10.6092/issn.1973-9494/6157
Le origini delle attività artistiche ovvero dell’arte, l’elaborazione e il consolidamento, negli ultimi decenni, di un campo nuovo della storia dell’arte, che è la semeiotica dell’arte, si raggruppano nei sistemi semeiotici delle arti applicate e non applicate.Nel presente lavoro si analizzano, in particolare, le arti non applicate, i cui segni sono mezzi non verbali che servono per esprimere la forma di pensiero dell’uomo.Si trattano, quindi, le origini delle arti non applicate, il processo di formazione dell’immagine, la psicologia della percezione, la percezione sonora e la riproduzione dei suoni, lo sviluppo della musica e lo sviluppo del ballo, nella loro interezza, come espressione della condizione interiore che influenza il corpo attraverso il movimento: si fornisce, in tal maniera, un valido contributo allo studio delle arti non applicate.
application/pdf
1973-9494
6157
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Aleksandre P. Lobodanov
Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
non-applied arts
The Origins of Art
Text.Serial.Journal
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/
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Articles
2015-12-30
2016-05-20
2015-12-30
2017-09-04
33-55
CSCH
Aleksandre P. Lobodanov
2015/12/30
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/6157
33
Lomonosov State University Moscow
1973-9494
non-applied arts
en
55
The Origins of Art
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/article/download/6157/5933
15
    I have, on several occasions, in publications and in conferences, highlighted the
connection between different disciplines, namely between literature, art history, ar-
cheology, library and information science, archival science, music history and cultural
heritage preservation. These disciplines are all brought together by the reading and
interpretation of specific signs. The discipline that studies signs, as is well-known, is
semiotics, which derives from the Greek σημέiον, meaning “sign” and τέχνη, meaning
“art”.
    Since culture is, moreover, a phenomenon of promotion and communication, and
all communication takes place through the use of signs, it can also be said that the
semiotic nature of culture, in this particular case, refers to the semiotics of visual art: a
discipline that deals with studying the meaning of a visual work of art.
    The correlation between signs and meaning and, in particular between material and
historical signs, is also found in the “preservation of cultural heritage”.
    This is why then, there is a need for the scholar’s education and international ex-
perience in “Semiotics and General Theory of Art” which have resulted in the following
scientific contribution. The process forming the image, together with the psychology
of perception, be it through sound or movement, as in the expression of a line, rightly
complements those aspects of an expressive order in referring to the interdisciplinarity
of the Journal and in accordance with the holistic value of the cultural artifact.

                                                                             Editor-in-Chief
T      HE ORIGINS OF ART



      Aleksandre P. Lobodanov*
      Department of Semiotics and Basic Theory of Fine Arts
      Faculty of Art
      Lomonosov State University Moscow, Russia


     Keywords: semiotics, art semiotics, applied arts, non-applied arts


     1. Introduction

    This paper presents a particular line of thought regarding the origins of artistic activi-
ties, in particular, art.
    The argument remains one of the “eternal questions”, and is perceived as being
“eternal”, due to the fact that in all social and scientific activities the same issues mani-
fest themselves, reappearing however in different contexts and presenting new cir-
cumstances and new features.
    Over the last three decades of the twentieth century and the early years of the twen-
ty-first century, these new qualitative circumstances were conditioned by the develop-
ment and consolidation of a new field in art history, called art semiotics, the science of
signs, a naturally occurring feature in art.
    At that time, what emerged in the field of humanities, was an understanding of the
unifying and meaningful character of social activity, unified by the fact that only signs




                                                                                                      CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
constituting semiotic systems could be considered unifying conveyors of information
on cultural issues. Signs contain, preserve and transmit to future generations, social
semantic information, in other words, knowledge.
    Historically and objectively, signs in art are grouped together in the semiotic sys-
tems of the applied and non-applied arts.
    The non-applied arts are those that consider the abstract model of human relation-
ship with the surrounding world, and takes shape in human thought. To this kind of art
belong ‘dance’ which represents human behaviour, music which represents the dynam-
ic framework of the world, the figurative arts (including sculpture and decorative arts)
which represent the world and the individual in a well-defined fixed moment in time.
    The applied arts (i.e. practical, “for embellishment”) are those used to create the
artificial world of objects around people, organizing and differentiating the material
environment of their lives. They are represented by architecture (creation of an artificial
environment for human life), and artistic forms of household goods and clothes (man’s
self-appellation). The applied arts are characterized by the dualism of their nature be-
cause they combine material and constructive aspects with aesthetics.
    In this paper we will look at the non-applied arts, in which the signs are non-verbal
means that serve to express human thought in various forms. They are represented

