Richard Bradley, "Image and Audience".
Oxford University Press | ISBN: 0199533855 | 2009 edition | PDF | 277 Pages | 6 MB

The category of ‘prehistoric art’ has seldom been defined. It is a task that inhibits even the most confident writer. Consider this passage from one of the best books on the subject. The author is obviously uneasy about the relationship between Western art and ancient material culture, but, as he begins his account, he puts the problem from his mind: Art is a term too readily borrowed in archaeology to explain things from the far past that are not obviously utilitarian.But every scratch and mark is not art any more than need be the most elaborate, costly, or curious, objects of devotion and display. On the other hand, many straightforward appliances of daily life, mere tools and vessels, by virtue of their stark simplicity, their aptness for use, positively draw out that sensation of accord which is the recognition of art uniting the modern beholder with the maker however far apart in time and space. No closer approach to a definition of art will be made here.