Canonical Figures and the Recognition of Animals in Life and Art

Abstract

Is there a particular perceptual modality, i.e., a way of seeing rock art figures (zoomorphs and anthropomorphs) which involves simple recognition and is distinguishable from the recognition of these same figures in other contexts? Such a modality would be prioritized by evolution and would depend on elements of a figure and/or of perception which make preliminary identification easy and rapid, for example, typical or dominant views, salient features, pars pro toto processes, visual "invariants" (Gibson 1979), "typical contours" (Deregowski 1984, 1995). This paper discusses some of the literature on the subject and offers its own perspective on what we term canonicals in life and in art