake talks about art in the medieval times as an engine for religion, to be more specific Christianity. Renaissance artists changed the focus from the Divine to humankind however they still kept grounded within a recognizable reality and culturally accepted standards of magnificence and excellence. Dissanayake talks about the 18th century bringing about 5 cultural changes with art. These five included: 1. a gradual secularization of society 2. The rise of science 3. The social changes to a monetarily focused society. 4. An emphasis on reason. 5. Political revolutions in America and France. Dissanayake attributes these changes to causing the “Romantic Rebellion” (17). Artists no longer had to please authority (whether church or state) but instead had to please the masses. As art grew within this new realm and modernism emerged. With the thoughts of modernism came and so did a cultural disinterest. One in which the “ ‘disinterest’ implied that viewers could appreciate any art, even the artwork of eras or cultures far removed from their own, whether or not they understood the meaning the works had for the people who and made and used them” (18). This caused art to become a universal language because everybody could appreciate it even people who didn’t understand the cultural relevance. This made good art versus bad art harder to explain since viewers didn’t necessarily know the significance of each individual piece of art. Art in modern times has come to mean so many different things and I believe in the old saying that art is “in the eye of the beholder”.
