read pp. 38-44

Some background and History to start with:

Let's start in the Lascaux caves in France back in 16,000-14,000BC.   That's about 18,000 to 16,000 years ago.  Now that's old.  There's a map on page 39.  This is Prehistoric art (meaning that it existed before historical documentation, and the Cave paintings were some of the first known art findings.   These Prehistoric people were from the Paleolithic time period.  There are 3 main time periods in Prehistoric art. 

Paleolithic (1,000,000 - 12,000 BC)

Mesolithic  (12,000 - 6,000 BC)

Neolithic    (8,000 - 2,500 BC)

The people of the Paleolithic era  were hunter and gatherers, and relied on the hunting of Bulls, Bison, deer, antelope and birds for survival.   Agriculture was not established at this time.   These peoples documented their hunt on the cave walls in Europe.   Perhaps these drawings were a symbol to celebrate their survival or even a picturesque counting and documentation of an effective hunt.   Perhaps these drawings were backdrops for a ritual celebrating the survival of the peoples.    The pigments were probably applied to the cave wall by loading a hollow bone with pigments and then blowing through the bone onto the wall.   In France today, you can take a tour of the caves, and unfortunately they have simulated a fake replication of the Lascaux cave drawings.    The simplicity of the drawings is still very sophisticated and natural.   They are trying to preserve the original drawings from exposure to camera flashes, carbon dioxide, dust, pollution, and oil from visitors hand that could start to decay the original cave drawings.

Cave drawings:  Terms and Elements of Art

Medium:   Natural pigments from the earth that were ground up and mixed with animal fat (a binder for the powdered pigments). 

Style:  this describes the nature of the piece.   For instance, Prehistoric art tends to have a natural/organic look to it's line drawings, particularly  in the Cave paintings.  The lines tend to have a curvilinear, organic style to the lines themselves.  Not too stiff and geometric.   You can see that the overall shape is simple with not a lot of values showing depth.   Mostly drawn with line and simple shape or forms. 

Color:  Mostly blacks and reds as you can see in your book.

Purpose:   Perhaps to document a killing for food.  Perhaps to celebrate the joy and beauty of these creatures as a symbol of survival.

Next piece for discussion:

Venus of Willendorf:  This statuette was found in Austria around 30,000-25,000 years ago.  It's about 4.5 inches tall.   The description is that it's called a sculpture in the round.  Meaning you can see all the way around it and it is intended to be viewed all over.  Venus comes from the idea of a female nude that is unidentifiable.  She is rated as a Fertility Symbol that is celebrating childbearing.  Perhaps to celebrate the continual  of a society that is a daily struggle to maintain.  Life was hard during these times and daily survival was a focus.  So being fertile and having children was a way to insure a community and society.   This sculpture could also be considered a ritual object for fertility.  You can see that her face is generic and her breasts and stomach are emphasized - almost exaggerated in order to make a point of,   fertility.

Medium:  carved Limestone, sculpture in the round.

Style: rounded, curved forms,  repetitive rounded forms (the head, the breasts, the stomach, the rounded thighs)

Color:   Natural stone

Purpose:  A ritualistic object that shows the importance of fertility and survival of a Paleolithic peoples.

As we move out of the Paleolithic period of hunters and gatherers, we see some changes in the art forms.  We start to see human imagery on the cave walls instead of animal imagery which we saw in Lascaux, France.   Perhaps some of the reasons why these visual changes occurred is due to a warming trend in the Neolithic period, which allowed for communities to grow food.   The Previous Paleolithic peoples were generally on the go, because there food was constantly moving as well( the animals migrating and moving to different areas for feed).   Now the Neolithic peoples were able to become an Agricultural society and grow crops of grains, cereals, etc.  In doing this, the people needed to stay put and settle in order to take care of their crops, and at the same time become more civilized by forming communities.

The cave paintings (on page 45) located  in Turkey dating 6000-5500 BC ( Neolithic) show an Image of a Hunter.  Notice that it is located in a shrine as well.  The focus became more people/community oriented, and we see imagery indicative of the notion, such as, images of people and not just animals and also architecture.