*
    Corresponding author: alobodanov@inbox.ru

                                                                                                 33
                                       in societies by the signs of dance (the signs of man’s active behavior are the conven-
                                       tional non-verbal means of the idea of the relationship “man-man”), the signs of music
                                       (the intonations are the conventional non-verbal means of the idea of the relationship
                                       “man-universe”), the signs of images (the lines are the non-verbal means of the idea
                                       of the relationship with the space of the objective world around him). Thus the non-
                                       applied arts provide knowledge of man’s existence, so he understands his position in
                                       the objective world of sounds and makes him aware of the intentions and moments of
                                       his behavior in the environment of creatures similar to himself.
                                           The nature of signs from the non-applied arts is based on imitation that endows
                                       them with ample possibility of expressing meaning, and charges them with strong spir-
                                       itual impulses.
                                           Mimicry of the sign is visuality, imitation in the form that yields itself to the material
                                       of the sign.
                                           The philosophers of ancient Greece interpreted this idea in a broad sense, not sim-
                                       ply re-copying it but artistically reproducing reality. Thus Plato treated mimesis as a
                                       kind of creation. Aristotle used this word and the concept within it, in the sense of imi-
                                       tating, the result of which is an artistic reproduction of the imitated object. Even today,
                                       we distinguish between the “mere imitation of existing reality” and the “infinite field of
                                       created reality”.
                                           By dint of the imitative nature of the sign thus formed, the nature of the signs of the
                                       non-applied arts is twofold: the figurative and expressive origins converge in it, con-
                                       ditioned by the values of the referents of such signs. Unlike in the applied arts, where
                                       the subject coexists with its sign, as the form of the sign and as the utilitarian quality
                                       of the object itself, in the non-applied arts the position of the signs and their referents
                                       in time and space do not coincide, they are separate: the signs are placed in time
                                       and space, separately from their referents. This separation explains two fundamental
                                       characteristics of the nature of the arts in question: signs in non-applied arts can com-
                                       pletely lack the referential correlation expressed, consequently the referent of such
                                       signs is not required in relation to the object, but undoubtedly contains the thought of
                                       the object; therefore signs in the non-applied arts are symbolic; the remoteness of the
                                       referent necessarily activates the mechanisms of memory, creating the phenomenon
                                       of memorization which is conditioned and conditions the dualism of the nature of the
                                       signs in non-applied arts.
                                           We will now examine the origins of the non-applied arts, in sequence.
A.P. Lobodanov - The origins of art




                                          2. The origins of the non-applied arts

                                          Our ancestors observed the diversity of the world around them with a watchful eye,
                                       including the animals and their uses. Firstly, the variety of animals in the world re-
                                       corded in cave paintings was useful to early men as a way of studying them (before
                                       hunting a beast it was necessary to know what it looked like and what threats it might
                                       represent); the aim was one of self-preservation, to protect family members and be
                                       able to provide sustenance for them and himself. In this case, the primary function of
                                       what we call “art” is that of protection. Secondly, iconographic representation served as
                                       a “visual reminder”, a visual aid to educate future generations of hunters. Thirdly, an-
                                       thropomorphic images represented a means of studying and learning about where an
                                       individual’s position was in the world that surrounded them; the appearance of images


                                  34
with objects from nature, domestic life, numerological signs and symbols testify to the
fact that our ancestors learned to use and handle raw materials. The initial function of
images was therefore one of protection, education and cognition.
    Let us reason further. The visual means used to express the shape of an object,
the only means to create any type of image is a line. It is the line that actually makes it
possible to fix the figurative content that is enclosed in the movement of the hand along
the surface of the depicted object. The line has become the means to “record” and
consolidate the movement simulated and repeated in the human conscience. Made on
a figurative surface, the line is a sign of the image, the basis of its signification that is
the characteristic definition of the entire form of the object. A line is therefore the basis
for figurative activity, its prime element (Figure 1-2).




                                                                                                     CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
Figure 1. Venus, 28-22 thousand years BC. Cussac Cave (Grotte de Cussac), Dordogne, France.




