In Artistic Expressions as Vehicles of Cultural Memory: Bridging Identity, Heritage, and Intercultural Understanding, I read about the use of art as a memory aid, and a vehicle for evoking memories of past events or important stories. In it, the authors explain that art can serve a vital function in an oral society, as it can contain motifs, patterns, or figures that each represent something -- in this way, the art is intended to preserve the story.
Given the nature of art as an interpretive medium, I wonder if the meanings of certain pieces have been preserved perfectly, or if some of the meanings have changed over time. For example, the artwork of that deity who crawls off the wall each night -- if I remember correctly, it had been thousands of years since that artwork had been painted. The explanation we're receiving is, of course, contemporary, as the story has been passed down for millennia.
What if that wasn't always the story behind the piece, and it was an embellishment added by a later interpreter? Or do you suppose there's something in the art itself that could constitute an indication that it crawls down each night? The ways in which language can grow and change are fascinating to me, and I would love to somehow track the story of certain pieces of art between different generations of interpreters. I suppose, at a certain point, the stories of oral cultures might end up becoming a game of telephone if the storytellers and re-tellers aren't very careful with their choices. I suppose that's also why it takes so long to educate somebody to be a story-keeper for an oral community -- I can imagine the weight of responsibility is appropriately heavy.
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