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InvisibleArtpage125-127130131.docxSilent Music and Invisible Art 125
Silent Music and Invisible Art
EDMUND CARPENTER
Edmund Carpenter was born in 1922 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught anthropology for 40 years at many universities, including Harvard and the Universities of Toronto and California. He was one of the early pioneers in combining anthropology and film-making. He began doing fieldwork as a boy in 1935 and has worked in New Guinea, Borneo, and Tibet, as well as throughout the Arctic regions of Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and Siberia. In 1951, he spent the winter in an Eskimo sod hut. Among his publications are Patterns That Connect (1996), a 12-volume work called Social Symbolism in Ancient and Tribal An (1986-1988) and They Became What They Beheld (1970). The essay, which originally appeared in Natural History Magazine, asks some intriguing questions about "invisible art. '
Getting Started
Describing art created by diverse sources as Robert Matta, a Chilean surrealist painter, and tribal or community art created by Native Americans and the peoples of Japan, Germany, Alaska, and Tibet, Carpenter draws upon his global studies to illustrate what he calls:
'invisible art." Is there such a thing? Why might someone want to create it? Carpenter writes, "Perhaps the real mystery of tribal art is not its form or its beauty, but its reminder of the gift of privacy.'
How might art ensure the gift of privacy? Why would someone create art only to destroy it or watch it wash away? Is someone whose art is not shared truly an artist? Is there any value to temporary or unseen art?
o Western man, "silent music" is a contradiction in terms. "Invisible art" seems equally absurd, impossible, like the child of a barren woman. Even inaccessible art, although conceivable, seems somehow wrong, especially if deliberately inaccessible.
Roberto Matta, the surrealist, once put a painting on the six interior sides of a box, which he then sealed. And Walter de Maria proposed that a great cylinder be buried in a mountain overlooking Munich, its entrance concealed and never revealed. But Matta
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found no buyer and de Maria no backer. Art, we feel, demands viewers, and music, listeners.
I heard of an incident in the 1950s when a number of drug patients, many of them jazz musicians, were deprived of their instruments as punishment for some minor infraction of hospital rules. They sat about listlessly until a saxophonist picked up his invisible instrument and began to play silently; soon all the others joined in.
We call this mime, not music. Music is something we hear and share. Yet in many tribal societies, silent music is cultivated, even institutionalized. Singers sometimes plug both ears, converting sound into inner vibration. Or they may plav small musical instruments inside their closed mouths.
Among North American Indians, silent music was the essence of the spirit quest. At puberty a boy went apart from his fellows and fasted for a time in the wilderness. If he was the proper sort, a spirit took pity on him, bestowing special powers, principally in the form of songs. These remained his personal property, never to be revealed, save just before death—and even then, not always.
In days of torment and doubt, he sang alone or silently to evoke his guardian's help, singing again when relief was granted. He also gave thanks by painting or carving images addressed to his guardian. These were hidden in inaccessible places—on cliff walls facing the sky or in forbidden caves facing darkness. They were never intended to be seen by the living.
Most were small, but a few—probably clan efforts—were immense, laid out on mountaintops or scraped from desert floors. One is reminded of the tale of the giant so huge he is invisible. From the ground nothing can be seen save meaningless lines of rock and earth. Only when seen from the sky do these lines become coherent. Now, from airplanes, we see what was once reserved for spirits.
In Canada, such earth sculptures are generally geometric, but along the Mexican—United States border, many are anthropomorphic, often depicting a male and female in coitus. Here, as elsewhere in the tribal world, such pairs probably represent the original tribal ancestors in "primordial copulation"; the monument thus represents the origin of the tribe and, by extension, the beginning of the vvorld.
Such pregnant images were far too potent for mortal eyes. So were the contents of medicine bundles. Some medicine bundles were never opened, not even by their owners, who already knew what lay within. They had been entrusted with songs and formulas
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When American Indians burn their sacred treasures, rather 40 than sell them to us, we are disappointed and puzzled, and that puzzlement derives partly from respect.
Perhaps the real message of tribal art is not its form or its beauty, but its reminder of the gift of privacy.
I accept that there are mysteries best left unsolved—that some answers must forever elude outsiders. I was once very close to several Eskimo friends but I gave up hope we could ever come to know each other completely. If I had come to know them completely, I would have become an Eskimo; I would have lost my own identity, and this I did not choose to do.
"We wed ourselves to the mystery," not to conquer it or be conquered by it, but to greet it.
Questions
I. What is "inaccessible art," according to Edmund Carpenter? Do you think such art is "wrong" as he suggests it might seem to Westerners in paragraph one? or do you think that hidden art can be as important as public art? Why?
2. Carpenter writes about a variety of images that are not meant to be seen by the public because they have personal, spiritual, or ritualistic uses. Do you think that tongue piercings and hidden tattoos fit into this category? Why might some people want to display such private images and why might others want to keep them hidden?
3. In paragraph 27, we read about bonseki, a secular art of Japan, in which artists create sand paintings that they destroy after about two weeks. Have you ever created a sand painting or seen one made? Have you ever made a snow sculpture? A sand castle? How do you explain the satisfaction of creating a picture or sculpture that will likely be washed away with the tide or melt in the sun?
4. The kinds of things that might fit into the category of images intended only for limited viewing go far beyond those mentioned by Hughes in this article— the insignias of private groups, valuable works of art in the homes of the rich, photographs taken for intimate reasons. What other kinds of images can you think of that might fall under this heading and what are the reasons for their creation?
5. Go online and look at the art of Andy Goldsworthy, whose work is meant to disappear back into nature after it is photographed. What do you think of art like Goldsworthy's that is deliberately designed not to last? Can it be as important as work intended to last for centuries? Does it seem contradictory to you that Goldsworthy photographs his work so that it will not entirely disappear?
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Hidden art takes many forms: an insignia on the inner side of an Elizabethan finger ring; entire Indonesian temples concealed beneath stone structures; paintings on the inside of a mummy case, facing the deceased.
I once saw a gold brooch whose form was abstract, until you blew on it, at which point its spinning parts formed the letters KKK, for Ku Klux Klan.
Small cabins on the banks of the Rhine belong to families whose fishing rights date from medieval times. During Fastnacht, a three-day winter festival, cabins are left unguarded. An unidentified artist selects one and covers its inner walls with pornography. When the owner returns, he may simply lock the door or he may invite friends. Either way, tradition requires that the paintings remain for one year; then they are eradicated. Such paintings generate wide speculation. Rumors abound. Old tales are revived. Yet only a few people actually see anything.
Perhaps we should redefine a tribe as a group whose shared knowledge permits communication through secrecy. We, who have lost this ability, create instead the ultimate in accessibility as a substitute for the network of tradition.
We love to solve mysteries. Our children, when visiting their grandmother, head first for the attic, to open trunks. I was fascinated to learn that a safe deposit in Basel can be opened only by its owner, even if it lies dormant for a thousand years. Fascinated but skeptical: could any Westerner, even a Swiss, resist a mystery for a thousand years?
Recently a museum collection of African fetishes, each sealed in leather shrouds, proved too tempting; the curator X-rayed them, thus satisfying his curiosity while preserving their bindings.
If there is an Indian mound in the neighborhood, we open it. I doubt that a single known mound in Nonh America has escaped violation. Nearly forty years ago, as an archeologist, I asked a landowner for permission to open a burial mound. He refused on the grounds that he respected the mystery. I was disappointed but I never forgot, or condemned, his decision.
