Book review: 'Aesthetics and Rock Art III Symposium: Proceedings of the XV UISPP World Congress' by Thomas Heyd & John Clegg (eds)

Abstract

John Clegg sums up the papers published in the volume he co-edited with Thomas Heyd as an 'eclectic mooting of experts'. It is indeed a catholic collection of rock art papers – 11 in all – by Australian and international authors, enriched with perceptions borrowed from disciplines such as psychology and philosophy. While all were presented under the framework of aesthetics in rock art,the varied approaches evident in the papers demonstrates the broad scope of this topic as conceived by the contributors. Such approaches contrast with more literal interpretations of the term that define and limit the concept of aesthetics to the study of the effect of the physical properties of objects on the senses and the qualitative evaluation of those properties, or simply to a Eurocentric evaluation of skill or beauty.