textovi i predgovori, Izabela Simunovic

There are certain points at which experience and imagination, past and present, fuse; and one ofthem is in the work of Izabela Simunovic. Her deceptively simple images simultaneously evoke the timeless world of the "primitive" rock artist and a quintessentially modem sensibility. Pared down to the absolute essentials, and enlivened by dramatic juxtapositions of color, Izabela's images transport us from the mundane world into an ethereal universe where forms float in space yet remain anchored in human experience. Rarely these days does one have the opportunity to witness the discovery of a new, exciting and innovative artist who captures imagination and feeling with such simplicity and grace. Izabela is truly one-of-a-kind, both in her medium of presentation and in the subjects she has chosen. During a time when complexity and technology are worshipped and dominant in every aspect of life, we have been refreshed and reassured to come upon Izabela's work, combining as it does nature with the essence of
the human soul.

IAN TATTERSALL
Antropoloski odjel Americkog prirodoslovnog muzeja, New York
Department of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York

JEFFREY SCHWARTZ
Antropoloski odjel Sveucilista Pittsburgh
Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh

Looking at the graphics of Izabela Simunovic, I was strikingly reminded of all that through years of studying the earliest and most spontaneous primordial human qualities and humankind I had seen in
numerous museums, in texts, as weU as at archaeological sites. I muttered (entirely subjectively and
this probably fairly quietly) to the friend with whom I had gone to see Izabela's artistic creations: "This
looks to me like archetypal painting, the painting of the Stone Age..."
... The word archetype, according to the dictionaries,
is a noun with several meanings. It is used to designate prototypes or models as weU as original unpreserved manuscripts that can be reconstructed. This could refer to the first printed version or an example of a new edition, but this worn can also register a far more intricate aspect of human activities.
In psychoanalysis, an archetype-denotes a primordial subconscious-imaginative motif held in
common by all humans. This is probably the source from which the paintings of Izabela -
despite their independent nature - were immediately recognizable and comparable to the begin-
nings of artistic expression of immemorial, prehistoric man. The scenes of similar motifs, lines, col-
ors, ... all seemed somehow familiar to me, like something I had experienced before, but one could
also nonetheless immediately feel the expression of her individuality and artistic innovation. In the
same manner, Izabela's graphics seemed to have similar traits as the ancient skills or rather arts of
the north American Indians, and to some extent also the artistic expression of the Australian
Aborigines. It also reminded me of the art of the African Bushmen and many other contemporary
tribes of the Dark Continent I could also discover similarities with the Neolithic art created
more than five thousand years ago in the desert rocks and sand of the Sahara. This was at a time
when it still contained fertile pastures, and the present sea of sand was only part of a complete,
ancient, circum-Mediterranean Garden of Paradise...
... The first knowledge about the very existence of prehistoric art was uncovered in the 1860s in
France. The prehistoric researchers of this period began to distinguish images and decorative
elements on stone age artifacts as signs of the artistic features of individual stone or bone objects.
