Prehistoric Art

Cave Paintings and Portable Carvings

 PREHISTORY AND
PREHISTORIC ART IN
EUROPE
• 4,500,000,000 (4 billion, 500 million) = the age of
the earth

• 3,900,000,000 (3 billion, 900 million) = single-cell

life of green algae began

• 600,000,000 (600 million) = birds and animals

began to fill the earth

• 100,000,000 (100 million) = lands and oceans full

 PREHISTORY AND
PREHISTORIC ART IN
EUROPE

• 65,000,000 (65 million) = extinction of the dinosaur

• 4,400,000 (4 million, 400 thousand) = earliest

upright human

• 30,000 (30 thousand) = first art created

 TERMS TO KNOW
• PREHISTORY - refers to the time before people
developed a writing system.

• TECTIFORM - geometric shapes on cave walls,

meaning unknown

• PALEOLITHIC - (Paleo = old; lithic = stone),

42,000- 8,000 BCE

• MESOLITHIC - (Meso = middle; lithic = stone)

 TERMS TO KNOW
• NEOLITHIC - (Neo = new; lithic = stone),
8,000 BCE

• IN THE ROUND - sculptural object that

can be viewed form all sides

• CORBELING CONSTRUCTION

• POST-AND-LINTEL CONSTRUCTION
 STONE AGE
• man's dependence on tools and weapons
made of stone
• "Homo sapiens sapiens" ("wise, wise man")
evolved around 120,000-100,000 years ago
• nomadic hunters and gathers who moved
from place to place
 STONE AGE
• we know nothing of their religion
• Their homes were made of mud or
mammoth bones and covered with animal
skins
• Archeologists have found fossilized corpses
with red ochre (dirt) on them and their
bodies had been buried in a fetal position
and facing east towards the rising sun
WOMAN FROM WILLENDORF
• A woman's statuette from
fine-grained dense
limestone, 11 cm,
Aurignacian. Traces of red
dye on the surface of the
statuette. Found in
Austria, in the township of
Willendorf on the left
bank of the Danube in
1908. The Museum of
Natural History, Vienna.
WOMAN FROM WILLENDORF

c. 22,000-21,000 BC.
Limestone
Height 4 3/8"
WOMAN FROM WILLENDORF
Often referred to as the Venus of Willendorf, it was
carved 10,000 years before the cave paintings of
Lascaux. This simplified form, which emphasizes
breasts and buttocks, was probably intended to
depict fertility. Upper Paleolithic artists produced
a wide range of small sculptures made of ivory,
bone, clay, and stone. This statue was carved,
which is a subtractive technique using a sharp
instrument to gouge. She is carved in the round.
Venus of Brassempouy
 Venus of Brassempouy
• This miniature head (3.5 cm, (1.5 inches)
was carved from ivory. Found at
Brassempouy, Landes, France. It may be 30
000 years old. It is one of the few Ice Age
figures with facial features and a detailed
hairstyle.
 Another Venus
• A figure of a naked woman. Her head is
covered with rows of shallow teeth cuts,
depicting, according to Z.A.Abramova, hair
or a closely fitting head-dress. Engraved
and relief lines on the chest and on the back.
Mammoth's tusk. Height 11,4 cm. Found in
1936, excavation made by P.P.Efimenko,
who thought it to be "one of the best
creations of that period, known to us".
Will the “real” Venus please
stand up?
 le Chaffaud Grotto

