Defining the term paleoanthropsychobiological is simply a matter of breaking down the word. By definition, paleo refers to history, anthrop refers to human, psycho refers to psychological and biological refers to biological. When one combines each of these terms, the word is the understanding of human nature and the society in which he lives. I belief that Ellen Dissanayake coined this term herself as a way of not only defining and explaining ‘Art’ but also as a way to get her audience to understand ‘Art.’
Dissanayake uses the phrase “making special” to differentiate between the mundane and the extraordinary. In my opinion, humans take too many of the beautiful things in life (which can be considered art) for granted. Dissanayake wants her audience to see the phrase “making special” as a form of human behavior in prioritizing that which we find to be of the utmost importance. For example, she says, “Among these tendencies is also the behavior or propensity to ‘make special’ particularly things that one cares deeply about or activities whose outcome has strong personal significance” 22). Now, there are the everyday activities such as waking up, showering, eating breakfast and getting ready for school or work. These are everyday human behaviors. These may seem like mundane everyday activities that people take for granted. However, it is the importance that we place on these certain behaviors that “makes them special.”
“The crucial factor for claiming the beginning of a behavior of art. I believe, would have been the ability not just to recognize that something is special, but deliberately to set out to make something special” (22). In other words, we take things that may not be art and make them special by enhancing form and color. For example, Dissanayake states, “In a number of sites from 250,000 years ago, pieces of red coloring material have been found, far from the areas in which they naturally occur. It is thought that these were brought to be used for coloring and marking such things as bodies and utensils as people continue to do today to make them special” (22). In other words, Dissanayake is saying that people made such things special simply by marking them, and then these seemingly mundane bodies and utensils became something of importance. “These may not seem like ‘art’ but they do show the wish to use form and color to ‘make special’” (22).
When she argues about the importance of things, she also illustrates survival instincts. For example, she relates art to human survival through something as simple as hunting. “I suggest that to our ancestors it was essential not only to make good tools – spear and arrows for the hung – but to make sure they worked by making them and the activities that were concerned with them special” (23). In other words, the making of the weapons is an art in itself just as much as the actual behavior of hunting. Before they hunt, she also states that hunters may partake in fasting, praying, bathing or special rituals as a part of hunting behavior. In a sense, these forms of human survival or control of their behavior can be interpreted as a way of “vicariously demonstrating the control they desire in order to successfully achieve their goal. And although ‘behavior made special’ need not be aesthetic or artistic, when one exerts control, takes pains, and uses care and contrivance to do one’s best, the result is generally what is called artistic or aesthetic” (23). As a result, human instinct to eat as a form of survival becomes art. Making tools implements one’s investment in an activity in which he finds to be important.
Dissanayake also mentions three theories of art including: Modernism, Post Modernism and Aesthetics. Modernism was most prominent before Post Modernism and represented one’s personal interest in art rather than its ramifications. “There is a special frame of mind for appreciating works of art – a ‘disinterested’ attitude that is separate from one’s own personal interest in the object, its utility, or its social or religious ramifications” (17). Post-Modernism was most prominent after Modernism and continues to be mostly prominent today. Dissanayake claims that there is valid and intrinsic association between what humans have always found to be important and certain ways that they have found to manifest, reinforce, and grasp this importance. She goes on to say “That the arts in postmodern society do not do this, at least to the extent that they do in pre-modern societies. These abiding concerns are more often than not artificially disguised, denied, trivialized or banished” (26). Finally, Aesthetics is the last theory, which has always seemed to be prominent because aesthetics deal with a concern with elucidating principles such as taste and beauty that govern all the arts and indeed make them not simply painting or statues but example of (fine) art” (17).
As Dissanayake begins this article, it is apparent that art is an inherent human characteristic. It is seen in our behaviors, even our survival instincts. Art is everywhere, and I believe that this is the point of Dissanayake’s article.
