Morphy + Coote

Individual ethnography

Morphy (1989)

• Studies Yolngu paintings as an example of art as a cross cultural category

• The same visual effects can be seen by everyone, but their meaning depends on culture

Yolngu paintings

• Are ancestral designs that are owned by clans and represent land rights, ancestral narratives, and spiritual pow

• They are real manifestations of the ancestral world

Bir’yun (Brilliance)

• Refers to the shimmering effect of cross-hatching, where a painting transforms from “dull” to “brilliant,”

• This shimmering is understood as the presence of ancestral power not just aesthetic beauty

Cross-cultural nature

• Viewers from any culture can perceive the visual effect of brilliance, its meaning differs

• Aesthetics may be shared but interpretation is culturally embedded

Coote (1992)

• Aesthetics is about valued ways of seeing, not just art

• All cultures have aesthetic systems based on perception.

Key idea

• Communities can have rich aesthetic systems without producing “art objects”

• Thus aesthetics should be studied through everyday perception - not just art

Nilotic cattle keeping communities

• Among Nilotic groups, cattle are judged by qualities like colour contrast, shine, horn shape, and size, which are valued for their visual appeal

• People make costly choices (e.g. trading multiple cattle for one aesthetic one), showing that aesthetic pleasure is a real motivation

Aesthetic systems in life

• Cattle aesthetics shape wider life, e.g:

1. Body decoration → ash-covered bodies echo the colouring of cattle

2. Scarification →some patterns based on cattle-horn shapes),

3. Colour vocabulary → based on cattle colour