What prompted him to do so?
What did these early works of Art looks like?
When was the Prehistoric Era?
Lower and Middle Paleolithic: c. 750,000-40,000 BC
Upper Paleolithic: c. 40,000-10,000 BC
Mesolithic: c. 8,000-6,000 BC
Megan Ogborn
Man began to walk on two feet some 4 million years ago it is believed, and some 2million later man began creating tools. The first craft man was involved in was perfecting these tools and the period in which these events occured has come to be known as the Paleolithic age or the Stone Age.
Homo sapiens or man during the period of the retreating ice age mostly dwelled in caves and over croppings that afforded shelter from the cold as well as wild animals. These early ancestors of man by my imagination would have had plenty of time on their hands especially during the nights other than trying to keep themselves warm swapping stories of their daytime hunting and gathering activities, they most probably did alot of scribbling with the charcoal sticks from their fire place. It was through these scribblings and sketching that inadvertantly that one 0r two became more imaginative and decided to start scribbling on the walls and rock faces around them. Seeing that these sketches were interesting subjects especially of the animals and daytime activities, they were further encauraged to persue these picture making by the rest ofthe clan which till this day has given us exquisite works of art in thf from of wall paintings or murals as it is known today.
What is Prehistoric Art?
"Prehistoric art can be several things, from megaliths to little stone figurines, to paintings on the walls of caves. The term “prehistoric” indicates that the culture that produced the artwork did not have a written language. Some of the more famous examples are Stonehenge, the Nasca lines in Peru, and Lascaux Cave. Prehistoric artifacts and artwork can be found all over the world. "
Megan Ogborn
"Early on, when man had but a basic understanding of himself, it is theorized that he (they) had a basic religious belief. The belief was in Animism and The Locus Mundi. Animism is the term given to the belief that everything has its own spirit, or energy. Not just things we consider “alive”, but hills, waterfalls, the air you breathe, all of these had energy. The energy had to come from somewhere though, hence, The Locus Mundi. The Locus Mundi is the center of all life, where all the energy of all things comes from, and where it will go when it dies. Somehow, in some way, it is said that the belief in animism became a widely practiced religion. The main focus of the practice was the shaman. The shaman was almost always an artist, and would draw or make something. An example of his work would be a cave painting. He would then take some of his anima and infuse it into what he created. The pictures were extremely general, so whatever he painted or made he turned into a prediction or spell of what was to come. For instance, drawing a bison being hunted on a cave wall (like the ones on the walls at the Lascaux cave) would be like a spell a shaman would “cast” for a good hunt."
The Venus of Willendorf is one of the earliest images of the body made by humankind. It stands just over 4 ½ inches high and was carved some 25,000 years ago. It was discovered on the banks of the Danube River, in Austria, and it was most likely made by hunter-gatherers who lived in the area. The environment at that time was much colder and bleaker then present-day, a remnant of Europe's last ice age.
by Jim A. Cornwell, Copyright © 1995, all rights reserved
Lascaux may be the most beautiful Paleolithic painted cave in the world. It contains more than 1500 pictures of animals, all of them are 17,000 years old.
There are many other pictures here. All of these are from the Département d'Art Pariétal. You can also browse these sites dealing with Paleolithic painted caves:
"http://www-sor.inria.fr/SOR/projects/LaSCoW/images/" as "202.gif" and "204.gif"
The cave of Lascaux this information is at
"http://www.hunternet.com/essa/lasc/cir_lasc.htm"
Entitled:
Masks
In dealings with the spirit world, primitive man was not content to perform ritual or to present offerings before his spirit trap, he needed to act out his relations with simmilar dramatic ceremonials in which he himself could temporaryly assume the role of the spirit by disguising himself with elborate masks and costumes. The origins of these dance rituals goes back as far as the Old Stone Age and ther are indications that the disguises were worn even then. There are masks made not to be wornat all but to be diplayed independantly as images complete in themselves. The emphasis on the mysterious and the spectacular not only heightened the dramatic impact of the ritual, it also permitted the makers of the masks to strive for imaginative new effects so that masks in general are less subjected to traditional restrictions than other kinds of primitive sculptures.
H.W. Janson
History of Art, pg. 49
Using sea-shells as paint containers and working by candlelight, Stone Age artists employed a wide variety of painting methods. Initially, they painted with their fingers; before switching to lumpy pigment crayons, pads of moss, or brushes made of animal hair or vegetable fibre. They even employed spray painting techniques using reeds or specially hollowed bones. They employed foreshortening and shadowing techniques. Each era introduced new cave painting methods, and caves decorated over many generations exhibit numerous styles - at Lascaux, for instance, archeologists have identified over a dozen different painting styles.
Stone Age painters employed several different combinations of materials to make coloured paints. Clay ochre provided three basic colours: numerous varieties of red, plus yellow and brown. For black colour, artists used either manganese dioxide or charcoal. After grinding the pigments to fine powder, artists mixed the powder with cave water (typically high in calcium carbonate) animal fats, vegetable juice, blood and urine to help it stick to the rock surface. They also used extenders like biotite and feldspar, or ground quartz and calcium phosphate (obtained from crushed, heated animal bone).
Sometimes. In the cave of La Vache, archeologists found a layer of charcoal underneath the black pigment of the paintings, indicating that a preparatory sketch had been made prior to the application of paint. Sometimes, the silhouette of the subject was incised in the rock first, then painted with pigment.In addition to paintings, Stone Age artists produced a huge number of engravings, both figurative and abstract. In fact, at present, the world's oldest art consists of engravings on rock surfaces - either in caves, on cliffs and on stones. Famous examples of Paleolithic engraving include: the quartzite petroglyphs at the Auditorium Cave and Daraki-Chattan Cave in Madhya Pradesh, Central India (both dated from the Acheulian culture c.200,000 - 500,000 BCE). The abstract engravings found on two pieces of ochre at the Blombos Cave, 200 miles east of Capetown, South Africa, are dated from the Mousterian culture, roughly 70,000 BCE. It is the oldest known site of African Art. Other examples include: the French Lortet Cave reindeer engravings on a fragment of antler (c.15,000 BCE), and the figurative engravings of the Addaura Cave in Sicily (c.11,000 BCE).
Cosquer Cave, near Marseille, France
Discovered by the deep-sea diver Henri Cosquer in 1985, and dating from 25,000 BCE, the entrance to Cosquer cave is situated over 100 feet below sea level. It contains, hand stencils, charcoal drawings and about 100 polychrome paintings of horses and other animals. For details and photos, please see: Cosquer Cave Paintings.
"Art (and creativity in general), is something essential to human development. This urge has been with us for as long as we have walked the earth. Something possessed those early men and women living in the caves of Spain and southern France to depict those images that reflected their daily lives. Something possessed them to carve those little trinkets that they chose to wear somewhere on their bodies and/or bury them with their dead. Some other ancient cultures were driven to mark their bodies and others were driven to make idols and other representations of their gods or fellow humans. It's something essential to being human....the role of the artist is to lift the spirit of the people and/or to rage against any form of injustice that they perceive in their given society, sometimes at great risk to their own lives as well as their friends and families. "
Julian Gallo
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