Modern Art and Radcliffe‑Brown's Scientific Aesthetics

Abstract

Modern art was arguably a major inspiration for the social structural approach pioneered by A.R Radcliffe-Brown. This suggestion is counter-intuitive, given that Radcliffe-Brown is known to have advocated a scientific rather than humanistic approach to the study of social life. However, during the early twentieth century, no insurmountable gulf separated the sciences and arts. Drawing on archival sources, this article shows that in addition to his anthropological work, Radcliffe-Brown was a vocal proponent of modernism in the arts, and argued that art should be in concert with the ‘scientific spirit’ of the time. He opposed photographic realism, sentimentalism, vagueness and the over-elaboration of detail; and advocated abstraction based on a definite method of composition, hard lines and definite forms. This vision is also apparent in his rejection of ethnographic romanticism and in the composition of The Social Organisation of Australian Tribes (1931). The monograph follows the principles of minimalism and abstraction and seeks to elucidate structural forms underlying social interaction.