Prehistoric art: the beginning

Taller de Reflexión Artística II

PREHISTORIC ART: THE BEGINNING

25,000 invention of arte – during the last glacial epoch, when hunter-gatherers were still living in caves, the Neanderthal tool-making mentality gave way to the Cro-Magnon urge to make images

The first art objects were created with an attempt to control the natural forces – symbols of animales and people created hadsupernatural significance and magical powers – these objects did no yet have a purpose of decorration or adornment for the human body.

FIRST SCULPTURE: The oldest surviving art objects are sculptures made from bone, ivory, stone or antlers. These were either engraved, carved in deep relief or fully rounded three-dimensional sculptures.

Venus of Willendorf: 25000-20000 b.c; tiny female statuette isone of the earliest known human figures – enormous breasts, protruding belly and stylised round head, the sculpture is more a cluster of spheres than an individualised woman. It was probably a fertility fetish, symbolising abundance.

Venus de Willendorf. Lo más importante es lo representativo de su maternidad.
Todas las venus de la prehistoria tienen exagerado todos sus atributos femeninos –porque hable sobre la fertilidad. Estas venus se metían dentro de los cultivos – llamaba la energia de los dioses/diosas.

FIRST PAINTINGS: The first paintings were probably made in caves approximately 15,000 years ago. These pictures of bison, deer, horses, cattle, mammoths and bars are located in the most remote recesses of the caves, far from the inhabited, sunlit entrances. Archeologistsspeculate artists created the animal images to guarantee a successful hunt. Many are portrayed pierced with arrows, and gouges in the rock indicate cave-dwellers may have flung spears at the painted game.

Horse: Lascaux – cave Painting – 15,000-13000 b.c.; To create these images, cave artists used charcoal to outline irregularities in the walls of the caves that suggested forms from nature.Bulges in the rock implied bulk, and tonl shading with earth-tone pigments lent contour and perspective. The 'paints' used were chunks of red and yellow acher ocher ground into powder and applied with brushes or blown onto the surface through hallow bones. Drawings were often superimposed randomly, perhaps because new images were necesary before each hunt. The images almost entirely animal figures –were represented in two-dimensional profile and seem to float in space, with no hint of background surroundings.

A series of patterns, dots, randomly placed were found – studies were done and proved that light depravation can and may cause hallucinations – documenting visions. Use of animals in paintings that were not hunted – this could be explained as painting animals that would bring goodluck for before the hunt.

FIRST ARQUITECTURE: Once the glaciers receded, the climate grew more temperate, and the Paleolithic (old stone age) period was replaced by the neolithic (new stone) age. Early human beings emerged from caves to become herdsmen and farmers and now with a secure food supply they began crafting the first monumental 'sculpture'. As early as 5000 b.c. Colossal architectureof massive, upright stones appeared. These took three basic forms: the dolmen (consisting of large, vertical stones with a covering slab like a giant table); the menhir (a single stone set on its end); and the cromlech (circular arrangement of stones, such as Stonehenge).

Stonehenge: England's first rock group – in the Middle Ages, this mysterious group of stones was believed to be either thecreation of an ancient race of giants or conjured by Merlin the Magician, who allegedly transplanted it from Ireland. Actually, it seems to be an accurate astronomical calendar. The outer ring consists of trilithons (rocks shaped like giant doorways). Next comes a ring of smaller upright stones like cemetery gravemarkers, then a horseshoe of carefully finished trilithons, 13' 6'' high. Isolated...