Figure 2. Anna Akhmatova,. Drawing by Amedeo Modigliani. 1905.


                                                                                                35
                                           The figurative image was exported to the world outside, beyond the subjective limits
                                       of individual perception. The beginning of the figurative representation of objects from
                                       the outside world appeared in the form of a new objective reality of the surrounding
                                       world, which can be defined as a secondary reality.


                                          3. Figurative and expressive result of the line in the process of image formation

                                          In the visual arts, defining “recorded” movement can only be done by means of a
                                       line.
                                          By transmitting and strengthening the character of the movement it has been pos-
                                       sible to express all objects in the visible world. It is conditioned by the dualism of the
                                       nature of the line itself. On the one hand, a line is obtained with a movement along
                                       the figurative surface with which either a substance or an instrument leaves a material
                                       trace of the movement on the outer surface of the other. Hence, the line is the track of
                                       the movement made on the surface. We shall call this the figurative result.
                                          On the other hand, the internalized memorized movement connected with inner
                                       emotions arising from the movement on the surface of the chosen object (determined
                                       by its curvature), by moving one’s hand with a substance or an instrument that leaves a
                                       track/trail along the figurative surface, was also how early humans obtained a line, but
                                       as the track/trail of another movement that is memorized produced in the memory. A
                                       line that reproduces the thought-of movement on the surface of the object and defined
                                       as a recollection. We shall call this the expressive result. The nature of the sign of the
                                       line brings together its figurative and expressive origins.


                                          4. The psychology of perception

                                          Historically, the line, as a prime element of the sign, is the only reliable means
                                       of expressing, recording, preserving and later transmitting to other generations the
                                       memorized movement.
                                          Everything that was common or similar in the cave paintings discovered in various
                                       regions was conditioned by the referent of the images’ signs, while everything that
                                       was different was conditioned by the style of the images produced, in which attitude
                                       was always expressed with respect to what was illustrated as the particularity of the
A.P. Lobodanov - The origins of art




                                       perception of the image of the object; the modes of realizing the thought-of content in
                                       the materials conditioned them and gave rise to the stylistic efforts of ancient authors.
                                          Instead, the shape of the depicted object in the cave paintings became one of the
                                       clues that guided early humans towards the idea of space in the environment that
                                       surrounded them. The shape characterized the object in its entirety, as it was a key
                                       component of the visual world. Thus, the form of mimicry too, applied to the material of
                                       the signs of the image, was defined by the nature of the referents of these signs, thus
                                       by the fullness of the spatial environment and the objects around people.
                                          During the process of forming the figurative image of nature (object) in the draw-
                                       ing, sculpture, etc., the representation of the model itself (object) is necessarily corre-
                                       lated with the depicted object (modeled), given that they are perceived as two different
                                       things. But this correlation is not established between our subjective image of the ob-
                                       ject and the object itself, between the imagined reality of the drawing and the drawing


                                  36
itself, between the perception of one’s own drawing and the drawing itself. That said, it
is exactly the understanding of this correlation that holds the key to the explanation of
the nature of figurative art.
    Let us examine one straightforward example. A person’s movement along any ob-
stacle is subject to its geometry; they resemble it, as if carrying their own definition by
following the line of movement itself. Thus the principal aspect in this figurative activity,
as it is the initial active process of perception, is that activating the idea of space of
the objective world (object) and establishing the corresponding expressive form of the
imagined reality, is: first of all, a collateral and unexpected result, early humans created
the expressive form of the idea of space aspiring to a different result and generally aim-
ing at utilitarian goals. A secondary and unexpected result of the activity was the image
of the objective form of the hand-made animal on the surface; this fact is considered to
be the beginning of the history of figurative art; secondly, stabilizing form is not done to
search for methods to formally express the idea of space, but to produce utilitarian ob-
jectives, created not from external visual contemplation, but from those opportunities
to act provided by the object itself, from the type of possible operations which allow the
individual to come into contact with the objective reality (the objective part of reality).
These actions and these types of operations, “suggested” in some ways by the object
itself, are defined by the dimensional properties of the object.
    The figurative activity initially emerges as an attempt to fix, by means of sign forma-
tion in the image, actions performed in space by an individual that are connected with
the outer surface of the objects to be perceived.
    This qualitative aspect of the surrounding world which is the idea of space, man did
not and does not perceive as a separate object (of perception). In the retrospective
of time when one thinks of the appearance of figurative art, it is difficult to imagine a
person consciously seeking the most virtuous way to express this quality. It is more
correct to assume that before the concept of space stabilized itself man, no less than
other beings that moved, attempted to exploit the opportunities offered by this quality.




