几十年来,许多作者已经揭示了潜在于我们那个在很大程度上是靠想象构造的有关其它原始民族的看法之下的复杂观念体系.在原始民族的表象上既有我们对于野蛮状态和性放纵的幻觉,也有我们对未受侵蚀的理想人性的憧憬.对原始艺术的传统处理一直是这种对“原始人”的混乱描述的一个部分,而最近对原始艺术概念的讨论(如克利福德、普赖斯、托果夫尼克等)对上述状况作出了尖锐的批评.但是如果说近来这批作者无情地剖析了“原始艺术”中“原始”概念上的混乱的话,那么他们中的某些人在遇到其中的“艺术”概念时也变得踌躇了.沃尔夫冈·哈伯兰的说法比较含糊:“我们主要的责任……是使艺术史学家们相信,北美土著民族的‘艺术’是大写的.”萨莉·普赖斯诉苦说,决不应仅在西方人眼里“人种学的对象才被提升到艺术的地位”.而对现代艺术概念的症结有着清楚意识的玛丽安娜·托果夫尼克坚持说:“对认定非洲、大洋洲和美洲土著的制品为‘艺术’这一点的任何挑战……都有与适宜于原始民族的思维方式失之交臂的危险.” For decades, many authors have uncovered complex systems of ideas underlying our imagination, largely based on the imagination of other primitive peoples, both on the appearances of the primitive peoples in our view of barbarism and sexuality The illusion of indulgence also has our longings for an unthreatened ideal humanity.The traditional treatment of primitive art has been a part of this confusion of the primitive man and the recent discussion of primitive art concepts such as Cleveland Germany, Price, Tukogov, etc.), but if recently these writers mercilessly analyzed the concept of “primitive” conceptual confusion in “primitive art,” then Some people also become hesitant when confronted with the concept of “art.” Wolfgang Haberlan’s argument is vague: “Our primary responsibility ... is to convince art historians that the North American indigenous peoples ’Art’ is capitalized. ”Sally Price complained that“ the object of ethnography should never be promoted to the status of art only in the eyes of Westerners. ”However, the concept of modern art The clear-cut Marianna Tugovnik insisted: “Any challenge to the identification of indigenous artefacts in Africa, Oceania and the Americas as ’art’ ... has to be at odds with the way of thinking appropriate to primitive peoples Danger.”