The origin and development of human beings depend on the emergence and evolution of ideas. The origin of art shows that primitive people began to realize and affirm the essence of human freedom. The affirmation of freedom contains the desire to promote the development of freedom. The acquisition of consciousness and desire is the basic factor for our animal ancestors to become human beings. Through the analysis of the origin of human beings, art and religious consciousness, this paper explores the ideological source of human nature consciousness.
In primitive society, various forms of ideology have not yet been divided and independent. Primitive ideology, as a chaotic and inseparable unity, is permeated with strong religious spirit and has distinct religious color. Like all forms of ideology, the embryo of art is contained in primitive religion. In primitive society, art exists in religion, but it does not mean that art is produced by religion.
This is because art comes from production practice and social life, and primitive religion does not mean the whole of social life. Primitive art not only serves primitive religion, but also serves primitive politics, ethics and education. Primitive religion itself is also determined by the economic base. Therefore, the influence of religion on art, in the final analysis, also reflects the indirect but decisive role of the economic base.
Primitive art and religion also originated from the production practice and social life of primitive society, and both belong to the ideological unity of primitive society. Among the non-fundamental factors that affect the origin of art, the role of religion occupies a prominent position.
From the content of primitive art, it mainly reflects the social life and productive labor of primitive people. But there is a phenomenon that the theme is gradually expanding. In the earliest primitive cave paintings, we found basically animal images, but few people and plants. It was not until the era of rock paintings that we discovered that human images appeared in large numbers for the first time. This shows that the early primitive art only paid attention to animals, but with the continuous improvement of human labor practice ability, people became less and less dependent on animals, and people had other ways of living, so they paid less and less attention to animals.
Primitive religion and primitive art are expressed in imaginative and illogical ways.
Primitive people think that gods dominate everything, and all kinds of important events in their production and life often begin or end with religious activities or ceremonies, and religious colors permeate their activities and ideological processes. Various primary forms of religious activities, such as nature worship, totem worship, ancestor worship and witchcraft, are important components of human primitive social life.
Primitive art reflects these activities and has a strong religious color. Primitive art is not for purely aesthetic purposes, but for practical or utilitarian purposes. This practical or utilitarian purpose is often embodied in totem worship or witchcraft activities. On these occasions, the purpose of primitive art and primitive religion is exactly the same.
Before the emergence of independent decorative arts, various forms of primitive arts, such as songs, dances, plays, paintings, sculptures, poems, myths, etc. They all serve the purpose of primitive religious activities as means and forms, and these art forms often mature in religious activities. In a word, primitive religion and primitive art have a seamless fracture, not only because they all rely on fantasy, symbol and illogical way of thinking, but also because they all have practical or utilitarian purposes.
Up to now, the research on "primitive art" has been deepened in academic circles, and it is believed that with more discoveries in archaeology and anthropology, more mysteries will be uncovered.