PreHistoric Paleolithic Mesolithic Neolithic Artist as Magician Paleolithic

Pre-Historic Paleolithic Mesolithic Neolithic Artist as Magician

Paleolithic- Old Stone Age Mesolithic-Middle Stone Age • Earliest form of craft seen • Connecting form and function • Shaped rock to meet needs as tools • Earliest form of ART- 35, 000 years ago • During the time of the last Ice Age • Objects found mostly in Spain and southern France • People were nomadic and lived in caves or over hanging rocks • Artwork was completed for ritualistic purposes

Altamira-Images are incised or painted onto rock-often use natural projections of the rock to fit the drawing -bison is lifelike due to shading and roundness -animals only- no landscape backgrounds -painted from ocre and ash from the surroundings- used as much as 3 colors Altamira, Wounded Bison

Lascaux, France • Pictures are drawn far inside the caves, away from entrances • Produced as part of a magic ritual • Pictures are superimposed- no separation between image and reality • Once the animal has been killed, the spirit has been killed and a new animal is drawn on top • Purpose of the drawings were to lure animals for the hunt-they were scarce

-wanted fertility both for animals and for themselves -small figures carved from naturally shaped rocks -central point in the design, the navel is a natural crevice in the rock Venus of Willendorf, Austria

Neolithic- New Stone Age 8000 BC- Near East • Began with the onset of farmingdomestication of animals and food grains • Still used stone tools • Created permanent settlements- new crafts- pottery, weaving, spinning, architecture

Actual human skull- face has been recreated and tinted, decorated with seashells -strong individuality- first known portrait -meant to perpetuate life beyond death -displayed above ground, rest of body was buried- first recoginition of belief of life beyond death -believed in a spirit, located in the head that remained after deaththese heads were meant to trap spirits in their graves Sculptured Head, Jericho, 7000 BC

Catal Huyak, Turkey -Lived in houses of mud and brick centered around courtyards -no streets or doors- people entered through the roof -large number of shrines -plaster walls with paintings- 1 st known artwork on man-made surface, no more actual hunts- everything is ritual- in honor of male and female deities

Landscape drawing of Catal Huyuk -1 st evidence of goddess worship- mountains always shown in profile -houses shown from above- both a map and a landscape

Stone Henge, 3000 BC Neolithic Europe not as advanced. Megaliths- large stone structures solely for religious purposes Made up of Dolmenstombs with upright stones, slab roof Cromlechs-other stones that form a setting Outer circle and 2 inner circles with a center altar Oriented towards the point at which the sun rises on the Summer Solstice

Totems of animals from a specific tribeechos the natural formation of the land. Mound Builders, North America