Art seems to be an omnipresent phenomenon: wherever and whenever man lives, there and then you will find art. With the development of “the human spirit”, all changes that take place in culture are reflected in images and symbols of art. However, art is not only a mere reflexion of changes in culture but part and parcel of culture. Art itself evolves at the dawn of humankind. Then, art had a form of syncretism, unalienable from other forms of human activities and cognitive functions of the primitive consciousness at the early stages of development. Ernst Cassirer states that “the issue of the wellsprings of art and written language brings us back to the age when all of them were based on primeval and nonsegmented wholeness of ‘mythological consciousness’”. [2]. Cassirer points that mythological consciousness or ‘Volksgeist’ is a substructure for the commencement of any symbolic forms of culture.
Cassirer studies functions of a language, myth and religion, art and history as ‘symbolic forms’, all of which are aspects of human ability to form a meaningful world through symbols. Hence, it follows that different ways of thinking and of cultural environments have a common ground in symbolic formation, which characterizes human beings as animal symbolicon.
A sign, symbol or symbolic form emerges as a method, which engenders mental and/or spiritual outward manifestations. The essence of consciousness, Cassirer insists, reveals itself in ‘a symbolic function’ and realizes itself through the unity of a thesis and an antithesis. The division into thesis and antithesis is natural for the intellect, whereas the synthesis of the opposites is an intrinsic feature of a cognitive process, as also called a ‘symbolic function’. Primitive art comprises some elements of analysis and synthesis, its images serving the foundation for further development of a written language. Art in a primitive society was of paramount importance in translating abstract images, which, apparently, were exploited in ancient religious cults and developed into some theoretical notions. In all probability, early examples of primitive art reflected ancient notions of the build up of the Universe. The latter presented the prototype for the development of the notion of the beautiful and of a perfect shape.
Language evolved alongside the development of art. Language and art seem to have been relatively self-sufficient for the mentality, to be involved in the creative, as well as the reflecting process of human articulation. Symbolic notion in its nature is built on the basis of symbols and signs. Cassirer examines various relationships of ‘symbolic forms’, which occur, in particular, within a language, myth and art, as an entity mediated by the metaphor. “The research in the development of various symbolic forms clearly shows that their main feature does not only consist in reflecting the world of tangible things or demonstrates transposing the “inner world” outward, but because of them two main aspects ‘inner’ and ‘outer’, ‘I’ and the ‘otherness’ find their own determination and delineate each other. Assuming that the mental ‘dispute’ between I and the ‘otherness’ is part and parcel of these forms, it does not necessarily mean that ‘I’ and the ‘otherness’ must be understood as though they are a priori given self-sufficient entities, i. e. constituents of an entity that merge later. The importance of any symbolic form lies in the fact that it does not stipulate the perpetuated or determined boundary between ‘I’ and the ‘otherness’ but sets it up anew, every time in a different way”. [3].
A symbol and, correspondingly, a ‘symbolic form’ is polycemantic in its nature, and lends itself to numerous interpretations as it embraces interconnected relationships, i. e. the latter unites a ‘symbolic form’, the universum and, subsequently, phenomena of culture.
In Plato’s esthetics, the ‘true’ art was the cosmos itself. [9]. However if the ‘cosmos’ is subject to extrapolation and hence should be understood as nature, then A. Durer’s comment becomes clear: “Truly, art is the essence of nature; and he who reveals it should be called an artist.” [10]. Art as a symbolic form of culture seems to be exploited, both deliberately and/or subconsciously, as a “breach of gap” i. e. between ‘I’ and the ‘otherness’, nature and culture.