In these same years, it was noted how a curious Spaniard, wandering through the gentle Mediterranean landscape of Santillana del Mar, lost Ids dog. The dog was chasing a fox. The owner was
puzzled by hearing the barking of his dog as if itcame from some distant place. He soon realized that
his pet had fallen headlong into some abyss, and clearing various undergrowth, he discovered the narrow entrance to an underground passage. This is how
Altamira was discovered. Seventy years later, another lost "man's best friend' uncovered Lascaux Cave for
its owner. Six years passed since the discovery of Altamira, until Marcelino de Sautuola appeared on his
estate next to the cave on a summer day. When his workers told him
about the discovery of Altamira, de Sautola, who had an interest in antiquities, began to excavate the cave sediments in hope of finding prehistoric artifacts. He dug for almost four years, and then. one day in the summer of 1879, while he was searching through the soil of the dark tunnel
of the cave, he was disturbed by the shout of his daughter. The young girl named Maria, who had
been running to and fro in the cave, had raised her gaze to areas where there was reflected light, and cried: "Papa, mira toros pintados"! Running over to Maria, her father aimed his lantern at the spot his daughter was pointing out. In weak light, he saw a picture of a giant bison, then another, and yet another... The uneven walls of the cave were colored with bright paints, as fresh and clean as if they had just recently been finished. This primeval, original art shone in the upper Paleolithic, thirty to forty thousand years ago. According to some anthropologists, it would determine the very appearance of the human race, of a sapient, thinking individual. The appearance of art in the upper Paleolithic denoted a basic turning point and the development of a further civilization of man. As was the case with fire, and then with speech, the appearance of art was an additional means of human communication, a communication derived from the abstraction of graphic symbols and the drawings, petroglyphs, and pictographs of the Stone Age/The far distant prehistoric art of the Stone Age
did not evolve from a need to embellish man's immediate surroundings. Its origin is rooted in an atmosphere of magic elements and religious celebrations, in the necessity of turning to a greater force and praying for help. The survival of the human race requires not merely caring for offspring but also ensuring sustenance for everyday subsistence. A distant hope in a life after death follows such expressions of continued existence. This hope is in fact an obsession of individuals, and it is certainly sown out- side of human life'itself and its symbolism. This latter symbolism, however, is difficult to recognize and
even harder to describe. In the beginning, the art of the Stone Age was created in shelters, at the
entrances to underground areas, and later it was removed to a greater depth. This change can be interpreted as meaning that the inspiration and work of the artist was not merely satisfaction of an aesthetic enjoyment The artistic images are not exhibited in
the areas of everyday human life, but are rather hidden in the dark spaces of caves. Pilgrimages to such
places were probably ritual acts. This all shows how the need for artistic expression is a preternatural
human characteristic. It indicates that the sites where primeval art originated were holy shrines. The
pictures of Upper Paleolithic art are realistic images of animals. Sometimes these animals are painted as
herds, and sometimes as an entanglement of antlers with only the occasional full outline
of an animal showing through in the background. Some animals are show bearing young. The artistic technique involves clear outlines of the animals traced with engraving or coloring. The shallowly carved contours are filled with black pigment and the bodies are colored with red or yellow. The heads are
most often blackened. Many details of Paleolithic painting clearly show us thatsomething more than the
aesthetic expression of individuals stands behind this art The art of the early Stone Age, as well as the art of many tribes depending on a hunting and gathering or nomadic lifestyle, is basically "animalistic". The animal world as seen by the artist is shown by him in a stylized manner. The animals are drawn "with a high level of artistic perfection", recognizable, fine, and clear in both color and form. In addition to such pictures of the animal world, the prehistoric artists have left us a series of messages. These are marks of an abstract form that we still cannot read. These are the marks of artists, i.e. ideographs, and also tectigraphs, and so forth. These are possibly secret symbols and marks, thus difficult for us to fathom. If someone with supernatural power could perhaps succeed in this, it would be possible to penetrate into the soul of an ancient creator...... The prehistoric artifacts and artistic images pre-
sented in caves some ten, twenty, or thirty thousand years ago are only seemingly executed in an unsystematic way. Anthropologists have long ago noted certain rules governing the appearance of decorative elements or intricate artistic compound units. Objects evidently intended for short-term use exhibit a simple inscribed symbolism. In contrast, objects also existed that required care over long periods of time. Their execution was demanding, difficult, and entirely realistic. Various animals can be noted to have been painted in different manners or even in different groupings. The outline of a prehistoric bison can thus be found on a stone tablet or on the walls of a cave, but it is almost never shown in any other manner. Images of horses were thus placed on fragments of antlers, and zoomorphic figures further appear in certain interlaced combinations. The horse is thus related to the deer, but any association with the bison is lacking. Deer were the most common animal hunted, and they are shown on hollowed walls, but rarely colored with polychromatic pigments. Leroi-Gourhan, a well-known French anthropologist, interpreted Paleolithic art as an expression of complicated relations formed and performed in
reference to a lengthy sequence of oral tradition. These relations arose from a totality of experience, knowledge, belief, myth, and legends. Those who have researched Paleolithic art agree on one conclusion: the appearance of animals and symbols on the walls of caves is not coincidental. One grouping of animals and symbols is always tied to another different grouping. Horses appear next to bisons, and their images are located in the central areas of underground halls. It has, however, been noted that images of humans or beasts of prey were executed in usually inaccessible sections of underground cavities.