                                                                                                      CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
    Dimensionality is primarily the ability to move in the broadest sense of the term.
    Dimensionality enabled us then, and still enables us today, to physically change
position, the point of observation, to choose a different path to go from one place to
another. Furthermore, aiming at utilitarian objectives, individuals moved themselves
and objects too, they changed their position, took them apart, deformed them, gave
them a different shape. In manipulating the objective surroundings in the same way
our ancestors did thousands of years ago, modern people do not reflect on the dimen-
sional aspect and size and so are unaware of the forms they persistently create without
contemplating it in almost all their actions, which follow very different objectives.
    In other words, with representations taken from nature, two steps are covered: first,
the object “initiates” the corresponding perceivable activity, with this activity subse-
quently creating the subjective illustrated product, which is the idea of the shape of
the object.
    Figurative activity thus becomes a part of the psychology of perception with its spe-
cial function; it is this function of the positioning of the subject in the objective activity
which is transformed into the subjective product (illustrated).
    Initially then, figurative activity takes the form of actions that are external and opera-
tions with objects of perception that are external in the case of people, which are the
objects found in the surrounding environment. Afterwards, these operations, actions,
processes are transformed into operations of inner reflection which are our inner emo-


                                                                                                 37
                                       tions regarding the object, the impressions left by the object (by its qualities, particularly
                                       the impressions of the curvature of the external surfaces). This is how the thought-of
                                       models of movement, connected to the illustrated model, are created. The creation of
                                       such thought patterns is the main condition of the transformation dynamics of the de-
                                       sign of the objective content (the internal phase of visual language) in the formal design,
                                       in the design of the sensitive tissue of the figurative image (the external phase of the
                                       visual language). Psychology defines these phenomena with the idea of internalisation,
                                       whereas philosophy defines them with the term denomination, the creation of the word.
                                       Within the field of visual perception are found primary names, whereas in the field of
                                       figurative activities are derived names composed on the basis of primary ones.
                                           This reciprocal double passage from the outside (external activity directed towards
                                       the object) to the inside (inner emotion, the impressions made by this activity) and the
                                       passage from the inside (impressions seen as the motivation for the figurative activity)
                                       to the new external action, this time however, employing tools and materials of the sign
                                       formed in the available image, creates the new external product that is the hand-made
                                       image (chirographic) of the shape of the observed object.
                                           The ‘inner product’ that has been created represents the programme for new exter-
                                       nal actions, being the basis of ideas (the design of the objective content in the creation
                                       of the image) it contains what is to be expressed in the new figurative design that has
                                       at this point, already taken on a figurative form. In other words, the design of the con-
                                       tent of the imagined reality contains within itself the expressive objective of the creation
                                       of the new formal plan. This formal design is the representation of the form of the object
                                       on the surface. This is the modelling principle in figurative activity.


                                          5. The perception and reproduction of sound: the development of music

                                          Early humans listened carefully to the sounds of nature: anything could represent a
                                       source of sound for them, including everything as a whole that was part of the auditory
                                       environment.
                                          In memorising what made sounds and what the sounds were, people became famil-
                                       iar with their environment, preserving with camouflaging stabilisation this experience
                                       of sound perception of the world of objects and space for their own species and their
                                       descendents.
                                          Initially it was necessary to define tribal territories and protect them as well as pre-
A.P. Lobodanov - The origins of art




                                       dicting a change in the weather (e.g. with the sigh, groan and whistle of the wind, the
                                       whispering of the leaves, changes in the sound pattern of birds and insects), to find
                                       reserves of water (with the lapping of the current of the river, waterfall and sea-waves),
                                       and consequently stock up on fish, birds and animals.
                                          The sounds of nature not only guided man in the macrocosm, but also in certain
                                       areas of his practical objective tasks. Thanks to the analytical activity of his five senses
                                       and his mind, man shaped his knowledge of sound as a means of learning about the
                                       world.
                                          In memorising what made sounds and what the sounds were, people imitated (an
                                       intentional action) the sounds of nature, of activities that were objective and related to
                                       work, of the instinctive passages of the voice (corresponding to different moods, such
                                       as joy, sorrow, laughter, crying, etc.) in a form that endowed the material with musical
                                       signs, resulting in the figurative element of imitation.


