Key Texts

Figurines 'Regarded as living, sacred entities, figurines provided access to cosmic powers, which they made tangible. Their social roles were multiple. From early on they were also statements of social identity, not only via iconicity, but by their agency in fostering social stability and continuity with ancestors.'

(Insoll, T. 2017) 'The very idea of the relic, an object imbued with spiritual or mystical power, seems a close kin to contemporary art.' (Perry, G. 2011 2011) ‘Seeing them not only as dolls and votives but also as ritual tools enhances our scope of understanding the spiritual practices of the artists.’ (Key, A. 2014) 'The idea of figurines as process rather than end product changes our perspective and is indelibly linked to the idea of circulation and mobility' (Insoll, T. 2017) 'Most ritual tools are also works of art. A link exists between art and ritual tools; both media are used to express what can and cannot be seen, uniting and giving form to thought. Further, ritual tools bring the formless into form.' (Key, A. 2014) ‘The icon is not a picture to be looked at but a window through which the unseen world looks into ours.’ (Howes, G. 2007) ‘The figurines are more than representations, because they help the people who create and use them to understand and negotiate their own world.' (Torella, R. 2011) 'Some images came alive, were feared to be alive, or were thought to be understood as alive because many material objects were not only analogies to, but also disclosures of, the divine.'

(Walker Bynum, C. 2011) Iconoclasm 'Nor is it surprising that they frighten, empower, or console, sometimes even speaking, bleeding, or weeping - in other words, that they disclose, not merely signify, a power that lies beyond.' (Walker Bynum, C. 2011) ‘They are more than representations because they might participate in rituals.’ ‘The relationship between people and figurines is reciprocal’ (Torella, R. 2011) 'Although these dolls or poppets can be used for revenge, many similar looking objects were actually created with the intention to heal and protect. The intention of the maker and the purpose of the poppet is everything.' (Museum of Witchcraft and Magic) ‘Many objects which are in fact art objects manufactured by (human) artists, are not believed to have originated in that way; they are thought to be of divine origin or to have mysteriously made themselves.’ (Gell, A. 1998) Animism

‘The idea that only the uneducated or 'primitive' worship idols of stone, wood, and metal fashioned to resemble the human form, is a consequence of the convergence between anti-imagistic forms of religiosity… and the rise of a more generalized religious scepticism, which has ancient antecedents.’

(Gell, A. 1998) Levy-Bruhl’s theory of Primitive Mentality ‘We certainly do not have to postulate a particular 'mentality' (primitive, uncritical, gullible, etc.) to account for idolatry,’ (Gell, A. 1998) ‘The essence of idolatry is that it permits real physical interaction to take place between persons and divinities.’ (Gell, A. 1998) On the Psychology of the Uncanny 'doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not be in fact animate' (Jentsch, E. 1906)

Magic as art or science Anthropological Theory of Art 'The magic art is directed towards the attainment of practical aims. Like the other arts and crafts, it is also governed by a theory, by a system of principles which dictate the manner in which the act has to be performed in order to be effective.' (Malinowski, B. 1925) ‘Science is born of experience, magic made by tradition. Science is guided by reason and corrected by observation, magic, impervious to both, lives in an atmosphere of mysticism.’ (Malinowski, B. 1925) ‘I believe that magic is art and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form is literally magic.’ (Moor, A. 2003)

Artist as a Magician 'The artist and the shaman were probably one and the same, as artists ever since have consistently claimed. Through their magical power to recreate the animal on the walls of the temple caves, they the artist-shamans - connected the tribe with the source of life that animated both human and animal, becoming themselves vehicles of that source, creators of the living form like the source itself.' (Baring, A. and Cashford, J. 1993) 'A modern artist can also be a bit of a witch doctor, having the ability to transform ordinary materials into something significant.' (Perry, G. 2011) 'There is a mystical resonance to the word craftsman. He is crafty. A trickster, a sorcerer, an androgynous shaman communing with the spirit world, a member of a secretive guild holding his alchemical secrets close to his chest.' (Perry, G. 2011)

“There’s also been a renaissance of interest in ritual, paganism and the shamanic — even if only as motifs — in crafts practice and across the arts more broadly." (Pollen, A. 2016) Craft "provides a connection to a mythical past and to a kind of romanticised ‘tribal wisdom’."

(Pollen, A. 2016) 'there is probably not a single activity which artists and craftsmen perform which is not also believed to be within the capacity of the magician' (Mauss, M. 2001) page 24 ‘There are similarities between magician and artist, but they are different. Art is the effect and the technique is the cause whereas magic is seemingly random.’ (Mauss, M. 2001) 'Magic is essentially the art of doing things, and magicians have always taken advantage of their know-how, their dexterity, their manual skill.' (Mauss, M. 2001) page 175 ‘Art from non-Western cultures is not essentially different from our own, in that it is produced by individual, talented, imaginative artists, who ought to be accorded the same degree of recognition as Western artists, rather than being viewed either as 'instinctive' children of nature, spontaneously expressing their primitive urges, or, alternatively, as slavish exponents of some rigid 'tribal' style.’

(Gell, A. 1998)