Prehistoric Art Cave Paintings and Portable Carvings PREHISTORY

Prehistoric Art Cave Paintings and Portable Carvings

PREHISTORY AND PREHISTORIC ART IN EUROPE • • 4, 500, 000 (4 billion, 500 million) = the age of the earth 3, 900, 000 (3 billion, 900 million) = single-cell life of green algae began 600, 000 (600 million) = birds and animals began to fill the earth 100, 000 (100 million) = lands and oceans full

PREHISTORY AND PREHISTORIC ART IN EUROPE • • • 65, 000 (65 million) = extinction of the dinosaur 4, 400, 000 (4 million, 400 thousand) = earliest upright human 30, 000 (30 thousand) = first art created

TERMS TO KNOW • • PREHISTORY - refers to the time before people developed a writing system. TECTIFORM - geometric shapes on cave walls, meaning unknown PALEOLITHIC - (Paleo = old; lithic = stone), 42, 000 - 8, 000 BCE MESOLITHIC - (Meso = middle; lithic = stone)

TERMS TO KNOW • • NEOLITHIC - (Neo = new; lithic = stone), 8, 000 BCE IN THE ROUND - sculptural object that can be viewed form all sides • CORBELING CONSTRUCTION • POST-AND-LINTEL CONSTRUCTION

STONE AGE • • • man's dependence on tools and weapons made of stone "Homo sapiens" ("wise, wise man") evolved around 120, 000 -100, 000 years ago nomadic hunters and gathers who moved from place to place

STONE AGE • • • we know nothing of their religion Their homes were made of mud or mammoth bones and covered with animal skins Archeologists have found fossilized corpses with red ochre (dirt) on them and their bodies had been buried in a fetal position and facing east towards the rising sun

WOMAN FROM WILLENDORF • A woman's statuette from fine-grained dense limestone, 11 cm, Aurignacian. Traces of red dye on the surface of the statuette. Found in Austria, in the township of Willendorf on the left bank of the Danube in 1908. The Museum of Natural History, Vienna.

WOMAN FROM WILLENDORF c. 22, 000 -21, 000 BC. Limestone Height 4 3/8"

WOMAN FROM WILLENDORF Often referred to as the Venus of Willendorf, it was carved 10, 000 years before the cave paintings of Lascaux. This simplified form, which emphasizes breasts and buttocks, was probably intended to depict fertility. Upper Paleolithic artists produced a wide range of small sculptures made of ivory, bone, clay, and stone. This statue was carved, which is a subtractive technique using a sharp instrument to gouge. She is carved in the round.

Venus of Brassempouy

Venus of Brassempouy • This miniature head (3. 5 cm, (1. 5 inches) was carved from ivory. Found at Brassempouy, Landes, France. It may be 30 000 years old. It is one of the few Ice Age figures with facial features and a detailed hairstyle.

Another Venus • A figure of a naked woman. Her head is covered with rows of shallow teeth cuts, depicting, according to Z. A. Abramova, hair or a closely fitting head-dress. Engraved and relief lines on the chest and on the back. Mammoth's tusk. Height 11, 4 cm. Found in 1936, excavation made by P. P. Efimenko, who thought it to be "one of the best creations of that period, known to us".

Will the “real” Venus please stand up?

le Chaffaud Grotto • Reindeer foot-bone from the le Chaffaud grotto with a depiction of two hinds. One of the first finds of palaeolithic portable art.

Cave Painting

Altamira, Spain • The Altamira Cave bears the distinction of being the very first cave discovery of prehistoric art. In 1879, the Spaniard Don Marcelino de Sautola was excavating a large cave with his daughter. She shouted that she had seen some bulls on the ceiling of the cave. In reality the bulls were bison. The discovery would take 22 years to be considered genuine. In 1901, French Abbe Henri Breuil verified other caves in the area in Dordogne, France. They were accepted as authentic in 1902.

Altamira, Spain

Altamira, Spain • The most famous Altamira paintings are on the plafond - a low ceiling in one of the cave "vestibules" to the left from the entrance. The total area of the ceiling is about 100 sq. ms. Here the artist had skillfully combined pigment painting with the ceiling relief. The majority of more than 20 animal figures, (mainly bisons, though there also a horse, a boar and a deer) is depicted on the natural bosses of the ceiling and so there comes out an impressive picture of bas-relief, embossed figures

Altamira, Spain • The painting of the Niaux "Salon Noire" was also considered to be the work of one artist and only the ibex figure was admitted to be corrected later. Other specialists, A. P. Okladnikov for example, considered the Altamira ceiling to be the result of successive addition of depictions, originally not connected. The last results of the radiocarbon dating of some ceiling paintings showed that 200 500 years separate them.