                                  38
    That said, in reproducing the sounds of objects and space from the environment
that humans could hear or had heard, they then produced the sounds as echoes of
remembered sounds and reproduced them from memory. The intention of imitating the
involuntary passages of the voice, presumably led our ancestors to discovering the
first musical means of expression and through imitation, seen as being the symbolic
reproduction of the sound and musical mimesis of the object, to obtain the expressive
result. It would seem that the intensity of musical sounds emerged from the intensity
associated with the sounds of nature and the surrounding world; they appeared as a
result of specific natural phenomena, such as the flow of water over stones, the rus-
tling of the leaves in the wind, the howling of the storm, with thunder and lightning, the
eruption of a volcano, birdsong, the roar of beasts, and so on. This combination of the
figurative and the expressive later influenced the development of musical composition.
    In the early stages of anthropogenesis the individual depended upon nature for
its pacifying “pleasant” manifestations, but was also influenced by those that were
destructive. The frightening manifestations of the natural elements were usually ac-
companied by a particular type of sound, whereas those of a reassuring, conciliatory
nature were accompanied by sounds of a different kind. With imagination conditioned
by the experience of retrospective sound and music, it can be assumed that the first
sounds (the roar of animals, the noise of the hurricane, the storm, etc.) were of a
low register and had strong dynamics, whereas others (such as the tinkling of rain
droplets, the babbling of a stream, the singing of the birds, etc.), on the contrary, were
of a high register and had weak dynamics. Early humans distinguished, noted, and
remembered the character (rhythm) and the type of movement (agogics): actions and
rapid movements were accompanied and symbolised by short sharp sounds, while
slower ones by long smooth fluid ones. It is known that the very first musical instru-
ments which were percussion, according to their characteristics (some have a deficit
in high sounds/pitch), with their actions and movements clearly marked the rhythmic
pattern that served as a base and accompaniment to their dance movements and was




                                                                                                    CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
reproduced in their musical sounds.
    The relationship between the sound source (the phenomenon of the world of ob-
jects and space) and the sound was reproduced several times during the life of an
individual and as a result, in their perception, correlations crystallised between a vari-
ety of phenomena, objects and actions at the same time as various sounds; these cor-
relations were of a psycho-emotional nature and not rational and reflective. Emotions
that were experienced and authentic and caused by different types of sound became
evident and led to the appearance of emotional syntheses, which were reproduced
by music in people’s movements, in dynamic development; the development of the
emotional world in movements was precisely what music was in its early stages, just
as it is today. The sound that was memorised, imitated and reproduced by man was
perceived as a musical sound.
    The principles, methods and ways to construct and shape the act of movement in
the emotional world later became the subject of theoretical reasoning and was consid-
ered philosophically, aesthetically, ethically during the different historical and cultural
eras of musical development: whether they were the ancient doctrines of number (Py-
thagoras), the epic and suffering (Plato, Aristotle) which saw the purpose of music as
harmonising the external aspects of an individual’s life with his state of mind and soul,
or the theory of the affections of the 17th and 18th centuries, with the “catalogue of feel-
ings” (A. Kircher, I. Walter and others).


                                                                                               39
                                          6. The development of dance as an expression of the internal condition of the
                                          body through movement

                                          Dance has a direct impact on people: their every move “belongs” to their body, be-
                                       cause it takes place in and by means of their body – as signs of dance. Dance move-
                                       ments fulfill the inner, potential condition of the body. Having by nature a high capacity
                                       of synthesis and consequently a high degree of standardisation, dance movements
                                       have always been and still are, not only a means to know the world intuitively and
                                       bodily but also a way of expressing, with the plasticity of the body, the emotional life
                                       of the person dancing, seen in the reflection of his mutual relations with other people
                                       (Figure 3-4).




                                       Figure 3. Il girotondo – from Anati E., Evolution and Style of the rock drawings in the Valcamonica
                                       Archives. Vol.6., Capo di Ponte, 1975
A.P. Lobodanov - The origins of art




                                       Figure 4. La danse. Henri Matisse – between 1909-1910.


