STYLISTIC EVOLUTION - FROM REALISM TO ABSTRACTION IN FREMONT ANTHROPOMORPHS - PART 2:

FIGURE 3, 3-Princesses, Cub Creek, 

Dinosaur Nat. Mon., Uintah County, UT.

Photograph Peter Faris, September 1989.

In my first column on this site, (March 26, 2015) I suggested that the next stage in this process could be seen in the 3-Princesses, a group of figures from near the Cub Creek site (FIGURES 3, 3A, 3B, FIGURE 4, and FIGURE 5). They have been simplified another step by losing their extremities although they still possess their decorative adornment. The first princess even wears facial markings that may represent face paint.

Figure 6A, Cub Creek, Dinosaur National 

Monument, Utah. Photograph Peter Faris,

June 1984.

Figure 6B, Cub Creek, Dinosaur National

Monument, Utah. Peter Faris, 1984,

page 32.

From this point on even the torso of the figure has disappeared, and we see figures that are represented by their jewelry and costume with a few facial features thrown in. FIGURE 6A is still roughly on par with the first princess for amount of detail. FIGURE 6A shows a hairdo or headdress, facial features, wears a pectoral and possible earbobs, and a kilt is seen where the bottom of the torso should fall. This figure also wears a belt line which will be seen as well as subsequent figures (an ink drawing of this figure is seen as FIGURE 6B).

Figure 7, Cub Creek, Dinosaur National

Monument, Peter Faris, 1987, page 34.

Figure 7 lacks the body outline, but the torso is composed of dots, it still has the pectoral, facial features, and ear bobs, as well as a necklace and headdress.

                                                                                                                                 

Figure 8, Cub Creek, Dinosaur National

Monument, Peter Faris, 1987, page 33.

Figure 8 also lacks the body outline. The torso is composed of six rows of dots, it still has the pectoral, facial features, and ear bobs, as well as a necklace, headdress, and belt. The emphasis on these figures is less the details of the human body being portrayed than it is on the items of decorative adornment. In a culture in which all of these items are handmade, and thus unique, such a focus on details of adornment seem to me to betray a concern for the identity of who wore these particular items, in other words it functions as a portrait.

Figure 9, Cub Creek, Dinosaur National

Monument, Utah. Photograph

John Faris, 1989.

Figure 10, Cub Creek, Dinosaur National

Monument, Peter Faris, 1987, page 38.

Figures 9 and 10 show another step in simplification with the presence of the torso almost ignored, its existence is implied by the positions of the pectoral, shirt or vest front seam, and the belt line. Facial details and ear bobs are also still found, but this figure, with such a degree  of simplification, is hard to label as realism.

Figure 11, Cub Creek, Dinosaur National Monument,

Utah. Photograph Peter Faris, 1984.

Figure 12, Cub Creek, Dinosaur National

Monument, Peter Faris, 1987, page 39.

These steps in the sequence have further eliminated details until at the end of the whole sequence we have the trio of figures in FIGURES 11 and 12 which would never be recognizable as portrayals of humans if we had not had the rest of the sequence to follow step by step. At this point in the whole history I tend to see that last Fremont artist at Cub Creek put down his hammer stone and step back, then turn and walk away (hopelessly romantic, I admit it).

Perhaps the figures were originally more complete than now, with elements and detailed added by paint, and, given that the great figure from the 3-Kings panel, with which I started my sequence, was both painted and pecked, this is a definite possibility. During my visits there however, I could see no trace of paint remaining on any of the Cub Creek anthropomorphs. Even had they been painted, the changes that we see in the remaining petroglyph elements indicate that the style of humanoid representation was changing, so the possibility of paint does not invalidate my conclusions. However we assume it played out, it is still the visual record of a remarkable cultural transition, from Classic Vernal Style, through Post-Classic Vernal Abstraction, to whatever came next, which before long, were the Ute/Shoshone peoples of the same area.

In 1987, I concluded my study of these images with the following paragraph:

"At this location, sometime around ca. A.D. 1200, the last inheritor of the artistic tradition of creative abstraction left the trio of figures carved into the cliff at Cub Creek. We probably can never know whether his or her people migrated out of the area or stayed in the area maintaining the hunter/gatherer lifestyle but having reached a point of deculturation that the continued  creation of these abstracted figures was no longer relevant to their way of life and their beliefs. Whichever the case, it was the end of a unique art form, a style based on simplification and abstraction but, most of all, on creative variation in anthropomorphic figure portrayal." (Faris 1987:40)

REFERENCE:

Faris, Peter

1987    Post-Classic Vernal Abstraction: The Evolution of a Unique Style in Late Fremont Rock Art in Dinosaur National Monument, Utah, pages 28-40, Southwestern Lore, Vol. 53, No. 1, Colorado Archaeological Society.

Schaafsma, Polly

1980    Indian Rock Art of the Southwest, School of American Research, Santa Fe, and University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

STYLISTIC EVOLUTION - FROM REALISM TO ABSTRACTION IN FREMONT ANTHROPOMORPHS - PART 1:

Figure 1. 3-Kings Panel, Classic

Vernal Fremont Style, McConkey

Ranch, Utah. Photograph Peter Faris,

September 1994.

The subject of Style in rock art has perhaps engendered more arguments than any other facet of this field of study. So many people throw the word style around loosely without actually understanding the definition of that word. In art studies, style is that suite of defining characteristics which encompass a group of related works, and separate it from another group. For instance, Impressionism, as compared to Classicism. But when we look at Impressionist works by a number of different artists we see a broad range of appearances between them, so where does style come in? The term Style actually applies more to the intentions of the artist than it does to the end result of that artist's creation, but, to the general public, the term becomes applied to what they see in common from one work to another. That is the basic meaning of the term Style as it is generally applied in rock art studies.

