Prehistoric

 Art  
 Aims  of  the  session  
• Explore  the  variety  of  styles  and  techniques,  and  tradi:ons  
represented  by  what  remains  of  prehistoric  art  and  architecture,  
and  probe  its  technical,  formal  and  expressive  character.  
• Survey  the  principal  themes,  subjects,  and  symbols  in  prehistoric  
pain:ng,  sculpture  and  objects.  
• Inves:gate  how  art  historians  and  anthropologists  have  speculated  
on  the  cultural  meanings  of  works  for  which  there  is  no  wriCen  
record  to  provide  historical  context.  
• Grasp  the  concepts  and  vocabulary  used  to  describe  and  
characterize  prehistoric  art  and  architecture.  
• Recreate  a  cave  pain:ng,  compose  a  representa:on  of  the  
elements  of  a  cave  pain:ng  with  spray  chalk  cans.  
• Reproduce  a  sculpture  of  a  Venus  with  clay.  
 The  Stone  Age  
• Homo  sapiens  appeared  400,000  years  ago.  
• Homo  sapiens  sapiens  evolved  as  120,000  
years  ago.  
• Modern  humans  spread  from  Africa  across  
Asia,  into  Europe  and  finally  to  Australia  and  
the  Americans.  
• Prehistoric  art  has  been  studied  only  about  
200  years  ago.  
• Paleolithic  (From  the  Greek  paleo-­‐old  and  
lithos-­‐stone.  
• Neolithic  neo-­‐new  
• Archeologist  associate  the  arrival  of  modern  
humans  in  these  regions  with  the  advent  of  
image  making.  
• It  is  the  cogni:ve  capability  to  create  and  
recognize  symbols  and  imagery  that  set  us  as  
modern  humans  apart  from  all  our  
predecessors  and  from  all  our  contemporary  
animal  rela:ves.  
• We  are  defined  as  species  by  our  capability  to  
make  and  understand  art.  
 The  Paleolithic  period  
• Representa:onal  images  appear  in  the  
archeological  record  beginning  about  38,000  
BCE  in  Australia,  Africa,  and  Europe.  
• Da:ng  2.5  millions  of  years  ago,  the  earliest  
objects  made  by  human  ancestors  were  
simply  stone  tools,  some  with  sharp  edges,  
that  were  used  to  cut  animal  skin  and  meat,  
cut  wood  and  so[  plant  materials.  
Although,  no  art  they  document  a  cri:cal  development  in  our  evolu:on:  humans  
ability  to  transform  the  world  around  them  into  specific  tools  that  could  be  used  in  to  
complete  a  task.  
This  is  not  art  but  it  is  important  to  see  them  in  terms  of  performance  and  process.  
 Homo  sapiens,  sapiens=mental  capacity  to  solve  problems  of  
human  survival  

• Recognizing  and  benefi:ng  from  varia:ons  in  

the  natural  environment  
• Managing  social  networking  and  alliance  
making  (organized  hun:ng)  
• Capacity  to  think  symbolically  
• Create  representa:onal  analogies  in  between  
one  person,  animal  or  object.  
• Recognize  and  remember  those  analogies.  
 World  earlier  example  of  art:  Decorated  Ocher  (probably  
used  as  crayon)  

Used  to  decorate  people’s  bodies  as  well  as  to  color  objects  such  as  tools  or  shell  ornaments.  
 Shelter  or  architecture  
Architecture  usually  refers  to  the  enclosure  of  space  with  some  aesthe:c  intent.  

Reconstruc:on  drawing  of  mammoth-­‐bone  house  

Ukraine.  C.  16,000-­‐10,000  BCE.  
 Ar:facts  or  works  of  
art?  
Self-­‐contained,  three-­‐dimensional  pieces  as  examples    
Of  sculpture  in  the  round.  
Prehistoric-­‐carves  also  produced  relief  sculpture  in    
Stone,  bone  and  ivory.  
In  relief  sculpture,    the    
surrounding  material  is  carved  away  to  form  a    
Background  that  sets  off  the  projec:ng  figure.  

Lion-­‐human  from  Hohlenstein,  Stadel,  Germany.  c.  30,000-­‐26,000  BEC.  Mammoth  ivory,  height  
(29.6  cm)  Ulmer  Museum,  Ulm,  Germany.  
How  humans  saw  themselves  in  
rela:onship  with  animals?  
Archeologist  think  that  humans  did  not  see    
Themselves  different  from  animals,  they  were  
All  part  of  the  same  common  group  that  share    
the  world.  
Female  Figures  
Found  in  the  upper  Paleolithic,  carved  from  
 limestone  and  originally  colored  with  red  ocher.  

According  to  archaeologist  Clive  Gamble,  

These  liCle  sculptures  were  subtle  forms  of  
Non  verbal  communica:on  among  isolated  
Groups  of  Paleolithic  people  spread  across  
 vast  regions.  
He  suggests  that  when  people  meet  and  interact,,  
The  female  statues  have  been  among  several    
Objects  that  signaled  if  a  group  was  friendly  and    
Acceptable  for  interac:on  and  probably  for    
Ma:ng.  
Symbolize  shared  values  about  the  body.  
 

Woman  from  Willendorf  

Austria  c.  24,  000  BCE.  
Limestone,  height  (11  cm)  
Naturehistorisches,  Museum,  Vienna.  
 Woman  from  Dolni  
Vestonice  
Woman  from  Dolni  Vestonice  
Moravia,  Czech  Republic.  23,000  BCE.  
Fired  clay,  11  x  4.3  cm.  
Moravske  Museum,  Brno,  Czech  Republic.  
 
