Aesthetics And Pre Columbian Art Research Assignment (Essay Sample)

The book begins by highlighting the traces of art even in communities that are believed not to have dwelled in art, suggesting that intention is not crucial in the creation of art. A critical analysis of the embroideries on garments and symbols incorporated into badges, images, palaces, crests, and places of worship prove the existence of art in every part of the society.
The new knowledge gained from the emergence of the field of aesthetics has helped humankind to change the perspective on art. However, Newall and Pooke (201) acknowledge that the study of traditional artifacts by the Europeans suffers from the influence of the opinion of these scholars. Western thoughts play a significant role in the conclusions since the researchers attempt to compare the old culture to their European background. The writer states that the aesthetics of an object can only be decoded through a careful application of the investigator’s skills and the subject of the study itself and any other approach cannot yield precise results (Pasztory 319).
Pre-Columbian art has existed for many years, but the lack of accompanying text hinders the possibility of analyzing the works comprehensively. Research indicates that, unlike other pre-Columbian societies, the Maya were conscious of aesthetics and their art creations. Pasztory (320) says that a considerable ratio of the pre-Columbian artifacts was destroyed by the Europeans who only valued the products of architecture, and engineering, dismissing other art pieces as useless items.
The change in the approach of studying the art from the Americas from a religious perspective to a scientific and aesthetic angle helped provide clear and better deductions from these arts than ever before. Artists from the pre-Columbian era had distinct styles but were not bound by the philosophy of art and relied on a simple comparative assessment (Pasztory 323).
The growth of the Pre-Columbian art does not match the Western expectations that art develops from abstraction to the naturalism and there is a raging disagreement on whether the development of art progresses in a single specified order. Evidence indicates that the Olmec art was highly sophisticated despite bei...