                                  40
    In the history of the arts of the peoples of the world, dance as well as speech and
song is realised, preserved and transmitted through natural semiosis. Types of human
behaviour with signs occur in natural semiosis in which, specifically with his work, he
neither creates the tools for the production of the sign nor the materials of the sign,
given that man has been endowed with these tools and materials by nature.
    After a long series of developments, dance with its characteristic of using motor
muscles, was historically produced as a synthesis of plastic models of figurative and
expressive behaviour, transforming the potential energy of the material of the sign into
dance movements, which became evident with the passage of time in the range of
lines and shapes that made up the typology of national and ethnographic material in
various dance genres.
    The musical incarnation of the gesture created various “body intonations”, which
conditioned the basic functional purpose of the sign in the emerging system of the non-
applied arts and is above all the depiction of man and his behaviour in action.
    Dance is founded on imitation: the signs of dance are created based on the cat-
egory of mimesis, which on the one hand conditions the possibility of expression of the
choreographic content, and on the other, the possibility to perceive and understand it.
Imitation in dance is not the aim but the means to express the psycho-emotional area
of existence using the physical movements of the human body.
    In the course of creating dance signs mimesis occurs in choreographic structures
with the use of the basic principles and methods of sign formation which include mor-
phogenesis and composition, rhythm, meter, dynamic time-metrics, and the volume
and dynamic development of stance.
    What does dance mimic, what does it tell us? It says nothing about the objective
world. The world is not expressed through dance, whereas only action is expressed
and explained, so the referent of the sign of dance is the behaviour of the person in
action.
    Plasticity provides behaviour models, the attitude of one person towards another,




                                                                                                    CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
hence the language of dance is the behaviour of the person, while dance itself repre-
sents the behavioural signs of life.
    As the behaviour of a person, dance occupies a considerable space in the social
life of man. As is known, even chimpanzees ‘dance’, as all the animal world in general
does; they do not learn dance and pantomime. What we take for ‘dance’ in the animal
world, is essentially part of their coupling behaviour, a manifestation of the congenital
function of the continuation of the species. Our “inclination to dance” is an ethological
legacy, but the fact that dance is learned is a manifestation of human socialisation –
dance is an acquired behaviour.
    Historically the education of the body involves two important aspects: the first is that
dance is connected with physical education, but is not really identical because it has
the characteristics of a sign while physical education does not. Physical education is
free plastic behaviour, while dance is plastic behaviour that has been specifically dis-
sociated from the plasticity of daily existence. Education of the body begins with physi-
cal education, but without the objective of creating an artistic image based on imitation;
secondly, education of the body is closely linked to the establishment of articulate
speech. When new skills in movement (compared with animals) and coordination are
developed, speech appears as the art of using part of the respiratory and digestive
systems to create articulated sounds. Only when a person has mastered speech is it
possible to teach them to dance. So even “wild individuals”, though possessing only


                                                                                               41
                                       the rudimentary skills of articulate speech, have plasticity consisting of natural symbol-
                                       ic gesticulation and movements that have been learned; this type of preliminary danc-
                                       ing belongs mainly to these movements, ritual, pantomime, ceremonial plastic actions.
                                           Dance like music, has its prehistoric beginnings on the one hand, in its therapeutic
                                       value, since it organises physiological functions according to the comparison between
                                       the microcosm and the macrocosm through music and a system of methodical body
                                       movements. “Dance involves harmony and measure in the soul of the observer, refin-
                                       ing one’s vision with beautiful performances, enchanting one’s hearing with beautiful
                                       sounds and presenting a magnificent scene of great physical and spiritual beauty “
                                       writes Luciano.
                                           On the other hand, dance acts as a component in rituals of magic; ritual dancing
                                       is the modelling of a certain future situation using the predicted influence on the pro-
                                       ceedings of events. Thus, the dance of hunters is not only a preparation for “work”,
                                       submission of themselves, of their movements to the harmony of the world, but also
                                       the execution of actions to protect the hunter from hostile forces, which included the
                                       real danger from wild animals, as well as more superficial threats, but no less real for
                                       the hunter, from unknown forces. These more basic dances were accompanied, very
                                       simply, by the rhythmic clapping of hands and percussion sounds that formed the time-
                                       rhythm pattern of the dance.
                                           In accordance with their character, prehistoric dance was joyous, with its clearly
                                       expressed imitation it launched people into a particular psycho-physical state: “the dis-
                                       tribution of roles” was thus already necessarily present in the dance of hunters, that is
                                       to say, to ensure the contents of the rite were complete a part of the dancers had to imi-
                                       tate the steps and uses of different animals and birds, etc., the remainder on the other
                                       hand, with their plastic behaviour, represented the expected actions and deeds that
                                       were aimed at obtaining the desired result. All primitive dances are directly connected
                                       with beliefs of sympathetic magic. In the first stage, victory was procured by illustrating
                                       it in the dance preceding the fight. But during cultural development, this initially pure
                                       image was lost and what becomes evident is the demonstration of skill, strength and
                                       prowess, to which are added phallic elements and the impetus to fight and to love.
                                           Consequently, warlike dances became fertility dances that warded off the enemies
                                       of growth and attracted the flourishing of agriculture; these are the dances of the an-
                                       cient Cretan Curetes and the Roman Salii priests which were performed with swords
                                       and shields, but were in essence, peaceful and bucolic.
                                           The third aspect of dance is the ritual element; so even at the time of the Old Tes-
A.P. Lobodanov - The origins of art




