Studies in Visual Communication Volume 2 Issue 1 Spring 1975 Article 4 1975 Art as a Structural System: A Study of Hopi Pottery Designs Laura J. Greenberg Recommended Citation Greenberg, L. J. (1975). Art as a Structural System: A Study of Hopi Pottery Designs. 2 (1), 33-50. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/svc/vol2/iss1/4 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/svc/vol2/iss1/4 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Art as a Structural System: A Study of Hopi Pottery Designs This contents is available in Studies in Visual Communication: https://repository.upenn.edu/svc/vol2/iss1/4 that visual discriminations and categories would influence (and be influenced by) art and other "expressive" visual systems (e.g., architectural systems) or systems of spatial terminology, and by language. Secondly, the methodology of linguistics, which so elegantly arrives at system by the ordered and "scientific" study of variation, seemed to have ART AS A STRUCTURAL SYSTEM: the potential for elucidating these visual systems. A STUDY OF HOPI POTTERY DESIGNS1 I devised a specific project which attemped to examine and/or verify the above hypothesized connections, choosing the Hopi as a case study, and basing my methodology on LAURAJ.GREENBERG linguistic methodology (with some necessary modifications). My choice of the Hopi, specifically Hopi pottery designs, had been motivated by two considerations: (1) that the art WORKING HYPOTHESES: THE RESEARCHER system or corpus be relatively abstract or non-representative (thus minimizing semantic meaning as a consideration and It is Arnheim's (1966) working hypothesis that art reflects maximizing "visual" considerations), and (2) that the people not one but two processes of abstraction, namely: (1) the have a relatively well-integrated, coherent, and self-contained abstraction entailed in visual perception which requires that philosophy and social structure. As a logical first step in one order and classify in order to perceive, and (2) the constructing the total design system, I proposed isolating "'' abstraction entailed in devising any visual representations what I called "visual phonemes" in Hopi pottery designs (a ("realistic" or otherwise). Thus: term derived from the "new archeologists"). There is no direct transformation of experience into form, but Art is, no doubt, a "language"; however, I realized that rather a search for equivalents [Arnheim 1966:266]. the linguistic analogy is a difficult one to translate into visual terms. For one thing, language is, by necessity, a more Also, perhaps, in the realm of "working hypothesis" is the conventionalized system than art. And for another, whereas Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which speculates on the nature of the given in linguistics is that humans are physiologically the relationship between language and thought. Although the capable of producing only a finite number of mono-sy11abic specific formulations of this hypothesis vary (Whorf 1940, sounds which can be taken as the basic components of any 1941; Sapir 1929: 209), there is a general connection posited language, such obvious and discrete units are not inherent in between a language's lexation and grammatical structure, and the visual realm. And yet, I thought that these and other the content of thought. In other words, one's linguistic obstacles could be circumvented by the careful construction categories and discriminations presumably influence what of a series of test drawings (based on patterned variations of one will in fact think, and vice verse. actual Hopi designs), which could then be used to determine This paper ultimately derives from my interest in the "significant variation" and thus to isolate visual phonemes. relationship between these two working hypotheses. Al­ Aside from certain pragmatic considerations, such as though one evolved in the discipline of linguistics and the having no Hopi contacts when I arrived in Arizona, two other in the context of the psychology of art, they seemed to factors ultimately caused me to abandon my search for visual contain possible congruences. In particular, I was interested phonemes and to reconsider my theoretical model. The first in the possible implications of each for the other. It seemed was that it became disconcertingly and progressively more that if Whorf were correct about language affecting the way apparent, the more I read and the more I saw of Hopi people classify and order reality, and if Arnheim were right designs, that my model (which was based on the primacy of about perception necessarily entailing classification and units or elements) was antithetical to the nature of Hopi art ordering of "visual" reality, then there ought to be the and to Hopi culture as well (which stresses the primacy of equivalent of a visual Whorf hypothesis. That is, if perception the total). This is, incidentally, an important point, and one entails active classification and ordering, and if classifications