Pre Historic

• Prehistoric Art


  Art from the Paleolithic through Neolithic periods
• Importance of Prehistoric Art


  • Demonstrates early human expression of beliefs or actions
  • Evidence of early human culture
  • Evidence of symbolic thought
  • Art is uniquely human
• Periods of human development in prehistory

  • Paleolithic (old stone age)
  • Mesolithic (middle stone age)
  • Neolithic (new stone age)
• Paleolithic period


  People spent most of their lives just trying to stay alive by hunting and gathering food and living in shelters
• Cave art


  Painting or drawing of figures called pictographs and petroglyphs to portray a story or record known history
• Cave art themes


  • Large wild animals (bison, horses, aurochs, deer)
  • Tracings of human hands
• There are almost 600 pictures of animals, mostly horses, in cave paintings
• The caves were extremely dark and not easy to access, yet the paintings demonstrate amazing artistic talent
• Possible reasons for cave art

  • Decoration
  • Represent clan/tribe
  • Mark possession/show ownership
  • Symbols of opposites, e.g., signs
• Traditional interpretations of cave art

  • Religious/spiritual purpose: to show a connection/dependence on the animal kingdom
  • Survival: a kind of "magic" (to hunt or gain the power of the animals)
• Shaman


  A person who enters a trance, or altered state of consciousness, to obtain supernatural power in the form of a spirit helper
• Most recent interpretation of cave art is that it was to express inner visions, dreams, and hallucinations
• Three general themes in cave paintings

  • Humans (rarely depicted, drawn as cartoon-like silhouettes)
  • Animals (horses, bison, etc. painted larger than other images)
  • Signs (abstract symbols difficult to interpret)
• Prehistoric humans communicated through cave paintings as they did not know how to write
• Most prehistoric paintings are of animals, believed to be of social and religious significance
• Cro-Magnons


  The first species of Homo Sapiens, who lived in Europe before the emergence of Indo-Europeans, from 40,000 to 8,000 BCE
• Shamans


  Would retreat into caves, enter a trance state, and paint images of their visions
• Prehistoric people would have used natural objects like berries, clay, soot, charcoal or animal fat to paint the walls of the caves
• Prehistoric art techniques


  • Painting
  • Drawings
  • Engravings
  • Handprints
• Prehistoric figure


  • Disproportional dimensions
  • Emphasis on certain features
  • Simple representations
  • Poorly represented movement
• Prehistoric art examples


  • Venus of Willendorf
  • Lascaux cave paintings
  • Chauvet Cave
  • Pech-Merle Cave Painting
  • Hall of Bulls at Lascaux
  • Bisons from Altamira Caves
• The shift from Paleolithic to Neolithic can be marked by the establishment of civilizations and the development of farming and food storage
• Neolithic examples


  • Jericho fortification
  • Neolithic plaster skulls from Jericho
  • Stonehenge
  • Jiahu bone flutes
  • Anasazi handprints
  • Cosquer Cave handprints
• Neolithic


  The "new stone age", reflecting the use of stone tools, some metals, permanent communities, agriculture, and animal husbandry
• Neolithic art was still almost without exception created for some function
• Instruments


  • Flutes carved from the wing bone of the red-crowned crane, with five to eight holes capable of producing varied sounds in a nearly accurate octave
• Handprints


  • From the North American Anasazi tribe
• Positive images


  Hands coated with pigment and then applied to the rock
• Neolithic


  The "new stone age," generally reflecting the use of stone tools with some use of metals and with people settling into permanent communities, the development of agriculture, and animal husbandry
• Neolithic art


  • It was still, almost without exception, created for some functional purpose
  • There were more images of humans than animals, and the humans looked more, well, human
  • It began to be used for ornamentation
  • In the cases of architecture and megalithic constructions, art was now created in fixed locations
  • The emergence of tombs provided unmoving, "visit-able" resting places for the dearly departed
• Neolithic painting


  • Wall painting from Çatal Hüyük, including the world's earliest known landscape, dating from c. 6150 BC
  • Saharan Neolithic paintings depicting scenes of Eritrean pastoral life
• Neolithic statuary


  • Primarily statuettes, with a focus on female/fertility, or "Mother Goddess" imagery
  • Animal statuettes, often found broken into bits, perhaps indicating use in symbolic hunting rituals
  • Figurines fashioned out of clay and baked, rather than carved
• Neolithic pottery


  • Neolithic pottery with incised design from Paradimi
  • Clay, one-handled jug with biconical body and tall neck, dated to ca. 4,000 B.C.
• Neolithic art


  • The "new" arts to emerge were weaving, architecture, the construction of megaliths and increasingly stylized pictographs that were well on their way to becoming writing
  • The earlier arts of statuary, painting and pottery saw many refinements
• Neolithic village


  • Skara Brae, with stunningly preserved structures containing stone furniture (dressers, beds, cupboards) dating back to 3200 BC
• Egyptian culture


  Developed along the banks of the Nile river more than 3000 B.C.
• Egyptian art


  • Heavily influenced by everyday life, especially religion and life after death
  • Not focused on exact replication, just representations
  • All art looked similar to preserve a sense of stability amongst the people
  • The Egyptians strictly upheld the style of frontalism, adhering carefully to stylistic rules
• Egyptian painting


  • Wall painting of Nefertari, with themes including journey through the afterworld or protective deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the underworld
• Egyptian architecture


  • Scant tree growth prevented the extensive use of wood as a building material
  • Both sun-dried and kiln-dried bricks were used extensively
  • Only temples and tombs have survived, with immensely thick walls built using durable materials like stone
  • The belief in existence beyond death (reincarnation) resulted in existing architecture of utmost impressiveness and permanence
• Egyptian architecture


  • The Great Pyramid, covering about 13 acres with 2,300,000 dressed stone blocks
  • The Sphinx, with the head of Pharaoh Khafre on the body of a lion
  • The Temple of Ra