In this book, Cynthia Freeland explains why innovation and controversy are valued in the arts, weaving together philosophy, art theory, and many engrossing examples. She discusses blood, beauty, culture, money, museums, sex, and politics, clarifying contemporary and historical accounts of the nature, function, and interpretation of the arts. This clear, provocative book will engage the public and prove invaluable to introductory students and teachers in aesthetics and the arts. All texts copyright 2001 by Cynthia A. Freeland Chapter One. When the Mayan king shed blood before the multitude in Palenque by piercing his own penis and drawing a thin reed through it three times, he exhibited his shamanistic ability to contact the land of the undead.
Some artists now seek to recreate a similar sense of art as ritual.
Hermann Nitsch, the Viennese founder of the Orgies Mystery Theater, promises catharsis through a combination of music, painting, wine-pressing, and ceremonial pouring of animal blood and entrails. Jahweh required sacrifices as parts of His covenant with the Hebrews, and Agamemnon, like Abraham, faced a divine command to slit the throat of his own child. The blood of Jesus is so sacred that it is symbolically drunk to this day by believing Christians as promising redemption and eternal life. But I doubt that when a performance artist uses blood now, it has genuinely effective ritual meaning. The ways audiences see it and react are different and they do not enter in with a shared belief and value system.