which will be further developed in the body of this paper. (lexicon) and rules of ordering (as evidenced in grammatical The second mitigating factor evolved as I abandoned my structure) vary from culture to culture, then one would quest for visual phonemes, and set about examining the pots expect visual perceptions to vary cross-culturally in some in the Museum of Northern Arizona in an effort to study patterned way as well. Further, it would be logical to expect actual variation in pottery designs. As I studied the designs I photographed them as a way of recording them, and in addition, I often drew them. In drawing them, a certain logic or conceptual order began to emerge in what had previously Laura Greenberg is a graduate student in anthropology at the appeared to be fairly chaotic designs. In order to reproduce a University of British Columbia. She is, at the moment, en­ design, it is necessary to actively perceive it, i.e., to ei~her gaged in writing a doctoral dissertation on the structural anal­ discern or create spatial relationships and order in the des1gn, ysis of the art of the Northern Northwest Coast of America, such that it can be recreated. (Reproducing from memory which focuses on the cognitive operations of inversion and alone would require an even more exacting perception). intersection as they are used to generate the art, and on the Thus it was not surprising that the designs became clearer as specific and prolific use of visual punning for social and sym­ I dre~ them. What was more surprising was that the order in bolic ends. most cases was actually quite simple; it had eluded me so entirely before I was forced to search it out, only because it A STUDY OF HOPI POTTERY DESIGNS 33 followed different tendencies than those I was used to. For HISTORICAL AND MATERIAL CONTEXTS: example, although I would have been aware of the symmetry THE HOPI 3 of a bilaterally symmetric design at first glance, I was at first totally oblivious of designs which possessed other sorts of Brief History of Pottery-Making in the Area4 symmetries, such as rotational symmetry. What was most important was that as I drew I began to discern certain The Hopi are a Pueblo group living in what is now structural similarities between designs which had previously Arizona. Pottery-making has been practiced in the area for seemed to have not a single thing in common. The fact that the past 15 centuries, and as early as A.D. 600 pottery was these previously confusing designs could all be made compre­ being produced in a variety of colors by people alleged to· be hensible by the same ordering principles suggested that these ancestors of the Hopi (Bartlett 1936:1 ). However, although principles were not totally arbitrary, but perhaps represented occupation of the sites seems to have been nearly con­ a valid structure. All of which suggested the use of a tinuous, the history of the area (like the history of any area) structural model. seems to have been somewhat erratic. One result has been a series of distinct pottery types of varying color, shape, and Structural analysis seemed an appropriate solution to my design, which archeologists have been able to distinguish and problems if for no other reason than because structural to sequence. In its most basic form, the historical sequence linguistics, which Levi -Strauss (1967:32) credits as the in­ of pottery types has been summarized by Bunzel (1929: 81) spiration for his own structuralist approach, entailed a similar as follows: shift from analysis of terms to analysis of relationships between terms. This shift, plus the shift in emphasis from I. Black on white period. Entirely geometric ornament. conscious phenomena to unconscious infrastructure, the II. Late prehistoric period. A gradual development of discovery of general laws, and the search for system colored wares and animal ornament, reaching its highest (Levi-Strauss 1967:31) seemed relevant to the patterns I was development at Sityatki village. discovering in Hopi designs. Ill. Historic period. A gradual return to white wares and In addition, that aspect of Levi-Strauss' thinking which surfaced in The Savage Mind (1966) seemed potentially geometric ornament. compatible with part (and only part) 2 of Arnheim's visual IV. Contemporary. A recent revival of II. model; there is no direct transformation of experience into The pottery that I have analyzed comes exclusively form, but rather a search for equivalents. Taken together, they suggest an interesting framework. from the last of these periods. Much of the pottery was produced after the above classification was in print, some as It would seem that the tendency to order and structure late as 1970. However, many of the designs have been would be a basic cognitive process which is used by man to adapted from earlier designs. This is in part inherent in the apprehend his universe, and that art could be thought of as nature of Hopi pottery design, which reflects a series of an external form of this internal process.