• Reindeer foot-bone from the le Chaffaud grotto

with a depiction of two hinds. One of the first
finds of palaeolithic portable art.
Cave Painting
 Altamira, Spain
• The Altamira Cave bears the distinction of being
the very first cave discovery of prehistoric art. In
1879, the Spaniard Don Marcelino de Sautola was
excavating a large cave with his daughter. She
shouted that she had seen some bulls on the
ceiling of the cave. In reality the bulls were bison.
The discovery would take 22 years to be
considered genuine. In 1901, French Abbe Henri
Breuil verified other caves in the area in
Dordogne, France. They were accepted as
authentic in 1902.
Altamira, Spain
 Altamira, Spain
• The most famous Altamira paintings are on the
plafond - a low ceiling in one of the cave
"vestibules" to the left from the entrance. The total
area of the ceiling is about 100 sq. ms. Here the
artist had skillfully combined pigment painting
with the ceiling relief. The majority of more than
20 animal figures, (mainly bisons, though there
are also a horse, a boar and a deer) is depicted on
the natural bosses of the ceiling and so there
comes out an impressive picture of bas-relief,
embossed figures
 Altamira, Spain
• The painting of the Niaux "Salon Noire" was also
considered to be the work of one artist and only
the ibex figure was admitted to be corrected later.
Other specialists, A.P.Okladnikov for example,
considered the Altamira ceiling to be the result of
successive addition of depictions, originally not
connected. The last results of the radiocarbon
dating of some ceiling paintings showed that 200 -
500 years separate them.
Altamira, Spain
 Altamira, Spain
• When the palaeolithic age of the Altamira
paintings had been generally accepted discussions
of other problems started. In particular, was the
Altamira ceiling painting the result of a single
action ( in the terms of life of one man) and
conception or was it a long accumulation of
different depictions? Some investigators were sure
that the Altamira ceiling is a sound compositional
work. Though nobody said it directly but it was
somehow implied that it was the work of one
artist. It concerns not only the Altamira ceiling.
 Altamira, Spain
• Together with other finds testifying to the
man's activity, numerous lumps of ochre,
used for making pigments, have been found.
There also was a small limestone fragment
of the wall, fallen down long ago, bearing a
part of a picturesque depiction of a
mammoth. Ancient charcoal picked up in
the occupation layer allowed to get an
absolute date - 14680 + 150 years ago.
 The Caves of Lascaux
• The cave is not large. 90 feet from the entrance to
the cat's hole. Passages that led to the caves were
narrow and low. This famous cave was discovered
in 1940 , 70 years after Altamira, by a group of
boys and a dog and the rabbit they were chasing.
The dog fell into a hole left by a recently uprooted
tree. When one of the boys slithered down the hole
to rescue the dog, he found himself in a gallery
bright with color and animals on the walls. Two of
the boys when adults became guides working at
Lascaux.
The Caves of Lascaux
The Great Hall of the Bulls
Great Black Bull
 Great Black Bull
• Painted on limestone. The bull is 11' 5" high. Note the
various sizes of animals that were probably added at
different times over a 1,000 years. We do not know why
they chose to paint over other art work or have such a
variety of sizes. The walls have TECTIFORM or
geometric signs . We do not know their meaning. Perhaps
they were maps to hunting grounds or religious symbols.
Animals are painted in twisted perspective, in which the
head and body is in profile but the horns are shown in 3/4
view to show both horns. and a variance of size. They are
painted in polychrome ("poly" = many, "chrome" = color).
• Do you think the artists overlapped the
animals because of shortage of space?
• Why do you think they painted the animals
on cave walls?
• Do you think that these elaborate cave
paintings were a magical control of reality
to insure a successful hunt?
The Dead Man
 The Dead Man
• Look at the fallen man. He has a bird face
(mask?). Perhaps the man is in a trance.
• The man is drawn crudely, whereas greater
attention is given to the other creatures,
even to the bison's bowels hanging out.
 The Dead Man
• Was the man a witch doctor or shaman?

• Did he want to disguise himself so that his

soul would not be captured? (Henri Breuil
called this "hunting Magic".)
Painted Gallery / Black Stag
Chinese Horses
Panel of the Falling Cow
 Central India
• Numerous rock paintings have been preserved in
natural shelters. Paintings on the walls of about
500 caves are considered to be preserved in the
environs of Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh
state. Site Bhimbetka, discovered by Professor
W.Wakankar from the Vikram University in 1953
is of particular interest. W. Wakankar thinks that
the name "Bhimbetka" come from Bhima - an epic
Mahabharata hero. Indian archaeologists date
some of these paintings to the very early periods,
including the Upper Palaeolithic.
Central India
Uzbekistan-Kugitang Mountains
• In the south-western spurs of the Gissar
range (Uzbekistan) in Kugitang mountains,
in the canyon Zaraut-Sai there is a
monument, widely known not only among
specialists-archaeologists - Zaraut- Kamar
grotto. The paintings of the grotto were
discovered in 1939 by local hunter
I.F.Lamaev, repeatedly published and
studied in details by different authors. The
paintings are dated to Mesolithic.
Uzbekistan-Kugitang Mountains
 Kapova Cave (Russia)
• The cave has two levels of cavities - two "floors".
Some of these cavities are called "halls". There are
the Cupola Hall, The Hall of Signs, the Chaos Hall
on the ground floor, the Hall of Drawings - on the
first floor. Colourful figurative drawings are,
mainly, in the upper level, a rather long distance
from the entrance, as in the most upper
palaeolithic caves. Excavations have uncovered an
occupation layer, containing isolated bones of wild
animals, extinct among them, for example, the
cave bear. Mammoths, rhinos, a bison and horses
are easily recognized among them.
Kapova Cave (Russia)
Southern African Rock Art
Southern African Rock Art
Southern African Rock Art
Southern African Rock Art
Cave Lions / Chauvet cave
Running Bison

The artist has

shown movement
by drawing extra
legs.
 To Learn More, Go to:

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHprehistoric.html