Altamira, Spain

Altamira, Spain • When the palaeolithic age of the Altamira paintings had been generally accepted discussions of other problems started. In particular, was the Altamira ceiling painting the result of a single action ( in the terms of life of one man) and conception or was it a long accumulation of different depictions? Some investigators were sure that the Altamira ceiling is a sound compositional work. Though nobody said it directly but it was somehow implied that it was the work of one artist. It concerns not only the Altamira ceiling.

Altamira, Spain • Together with other finds testifying to the man's activity, numerous lumps of ochre, used for making pigments, have been found. There also was a small limestone fragment of the wall, fallen down long ago, bearing a part of a picturesque depiction of a mammoth. Ancient charcoal picked up in the occupation layer allowed to get an absolute date - 14680 + 150 years ago.

The Caves of Lascaux • The cave is not large. 90 feet from the entrance to the cat's hole. Passages that led to the caves were narrow and low. This famous cave was discovered in 1940 , 70 years after Altamira, by a group of boys and a dog and the rabbit they were chasing. The dog fell into a hole left by a recently uprooted tree. When one of the boys slithered down the hole to rescue the dog, he found himself in a gallery bright with color and animals on the walls. Two of the boys when adults became guides working at Lascaux.

The Caves of Lascaux

The Great Hall of the Bulls

Great Black Bull

Great Black Bull • Painted on limestone. The bull is 11' 5" high. Note the various sizes of animals that were probably added at different times over a 1, 000 years. We do not know why they chose to paint over other art work or have such a variety of sizes. The walls have TECTIFORM or geometric signs. We do not know their meaning. Perhaps they were maps to hunting grounds or religious symbols. Animals are painted in twisted perspective, in which the head and body is in profile but the horns are shown in 3/4 view to show both horns. and a variance of size. They are painted in polychrome ("poly" = many, "chrome" = color).

• • • Do you think the artists overlapped the animals because of shortage of space? Why do you think they painted the animals on cave walls? Do you think that these elaborate cave paintings were a magical control of reality to insure a successful hunt?

The Dead Man

The Dead Man • • Look at the fallen man. He has a bird face (mask? ). Perhaps the man is in a trance. The man is drawn crudely, whereas greater attention is given to the other creatures, even to the bison's bowels hanging out.

The Dead Man • • Was the man a witch doctor or shaman? Did he want to disguise himself so that his soul would not be captured? (Henri Breuil called this "hunting Magic". )

Painted Gallery / Black Stag

Chinese Horses

Panel of the Falling Cow

Central India • Numerous rock paintings have been preserved in natural shelters. Paintings on the walls of about 500 caves are considered to be preserved in the environs of Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh state. Site Bhimbetka, discovered by Professor W. Wakankar from the Vikram University in 1953 is of particular interest. W. Wakankar thinks that the name "Bhimbetka" come from Bhima - an epic Mahabharata hero. Indian archaeologists date some of these paintings to the very early periods, including the Upper Palaeolithic.

Central India

Uzbekistan-Kugitang Mountains • In the south-western spurs of the Gissar range (Uzbekistan) in Kugitang mountains, in the canyon Zaraut-Sai there is a monument, widely known not only among specialists-archaeologists - Zaraut- Kamar grotto. The paintings of the grotto were discovered in 1939 by local hunter I. F. Lamaev, repeatedly published and studied in details by different authors. The paintings are dated to Mesolithic.

Uzbekistan-Kugitang Mountains

Kapova Cave (Russia) • The cave has two levels of cavities - two "floors". Some of these cavities are called "halls". There are the Cupola Hall, The Hall of Signs, the Chaos Hall on the ground floor, the Hall of Drawings - on the first floor. Colourful figurative drawings are, mainly, in the upper level, a rather long distance from the entrance, as in the most upper palaeolithic caves. Excavations have uncovered an occupation layer, containing isolated bones of wild animals, extinct among them, for example, the cave bear. Mammoths, rhinos, a bison and horses are easily recognized among them.