When the art of prehistoric man was first exposed to the eyes of Europeans, only in the first decades of the last century, it was difficult from their aesthetic perspective to accept the "art" of distant times and almost unknown and incomprehensible people. The reasons for this lie in the almost naive European determination and classification of aesthetic values. The European definition of arts was based on its measurements of beauty and the usual human pleasures. Today, at the end of the twentieth century and the collision of millennia, we have learned that aesthetic values are submerged into the entire social, political, economic, and religious meaning and definition. When the cave painting of prehistoric man was accepted as authentic art at the beginning of the 20th century, this represented a result of Europeans beginning to understand the context of the artistic expression of non-European world-views. Ethnologists have uncovered for us in this mannerconcepts such as totemism, a special, almost magical,
relation between man and animals. Such research in turn has led to considerations that 'art from the end of the Stone Age" was merely an expression of magical beliefs, beliefs foUowed by prehistoric man in order to ensure abundant game for himself: The French prehistorian Abbe Henri Breuil, in the fifties, considered that Upper Paleolithic hunters had descended into the depths of underground areas in order to exalt their hunting rituals. According to him, the animals would have been ritually killed through drawing daggers and wounds. Unclear surrounding symbols were interpreted in this manner as traps or nets, and their distribution again would be meant to ensure a successful hunt People, according to Breuil, were attempting through their rituals to control the hunters as well as their prey. Such ritual ceremonies could further have served for the introduction or rather initiation of youths into the customs of the adult world. Even today, at the end of the century, similar judgments exist about such beginnings of art. Contrasting viewpoints nonetheless have also been expressed.
About fifteen percent of the drawn or engraved animal images have graphic marks that can be interpreted as daggers or wounds, but equally, such symbols could represent something else whose true meaning remains a secret In fact in the most recent period it has been noted how the totality of the artistic expression that could be attributed to the magic of the hunt does not reflect a relation between the animal world and the game with which the populations were actually fed. For example: while deer was the main game animal of the entire tribe of the prehistoric painter, he simultaneously most often drew horses and cattle.
The meaning, thus, of these signs and symbols was once, and still remains, the subject of numerous discussions. In this manner, Leroi-Gourhan rejects interpretations on the lines that prehistoric marks were merely images of daggers or wounds. He assigns them a significance arising from sexual relations, thus showing that the cosmology of the culture of the Upper Paleolithic reflected a division into a world of males and masculinity, and a world of females and femininity. Male symbols and animals are always paired with female symbols and animals. They are located in some kind of complementary adversary. At
the end of his life, Leroi-Gourhan himself gave up his hypothetical model for interpreting primeval and original art. Various researchers, however, particularly prehistorians studying Paleolithic art, have further attempted to interpret the abstract symbolism of prehistoric man in a reliable manner. This nonetheless remains one of the greatest mysteries of archaeology and anthropology. In the recent period, the author of numerous popular scientific books about prehistoric man and ancestral man, John Pfeiffer, has come up with an additional explanation for these antediluvian cave paintings. In contrast to the structuralist approach of Leroi-Gourhan, Pfeiffer was confronted with the fact that caves, representing the world of darkness and the underground, provoke new feelings and awake an entirely different psychological approach. When we visit such sites today, we walk with electric lights along the secure trails of our predecessors. Thousands of years ago the experience and knowledge of prehistoric peoples and artists was entirely different. The faint and smoldering light of a torch or a candle in the underground system of cramped passages or larger architectural areas could easily have
created an illusionary and hallucinatory state. The animals would seem to move and breath their last.
The fear and emotional stress oriented to remaining conscious, followed by the figure of a bison at natural scale appearing suddenly in the dark, would create ' an exceptionally dramatic state.
