1

A History Of Painting

A brief word before all…..

Maybe it is too daring my attempt to bring the entire history of painting in this
online format. Maybe it’s just a secret desire of mine to share the beauty and the
color of painting into all the corners of the world. So, if I can offer a little joy to just
one person in this world, then I’ll be happy too.

I realize the level of complexity and uncertainty of this project. It will be drafted
broadly aiming as a presentation how simple and accessible for everyone. I’ll try
to get short descriptions of all those periods of time as I try to describe the work
of artists who come together in this project. This project also will not claim being
an art critic material, or a history textbook ... it would only be for those who love
beauty and color.

Same as the humans pass through all stages: from child to adult, so this
presentation will begin its hiking from the cave art to the abstract – contemporary
art. And it will pass through the Romanesque painting, the Italian Quattrocento
the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Impressionism, Symbolism and……
more.

So, let’s get started….

 2

The Cave Art

(Prehistoric Art)

Cave art are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used
especially for those dating to Prehistoric times.
The most common themes in cave paintings are large wild animals, such
as bison, horses, aurochs, and deer, and tracings of human hands as well as
abstract patterns, called finger flutings. Drawings of humans were rare and are
usually schematic rather than the more naturalistic animal subjects.Many of the
paintings were drawn with red and yellow ochre, hematite, manganese
oxide and charcoal. Sometimes the silhouette of the animal was incised in the
rock first.
The earliest known examples of cave art date to Blombos cave (South Africa),
some 100,000 years ago.

Blombos Cave

The Blombos Cave people engraved pieces of ochre are regarded as the oldest
known artwork but very much simpler than the cave paintings and figurines found
in Europe(after 40,000 BP).

The Blombos Cave paintings make Africa home to the oldest known examples of
human artwork.
 3

The earliest European cave paintings date to Aurignacian, some 32,000 years
ago. Cave art may have begun in the Aurignacian period (Hohle Fels,
Germany), but reached its apogee in the late Magdalenian (Lascaux, France).

Lascaux Cave, France(big hall, the left wall) - Bull with red cow

Lascaux Cave, France (red cow and horse) – ceiling, the right side
 4

The Spanish cave of Cueva de las Monedas places the art in the last Ice Age.

The oldest known European cave art is that of Chauvet in France, the paintings
of which may be 32,000 years old according to radiocarbon dating(C 14), and
date back to 30,000 BCE (Upper Paleolithic).

Chauvet, France - Spotted hyena

 5

Other examples may date as late as the Early Bronze Age, but the well known
prolific and sophisticated style from Lascaux and Altamira (Spain) died out about
10,000 years ago, coinciding with the advent of the Neolithic period.

Altamira Cave,bison

.Native artists in the Chumash tribes created cave paintings that are located in
present day Santa Barbara ( California), Ventura, and San Luis Obispo
Counties in Southern California. They include well executed examples at Burro
Flats Painted Cave and Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park.

There are also Native American pictogram examples in caves of

the Southwestern United States.
 6

The Bhimbetka rock shelters exhibit the earliest traces of human life in India.
The earliest paintings on the cave walls are believed to be of
the Mesolithic period, dating to 12,000 years ago. Executed mainly in red and
white with the occasional use of green and yellow, the paintings depict the lives
and times of the people who lived in the caves, including scenes of childbirth,
communal dancing and drinking, religious rites and burials, as well as indigenous
animals.

Bhimbetka rock painting

Located in Madhya Pradesh, India, the Bhimbetka rock sheltersdate back 9,000 years
 7

Cueva de las Manos (Spanish for "Cave of the Hands") is a cave located in
the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina which includes many sites
of archaeological and paleontological importance.

The images of hands are often negative (stenciled). Besides these there are also
depictions of human beings, guanacos, rheas, felines and other animals, as well
as geometric shapes, zigzag patterns, representations of the sun,
and hunting scenes. There are also red dots on the ceilings, probably made by
submerging their hunting bolas in ink, and then throwing them up. The colors of
the paintings vary from red (made from hematite) to white, black or yellow. The
negative hand impressions are calculated to be dated around 550 BC, the
positive impressions from 180 BC, and the hunting drawings to be older than
10,000 years.

Significant early cave paintings have also been found in Kakadu National
Park in Australia.The park has a large collection of ochre paintings. Ochre is a
not an organic material, so carbon dating of these pictures is impossible.
Although ,originally from Asia, the natives of Australia, known as Aborigines,
have created a unique style of art.
 8

Male hunter or warrior, in Australia's Kakadu National Park

Wallaby, Kakadu National Park

 9

Like the Aborigines of Australia, the peoples of Polynesia have left behind a
unique artistic heritage.
There also are rock paintings in caves in Egypt, Namibia, Finland, Bulgaria,
Spain, Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma. In Indonesia the caves
at Maros in Sulawesi are famous for their hand prints, also found in caves in the
Sangkulirang area of Kalimantan. The Padah-Lin Caves of Burma contains
11,000-year-old paintings and many rock tools.
And there are more….

Instead of conclusion….

Their geographical location of all these painted caves is obviously very dispersed
and some discoveries have profoundly changed the history of art. There is some
speculation that only Homo sapiens is able to create art. However, Homo erectus
created long before a form of art without a specific purpose ..
If we believe that spirituality is not an accurate reflection of the economic well-
being of those times, we can only assume that the oldest decorated caves
prefigures the oldest and sacrest sanctuaries of historic era.