ART 112 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Roman Art, Pow Wow, Georges Braque
Document Summary
When early explorers brought back souvenirs from their trip they were regarded as curiosities and they didn"t end up in art museums for a few centuries. With the founding of the first museums, these relics became part of natural history museums along with fossilized remains, flora and fauna, and utilitarian objects. They were considered the man-made material remains of a culture. Clouded by the framework of popular darwinism in the 19th century and other beliefs that justifed racial hierachies, peoples of. African, pacific, and native american descent were regarded as less civilized, less human even and therefore, attitudes about non-western art were also colored by pre-concieved ideas about race. Conversly, art from other cultures was not thought of as "art" in euro-american thought. By the early 1900"s, however, these same objects that were initially regarded as purely material culture in europe suddenly end up in western art museums and galleries, where we expect to see art.
