Art history begins with the emergence of human beings whose imagination propels an expression of the great legacies that human civilizations have witnessed
Art is as old as history, even before the discovery of the cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia and the hieroglyphics in Egypt
Pre-historic Period
Regarded as nomads, our early ancestors engaged in primitive art using stone flakes to produce fire to protect themselves
Art was an integral part of their lives, serving both functional and symbolic purposes
They joined in hunting wild animals for food and used animal skins to cover their bodies
Pre-historic art periods
Old Stone Age (Paleolithic)
Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic)
New Stone Age (Neolithic)
Pre-historic Period: Old Stone Age (Paleolithic)
Began roughly around 2.5 to 3 million years ago and lasted until about 8,000 BCE
Marked by the rise of Homo sapiens and their ever-developing ability to create tools and weapons
There was a lot more ice, and the ocean shoreline was far different than it is now
Humans were strictly hunter-gatherers, constantly on the move in search of food
Art from this period is known for its two main forms: small sculptures and monumental paintings, incised designs, and reliefs on the walls of caves
Portable art
Necessarily small (in order to be portable) and consisted of either figurines or decorated objects, carved (from stone, bone, or antler) or modeled with clay, most of which was figurative
Stationary art
Cave paintings in western Europe, created during the Paleolithic period
Paints
Manufactured from combinations of minerals, ochres, burnt bone meal, and charcoal mixed into mediums of water, blood, animal fats, and tree saps
Aurochs, horses, and deer cave paintings from the Lascaux caves
The combined effort of many generations, usually estimated at around 17,000 years old
Paleolithic art
Concerned itself with either food (hunting scenes, animal carvings) or fertility (Venus figurines)
Predominant theme was animals
Humans are either completely absent or stick figures
Pre-historic Period: Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic)
Dated approximately from 10,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE
Humans developed cave paintings, engravings, and ceramics to reflect their daily lives
They were nomadic and built temporary houses
Wood, bone, and flint were the materials of their tools
They fished using dugout canoes
Mesolithic art
Reflected the change to a warmer climate and adaptation to a relatively sedentary lifestyle, population size, and consumption of plants
Often represented by rock paintings or petroglyphs, displaying scenes from everyday life, such as hunting and fishing
Mesolithic tools were generally composite devices manufactured with small chipped stone tools called microliths and retouched bladelets
Pre-historic Period: New Stone Age (Neolithic)
Occurred approximately around 10,000 BCE to 3,000 BCE
Humans began to settle into agrarian societies, which left them enough spare time to explore some key concepts of civilization—namely, religion, measurement, the rudiments of architecture, and writing and art
Types of Neolithic art
Weaving
Architecture
Megaliths
Pictographs
Statuary
Painting
Pottery
Weaving
Creating textiles by interlacing two distinct sets of yarns or threads at right angles, using plant fibers
Megaliths
Large stone structures, such as Stonehenge, built during the Neolithic period
Pictographs
Images, signs, or symbols created to express some idea or information, used by many different cultures throughout history, including the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Native Americans
Neolithic pictographs
Prehistoric abstract signs (aviforms, circles, claviforms, cordiforms, quadrangles, tectiforms, triangles, and the like) which experts believe functioned as pictographs or pictograms, expressing some simple message
Statuary, Painting, and Pottery saw many refinements during the Neolithic era
Egyptian art is known for its architectural monuments, sculptures, paintings, and applied crafts produced mainly during the dynastic periods of the first three millennia BCE in the Nile valley regions of Egypt and Nubia