                                       tament, David danced during the whole journey of the Ark of the Testament, from the
                                       house of Aweddhar to Chevron. Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 330-390) considered David’s
                                       dance “a sort of flexible graceful gait of God”.
                                           The various functions of dance were and are present in social life, changing with
                                       the passing of time and facing new stages in their development. Each type of dance
                                       is related to a particular field of social activity: therapeutic dance is used in the field
                                       of psycho-physiological therapy, sacred dance is a component of religious practices,
                                       social and domestic dance form and regulate relationships between people, stage
                                       dancing exists as a kind of independent art.
                                           Hence, the typical nature of the plastic motif (characteristic of the movement), in ad-
                                       dition to containing the concrete features of reality (representation), also contains evi-
                                       dence of its synthesis (expression). It is this very expressiveness that starts the dance
                                       because these plastic motifs, which are absent in normal life and reflect the inner life of


                                  42
man, form typified artificial movements. This is when the dynamics of emotions, differ-
ent from the dynamics of movement, come into play. It is the emotional aspect that is
the basis for the mechanism that influences dancing; given this fact, emotions too are
used as a basis, thanks to which movements acquire a conventional nature.
    In the history of the cultures of the world, the sense of dance and its functions are
not limited by the indicated types of organised movements performed by one individual
or a group of people. From a historical perspective, dancing for example, helped in the
formation of the military army and the Greek phalanx, characterised in the first place
by parallel deployment and secondly by the regular set of the shoulders and legs of
the soldiers in each line.
    Later on, dance becomes increasingly differentiated according to its function: the
different types of dance separate, branching off into medicine (or physical), liturgy, folk-
lore (or popular), and domestic or scenographic fields. With the passage of time, the
last two differ considerably, due to the development of kinematics and consequently
to the complexity of objectives, methods and modes of plastic expression. The field of
folkloristic and popular dance also becomes more specialised, including stage danc-
ing, its main themes becoming “matrimonial”, at the same time however, reinforcing
dance methods as an affirmation of good conduct (one should behave well), a fact
which involves extending the functional purpose of the sign, as well as the use of
dance, acting as a moral impact on individuals.


   Biographical Notes

    Aleksandre Lobodanov was born in Moscow on September 7, 1950. He gradu-
ated in 1973 in Romance linguistics at the Faculty of Humanities at Moscow University
(Lomonosov). He is professor of history of the Italian language (1997), chair of semiot-
ics and general theory of art at the same university (2003), founder and currently dean




                                                                                                    CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE
of the Faculty of Arts at the same university (2001). He is author of 16 monographs on
problems relating to Romance, Slavic-romance linguistics, history and theory of art,
art semiotics. He has published more than 100 articles in various languages ​​in Italy,
Germany, Belgium, the USA, China, Lebanon. He is a member of the Association for
the History of the Italian Language (1998, Florence) and has given lectures on issues
relating to grammar, art history and art semiotics in various universities in Rome, Flor-
ence, Bologna, Pisa, Berlin, New York, Prague, Belgrade, Beijing, Beirut and other
countries.




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