The rock art in the example of Stylistic Evolution that I am presenting here began as Fremont Classic Vernal Style figurative imagery as defined by Polly Schaafsma (1980), and evolved or morphed into what I have called Post-Classic Vernal Abstraction (Faris 1987:29). Starting with highly naturalistic examples, why would imagery devolve into increasing abstract forms over time. My answer is that we have numerous examples from the history of art in which exactly that has occurred, and I suspect a psychological effect like "Mere Exposure" is behind it. The basic premise is that people get used to what they see most often as the way something should be seen - as the "right way" to portray it.

“THE MORE YOU SEE IT THE MORE YOU LIKE IT, (Familiarity) Robert Zajonc (1923-2008) –

Zajonc’s groundbreaking paper, Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure, was published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1968. Zajonc’s paper describes a series of experiments in which he showed participants a sequence of random images – geometric shapes, Chinese symbols, paintings, and pictures of faces – that were flashed in from of them so rapidly that they were unable to discern which were shown repeatedly. When subjects were later asked which images they preferred, they consistently chose the ones to which they had been most frequently exposed, although they were not consciously aware of the fact. What Zajonc seemed to have discovered was that familiarity brings about an attitude change, breeding affection or some form of preference for the familiar stimulus. This increases with exposure: the greater your number of exposures to something, the more affection you will feel toward it. To put it simply, 'the more you see it, the more you like it.'” (Collin, et al 2012:233)

How would that also lead to the evolution (or perhaps devolution) from realistic to abstracted images? Well, along with the Mere Exposure effect we humans tend to overlook details, so as we are viewing these images we are also making subconscious decisions as to which parts of it are more important than others, and in the future the less important portions of the image can get overlooked, while the elements we consider to be of greater importance will remain and perhaps become emphasized.

The Classic Vernal Style of Polly Schaafsma includes figures with attention to realistic details of texture, contour, and accessories, the best example of which is the main figure from the 3-Kings panel at McConkey Ranch, North of Vernal, Utah (FIGURE 1). This ultimate expression of Classic Vernal Style shows anatomic details, clothing and accessory details, and was created in multi-media, painted as well as pecked. Other figures from this stylistic classification are less grand and ornate, but most seem to share this intention toward realism.

This is exactly what I saw in the progression of images from Cub Creek, Dinosaur National Monument, Utah, a step by step simplification and abstraction from the Classic Vernal Realism starting point to a final set of petroglyphs that would not be identified as anthropomorphs if we did not have the intervening steps to refer to.

Figure 2. Classic Vernal Fremont

Style, McConkey Ranch, Utah. 

Peter Faris, 1987.

From the Classic Vernal Style beginning we see a first step in the evolution of the figure is essentially a simplification. Details of adornment, headdress, jewelry (pectorals, ear bobs), clothing, etc., are still present but the figure itself is not realistically proportioned, it reminds one of a cookie cutter gingerbread man. This example (FIGURE 2), also from McConkey Ranch in the Dry Fork Valley, near Vernal, Utah, is obviously related to the 3-Kings panel, but not as naturalistically detailed. In effect, the interest is more in the decorative detail than in the realism of the figure. This focus on decorative detail will be seen to be a constant throughout the sequence.

Figure 3. Three-Princesses panel at Cub
Creek, Dinosaur National Monument,
Utah. Photograph Peter Faris,
Sept. 1989.

Figure 3A. Close-up of first princess
at Cub Creek, Dinosaur National
Monument, Utah. Photograph
Peter Faris, Sept. 1989.

Figure 3B. Close-up of second and
third princesses at Cub Creek,
Dinosaur National Monument, Utah.
Photograph Peter Faris, Sept. 1989.

As I envisioned it back in 1987, the 3-Kings panel was most likely created during a cultural peak of the local Fremont culture, after which the culture slowly changed (or declined), and the rock art changed with it. I illustrate this with a sequence of anthropomorphs from the great cliff face site of Cub Creek in Dinosaur National Monument. From the Classic Vernal Style beginning, the first step in the evolution of the figure is essentially a simplification. I illustrate this with figures from very near the Cub Creek cliff face known as the 3-Princesses. the figures now are merely symbolic shapes instead of realistically proportioned torsos, or even the cookie cutter figure. FIGURES 3, 3A, and 3B show the 3-princesses panel complete and then close up, and FIGURES 4 and 5 are drawings of these figures.

Figure 4. First princess at Cub Creek,
Dinosaur National Monument, Utah.
Peter Faris, 1987, page 32.

Figure 5. Second and third princesses
at Cub Creek, Dinosaur National
Monument, Utah. Peter Faris,
1987, page 31.

These figures are stylistically related to the Cub Creek panels and the location is certainly close enough to be considered as the same location, and as they are all in the same basic location they were likely to have been created by one group of people (the local residents) over time, and thus their changes illustrate perfectly the evolution that I have discussed above.

This sequence will wait for part 2 of this essay. 

REFERENCE:

Collin, Catherine, Nigel Benson, Joannah Ginsburg, Voula Grand, Merrin Lazyan, and Marcus Weeks,

2012    The Psychology Book, DK Books, London and New York.

Faris, Peter

1987    Post-Classic Vernal Abstraction: The Evolution of a Unique Style in Late Fremont Rock Art in Dinosaur National Monument, Utah, pages 28-40, Southwestern Lore, Vol. 53, No. 1, Colorado Archaeological Society.

Schaafsma, Polly

1980    Indian Rock Art of the Southwest, School of American Research, Santa Fe, and University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.