作为礼物的艺术——礼物社会学视域下的艺术

Art as Gift:A Sociological Account of Art from the Perspective of Gift Culture

礼物社会学由法国文化人类学家莫斯等人开创,旨在研究原始社会的礼物交换现象。莫斯认为,原始社会的生活方式是以礼物交换为中心的,形成了人与神、人与物、人与人混融一体的礼物社会和礼物文化。礼物具有赠予性、相互性和神圣性。原始部落的节庆仪式(原始艺术)作为礼物赠予活动的仪式,本身也成为礼物。节庆仪式转化为早期文明社会的国家文化礼仪,如古希腊罗马的史诗、戏剧以及中国的礼乐文化等,作为礼物文化的变异部分地继承了礼物文化的特性。在后来的文明社会特别是现代社会,礼物文化被商品交换和契约关系摧毁,人与神、人与物、人与人之间的混融一体关系瓦解。但是,文明时代的艺术特别是现代艺术,以其审美属性具有了赠予性、相互性和神圣性,从而作为一种礼物沟通了人与世界、人与人,重建了礼物文化。

The sub-discipline of sociology of gift culture,which was established by the French cultural anthropologists such as Marcel Mauss,is dedicated to examining the phenomenon of gift exchange in primitive society.Mauss argued that the primitive society had a gift-exchange oriented lifestyle which gave rise to a specific gift society and its culture featured by an integrated relationship not just on a human/nonhuman level,i.e.,between mankind,God and matter,but also on an inter-personal level,and this showcases the benevolent,reciprocal,and sacred nature of gift itself.Also,the physical gifts given to one another in a primitive festival ritual does not exhaust the meaning of gift,the ritual itself,out of which a primitive form of art took shape,comprises an essential format of gift as well.By virtue of transforming into a kind of state culture ceremony in early civil society,such as the ancient Greek and Roman epics and theatre,as well as Chinese ritual culture,etc.,festival ritual maintained its features of gift culture in its variations.This gift culture had been broken up by commodity exchange and contractual relationship in civil society,especially in modern society that followed the antiquity,and the integrated relationship on both human/non-human and inter-personal levels thus dismantled as a consequence.However,the benevolent,reciprocal and sacred nature of gift is preserved in the aesthetic property of art in the civil society,specifically by means of modern art as a new form of gift,through which the gaps between mankind and the world,between individuals are bridged,whereas a gift culture is therefore restored.