The San Artistic Achievement

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The supremacy of San (Bushman) rock paintings and engravings among graphic arts of preliterate peoples is today virtually beyond dispute. Recent discoveries have shown them to have an unexpected antiquity, and, more important, they rank among best-understood arts. These points establish unique status of this sophisticated art, not only as a source of pleasure and wonder for Western viewers but as a whole field of insight into numerous issues that have puzzled archaeologists and anthropologists. The reasons for undervaluing of San art in past, and indeed in present too, are largely historical. When first copies of San art were published by Alexander in 1838, Western world was not ready to appreciate them. In final decade of same century artistic climate began to change. Gauguin rejected Western culture and went to Tahiti, later moving to Marquesas Islands where even fewer Europeans lived. Others followed his example either by emigrating or by imitating primitive forms, and primitivist movement was launched. African art, especially, was discovered, and through Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and others, its impact on Western art was considerable. The publication in 1909 of Helen Tongue's copies of San paintings therefore came at a more propitious time than Alexander's, and art critic Roger Fry, in a laudatory review of her portfolio, remarked that the study of these drawings can hardly fail to be of profound interest. Had Fry known some of masterpieces that have come to light since then, his acclamation would have been even greater. It is therefore curious that this art is not