Isaac Candelario

Analysis of Shelly Errington on Primitive art

The word primitive can have many negative connotations to it. Webster’s dictionary defines it as being something from antiquity or something underdeveloped. Shelly Errington gives an in depth portrayal of primitive art showing just how complex the history is. She gives insight into how certain words have been used over time paralleling changing definitions with specific historical situations.

Terms that Errington is dealing with include art, primitivism, and authenticity. Shelly holds that primitivism and authenticity have died as concepts for the modern cultural analyst. So, we are left with a problem. What do we make of primitive art? She goes about defining art through historically centered cultural analysis. Taking time to point out the ways in which museums, popular artists, art theorists, catalogues, transnational mobility, and economics have contributed to the ways people view and think about art. Errington paints the nineteenth century as a time of intense technological advancement in the west leading to the modernism of the twentieth century.

The importance of intention in art is always a popular subject among art theorists and philosophers. Shelly sets up a dichotomous view of art by paralleling art by intention with art by appropriation. It is through a treatment of these terms that she sets up her history of primitive art.