Important  for  the  use  of  fire  to  make  durable  objects  
Out  of  mixtures  of  water  and  soil.  
 Woman  from  Brassempouy  
  Psychologists  think  
that  the  person  
who  did  this  
captured  the  
essence  of  a  face.  
(memory  image)  
(egg  shape  with  
few  details,  an  
abstrac:on)  

Woman  from  Brassempouy  GroCe  du  Pape,  Brassempouy,  Landes,  France.  Probably  c.  30,000  
BCE.  Ivory  height  (3.6  cm)  Musee  de  An:quites  Na:onales,  Saint  Germain  en  Laye,  
France.  
 Cave  pain:ng  
• hCps://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=QHn_HhBGMVA  
 Prehistoric  wall  pain:ng:  Spit  pain:ng  
technique  
• Chew  up  or  grind  charcoal  ‘art-­‐arch  charcoal  
made  of  burned  rods  
• Try  to  keep  your  mouth  as  dry  as  possible  and  
then  spit  on  the  wall.  
• Use  your  hand  a  s  a  stencil    
Archeologist  Steve  Mithen,  argued  that  hoofprints,  paCerns  of  animal  feces,  and  hide  colorings  
Were  recorded  and  used  as  a  ‘text’  to  teach  novice  hunters  within  a  group  about  the  seasonal  
Appearance  and  behavior  of  the  animals  they  hunted.  The  fact  that  most  caves  are  hidden    
Suggested  to  Mithen  that  this  knowledge  was  intended  for  a  privileged  group  and  that  certain  
 individuals  were  excluded  from  gaining  that  knowledge.  
Chauvet  Cave  

Wall  pain:ng  with  horses,  rhinoceros,  and  aurochs  

Chauvet  Cave.  Vallon-­‐Pont-­‐d’Arc,  Ardeche  George,  France.  c.  32,000-­‐30,000  BCE.  Paint  
on  limestone.  
 Lascaux  caves  

Hall  of  bulls,  Lascaux  cave.  Dordogne,  France.  C.  15,  000  BCE.  Paint  on  limestone,  length.,  of  
largest  auroch,  (bull)  (5.50  m)  
 
 
Cave  sculptures  

Bison  
Ceiling  of  a  cave  at  Altamira,  Spain.  
c.  12,500  BCE.  Paint  on  limestone,  length    
Approx.  (2.5  m)  
Common  mo:ves  found  in  cave  pain:ng  
• Animals:  herd  of  bison,  res:ng  animals,  
including  horses,  mammoths,  bears,  panthers,  
owls,  deer,  aurochs,  woolly  rhinoceros,  and  
wild  goats.  
• Occasional  humans,  male  and  female,  
handprints  geometric  paCerns  such  as  grids,  
circles  and  dots.    
 Common  interpreta:on  of  the  pain:ngs  
• Shamanism:  the  belief  that  certain  people  can  
travel  outside  of  their  bodies  in  order  to  mediate  
between  the  world  of  the  living  and  the  spirits.  The  
caves  will  be  use  to  be  part  of  rituals  that  involved  
hallucina:ons  and  these  images  will  conceived  
during  this  trancelike  state.  
• Sympathe:c  magic:  the  idea  that  a  picture  of  a  
reclining  bison  would  ensure  hunters  found  their  
pray  asleep.  
• Teaching  aspects  of  animal  behavior  in  order  to  
teach  hunters  how  to  hunt  beCer.  
Le  Tuc  d’Audoubert,  France.c.  13,000  BCE.  Unbaked  clay,  length  (63.5  cm)  and    
(60.9  cm)  
NEOLITHIC  PERIOD  
Reconstruc:on  
Drawing  of  Lepenski  Vir  
House/Shrine  
Serbia  6000  BCE.  

BEGINNING  OF  ARCHITECTURE  

IN  EUROPE  
Building  of  social  human  
 environments  made  up  of  
Durable  structures  constructed  
Of  clay,  mud,  dung,  and  straw  
Interwoven  
Among  wooden  wooden  posts.  

Some  buildings  were  constructed  from  simple  bricks  made  of  clay,  mud,  and  straw,  
Shaped  in  regular  molds  and  then  dried  in  the  sun.  
 First  human  burials  
• Burials  under  the  floor  of  these  structures  
• In  the  spaces  in  between  individual  buildings  
• Places  where  people  carried  out  special  rites  
and  ac:vi:es  linked  to  death  and  to  the  
natural  and  wild  worlds.  
A  HOUSE  IN  CATALHOYUK  
Reconstruc:on  drawing.   The  wall  was  used  to  display  special  objects.  CaCle    
Turkey  7400-­‐6200  BCE.   Skulls  and  horns  were  aCached  to  the  walls  as  relief  art.  

The  house  has  no  windows.  

Large  wooden  
beans  of  juniper  
Or  oak  supported  
the  roof  and    
The  ac:vi:es  that  
took  place  
Above.  

Village  residents  were   Side  rooms  were    

Buried  under  the     Used  for  storage,  
Floors.   Food  prepara:on,  
Short  walls  and  ridges  separate  areas  for  different  ac:vi:es  or  social   And  other  domes:c  
groups.   Tasks.  
 Death  and  burial  performances  
• Death  and  its  rituals  are  seen  as  a  ritual  
Tomb  interior  with  corbeling  and  engraved  stones.  Newgrange,  Ireland.  
c.  3000-­‐2500  BCE.  
Stonehenge   Salisbury  Plain,  Wiltshire,  England.  C.  2900-­‐1500  BCE    

hCps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYo1fo8csTs  
 
 Bronze  Age  
• Introduc:on  of  metal  working.  
• Discovery  of  bronze:  a  mixture  of  :n  and  
copper.  
• Development  of  weapons  such  as  daggers  and  
• Short  swords.  
• Discovery  of  copper.