In such a psychological state, any individual would be open to suggestions. Pfeiffer thus concludes that
these were moments when the youth of a culture were presented with the most elevated cultural experiences of the elders. Recently, in 1988, the anthropologists David Lewis-
Williams and Thomas Dowson came up with a fairly challenging hypothesis based on their ethno-
archaeological studies of the phenomenon of art among the South African Bushmen. The paintings
pictographically drawn on the rocks that make up the environmental surroundings of the San tribe
resemble Paleolithic art, as well as the artistic expression of other primeval tribes. Through studying the art and symbolism of the San tribe, the researchers discovered that their artists create in a self-induced trance. Data from psychological research shows that as a consequence of a trance state the modified psyche displays hallucinogenic and long term affective depression. In such a state the human brain and human eye together create only a small possible combination of geometric figures. These figures or concepts are known as entoptical signs. Lewis-Williams and Dowson, having seen similar symbolism at Lascaux, thus related the art of the San tribe with prehistoric European art in their work: 'Signs for All Time: Entoptic Appearances in Upper Paleolithic Art" (1988). This again would indicate that Paleolithic painting had been created in an altered state of consciousness, or at least that certain images and symbols had been drawn by the artistic hand of a man experiencing such a state.It is known that the beginnings of religion extend into an even earlier, distant past. The anthropomorphization of man and the idea that art had arisen from a religious sphere has increasing scientific sup-
port. Transcendence, the striving of man for an evelasting transformation, and searching for visions of eternity are only a part of the religious systems of many cultures. The upper Paleolithic people, like people outside of our civilization, were creatures as interwoven and complicated as we ourselves are today. Occasionally we ourselves are capable of combining and experiencing numerous cosmological, magical, or even functional conjugations in a single symbol.
... When several years ago I had the chance to see with my own eyes the size and wonders of Lascaux, in the world of the underground and darkness what. most struck me were the colors of this prehistoric art. Thinking of the darkness of the human past, I was enchanted by the lively sense of color in this
painting. I was astonished at the artists' powers of discovering such airy, clean, and radiant colors in the world of night. Yellow, red, red on yellow, lines of clear ocher and black on white were the colors of lines that wound through the unknown spaces of the underground walls. Crystalline stalactites and the
diffraction of our lights drew us into the world of imagination, and the world in which we live as ordinary mortals could have stopped...

... Should it astonish us that the first artistic expression to be created occasionally
resembles the efforts of children? From the ancient beginnings of art, the symbolism of
life has been almost universal, as well as autonomous. It extends among the peoples of all
continents and has already lasted for millennia. This symbolism is thus, as a conceptual motif, like a outline recognizable to all, a simple seed and shoot that germinates without reference to the weather and geography. It is certainly the subconscious of our mental complex, our battle, and our human disposition. This then is an archetype, the seminal matrix of the entire graphic formation. Finally, it can be asked
if it is because of this that I perceive Izabela's drawing as intellectually clean, clear, and aesthetically close, or whether, considering the contemporaneous surroundings, her drawing seems aesthetic to me because it is truly authentic, or then again could it be some ideomorphic signal that overlaps with my searches?...
... Why does the field of anthropology concern itself with the investigation of the so-called primeval, primitive, or better yet, seminal, art of ancient and remote human groups? Quite simply because this art
is a part of the human heritage and culture in general. An anthropologist thus considers art in its cultural environment, while an art historian or art critic would instead discuss this human activity from the standpoint of aesthetic principles. Seemingly, they are less interested in the purpose or history of an artifact in the context of the culture in which it had been created. In each more complete study of the art of some group or community, knowledge is necessary of the entire culture of the people from whom this art had arisen. Individuals like us having inherited the cultural tradition of the West frequently find the
art, for instance, of the East, incomprehensible when faced with it. Only when we become familiar with the width of the culture and the heritage of the East, do we then begin to value this art. In the same manner, the centuries and large areas encompassed by the concept of European art would be difficult to comprehend without our general knowledge about Christianity or the Catholic Church. And thus, the further we remove ourselves, whether in time or space, from the culture in