A Study On H.G. Blocker’s View Of Primitive Art

Primitive art is the core category of artistic anthropology.Over the past hundred years,it has undergone several changes in research lines,theories,perspectives,and methods and has merged into a general research consensus.The differences in the study of primitive art stem from the ambiguity of its definition.It was not until the mid to late twentieth century that anthropologists analyzed the question of primitive art from various perspectives and combined it with the analyses and investigations of aestheticians and artists,eventually defining primitive art as a special cultural behavior of primitive humans.As modern Western conceptions of art changed dramatically,art theorists and anthropologists began to rethink the idea of primitive art,trying to strip it of its Western-centric arrogance and offer an objective interpretation and fair assessment of it.It was against this theoretical background that Blocker became involved in the study of primitive art.He adopted the theoretical approach of analytical aesthetics to logically analyze the terms related to the study of primitive art.He identified the logical fallacies of existing concepts and theories of primitive art and uncovered the social and cultural roots behind the misconceptions and prejudices.Based on the interdisciplinary nature of primitive art studies,he built a bridge between the primitive context and the Western discourse in the interaction of terms,concepts,and ideas.He explored the factual and theoretical possibilities of the philosophy of primitive art.This thesis focuses on the interpretation and analysis of the specific content of Blocker’s theory of primitive art philosophy,focusing on the key terms "primitive" and "primitive art," sorting out Blocker’s view of primitive,primitive art,primitive art criticism and their academic-historical value,and clarifying Blocker’s thinking on the construction of a critical theory of primitive art through a close reading of the text,and finally placing Blocker’s general idea of primitive art philosophy into the overall history of aesthetics for comparative analysis and exploring its significance for the development of contemporary aesthetics.