Prehistoric Art

History of Art – Chapter 1

Prehistoric Art

1.     Prehistoric Art

a.     Dates to when Homo Sapiens  moved out of Africa.

b.     Neurological changes led to abstract through and symbolic language.

c.      Raises the question; Why make art?

2.     Paleolithic Art (upper)

a.     10,000 – 40,000 Years ago.

b.     Eurasia, Africa and Australia.

c.      End of the most recent ice age.  It aligns with Homo Sapiens movement out of Africa and into Europe.

d.     Altamira Spain, 1878.  First discovered of cave art.

e.     Cave art was composed from memory.

                                               i.     Demonstrates skill with crafting images from memory.

f.      The animals are depicted as they act in nature, but not how they appear in nature.  

                                               i.     The images are composites.  They have the elements of the animals, but not as one would naturally see them.

3.     Interpretation of Prehistoric Paintings.

a.     The act of painting may have had ritualistic purposes.

b.     Ethnographers attribute the inspiration to magic-religious purposes.

c.      Early images may have been equivalent of what they represented.

                                               i.     To exert power over the subject.

d.     Shamanism:  The belief in parallel worlds accessed through alternative states of consciousness.

e.     Power over animals may explain the lack of forma detail of humans.

f.      The art correlates between the images and the contours of the caves. 

                                               i.     The caves are physically part of the imagery.

                                              ii.     There is also a physical context as some of the caves are up to 1.5 miles deep.

1.     There would have been an experience from just the traveling by torchlight.  It would have impacted the viewing experience.

4.     Paleolithic Carving.

a.     Sculptures may have functioned much like cave paintings.

b.     3^rd Millennium B.C.E: Cultures started using metals.

c.      Women are frequently depicted in sculpture.

                                               i.     They tend to be more abstract than animals.

                                              ii.     They were possibly fertility figures in nature. 

1.     Facial features appear to be secondary with emphasis on the genitals.

5.     Telling Time – Labeling Periods.

a.     Tool making provides insights to different human eras.

b.     Objects before the written work are considered prehistoric.

                                               i.     Patterns are used to distinguish different cultures.

c.      Ages:

                                               i.     Lower Paleolithic:      2,000,000 – 100,000 B.C.E

                                              ii.     Middle Paleolithic:    100,000 – 40,000 B.C.E.

                                            iii.     Upper Paleolithic:     40,000 – 10,000 B.C.E.

1.     Aurignacian    34,000 – 23,000 B.C.E.

2.     Gravettian      28,000 – 22,000 B.C.E

3.     Magdelenian  18,000 – 10,000 B.C.E.

                                            iv.     Mesolithic:                  10,000 – 8,000 B.C.E.

                                              v.     Neolithic:                    8,000 – 2,000 B.C.E.

6.     Neolithic Art:

a.     10,000 B.C.E. the climate warmed and the ice melted.

b.     Change in landscapes, animal populations and human habitats.

c.      There were more fixed settlements, and less seasonal travel.

d.     There was change from hunter/gatherer to domestication and farming.

e.     Earliest Neolithic art occurred in the 9^th millennium near Jericho.

                                               i.     Included representations of ancestors or mythical functions.

                                              ii.     Ancestors were buried under the houses.

f.      Oven fired pottery:

                                               i.     Beginnings of specialization; pottery, weaving and smelting.

                                              ii.     First clay fired sculptures in 3,500 B.C.E.

g.     Architecture in Europe.

                                               i.     Monumental Architecture – Developed mostly from ceremonial burials and rituals.

                                              ii.     Megalith: Spaces for tombs and rituals with huge blocks of stone.

1.     Stonehenge is a circular megalith.

2.     Suggests the passage of time, calendar or other measure to track the sun’s movements.

7.     Summary of ages:

a.     38,000 B.C.E.: Humans produce earliest forms of art.

b.     32,000 B.C.E.: Oldest known cave paintings.

c.      10,000 B.C.E.: Earth’s climate changes.

d.     5,000 B.C.E.:   First appearance of pottery in Mesopotamia.

e.     3,500 B.C.E.:   Pottery in Western Europe.

Davies, Penelope J.E., Walter B. Denny, Frima Fox Hofrichter, Joseph Jacobs, Ann M. Roberts, and David L. Simon. Janson’s History of Art: the Western Tradition.  8^th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. 2011. Print.