Cave Painting Exploring the Beginning of Art Art Appreciation Presentation Fall 2017
Slide 1 Who were the cave artists? When do you think these people were living? How are they different from people living now? What was life like back then? This is how we imagine people looked like back in the Stone Age about 35,000 years ago. How do we know what life was like 35,000 years ago? The Stone Age was the longest period of human history before any written records. Stone Age people hunted animals, gathered plant foods, made tools, used fire to warm themselves and cook, lived in caves and huts, and wore clothes made of animal hide. They were nomadic, moving around to follow their food. Modern humans appeared during this period. They developed many new tools and new ways of doing things, including making music and art. Archaeologists have found tools and weapons from carved stones in caves and also found tools for painting and musical instruments made out of bones. When people find old implements like this, they can imagine how early man created art. The art itself also tells us about how people lived, what was important to them, and about the animals they encountered and hunted. Cave paintings are considered some of the earliest art created by humans. The most famous cave paintings have been discovered in the caves Lascaux and Chauvet in France and Altimira in Spain
Slide 2 Why were cave paintings made? What do you notice about this picture (what are the people painting, what are they using to paint)? Are the painters working on their own? Why do you think people made cave paintings? Why do we make art today? This picture provides an example of artists at work, using what appears to be the first type of painter s palette and candlelight. Cave paintings have been found deep within caves. The cave artists worked well before electricity, they had to figure out how to illuminate the dark caves. The artists worked together as teams with assistants to help with light and other equipment. - Early man used torches (fire on a stick). They also created lamps out of a hollowed out stone in which they placed a lump of fat with a twig that served as a wick. We do not know for sure why the Stone Age people made art, but scholars have some ideas. For decoration? Probably not because people rarely lived deep within the caves where cave paintings have been found For pleasure? Probably not because the caves were difficult to squeeze into and access. They were dark, damp and slippery; they weren t pleasant places to paint To tell a story? This is a possibility; the cave paintings could have been created to tell stories, record beliefs or hunting methods before people had writing. For success in hunting? It is also possible that cave paintings in part were designed as an aid for hunting, to help control particular species of animals which were important to human food supply. To fulfill a spiritual purpose? Early people probably believed in powerful spirits, often in the shape of animals. They didn t have our knowledge of the earth sciences so they may have believed that spirits were responsible for things like: lightening, thunder, the change of seasons and the rising and setting of the sun. They believed that certain people, known as shamans, could communicate with the spiritual world and potentially make life better for them. Cave painters may have painted animals for the shamans to communicate with.
Slide 3 Where/When were cave paintings discovered? Lascaux, France What do you notice about the cave paintings (size, animals, etc.)? When and how do you think paintings were discovered? Imagine if you and your friends discovered some of the most famous paintings on earth! Some of the very first paintings ever created by man! What would you do? This is a photograph of a real cave in France called Lascaux [lasko]. It is just one of five rooms with cave paintings at Lascaux. The cave was discovered in 1940 by four boys who were chasing their dog. The dog chased a rabbit into a hole in the ground and when the boys went after their dog, they discovered a narrow entryway into a cave. They descended more that 50 feet, through a tunnel before discovering hundreds of perfectly preserved cave paintings! These boys showed the paintings to their friends for a small admission fee. Later, as word got around, the boys teacher visited the cave and understood that the paintings needed to be protected. One of the boys stayed in a tent outside the caves to guard them and he spent most of his adult life as a guide for people visiting them. The cave was closed to the public in 1963 to preserve the paintings. Since the discovery of Lascaux, many more cave paintings have been discovered across France, Spain, some other parts of Europe, Africa and Australia. Before we take a close-up look at one of these paintings, notice how enormous these paintings are. You can see from the man at the base of the cave that these paintings cover the entire ceiling. How do you think early man reached the ceiling to paint these? -there s evidence of early ladders and scaffolding made from sticks and branches
Slide 4 What did the cave artists paint? The Dominance of Animals What did the cave artists paint? Do you recognize these animals? What other animals do you think lived at that time? This is a close-up of the cave painting from the Hall of Bulls in Lascaux. Cave painters mostly painted animals; specifically large game animals (some of the animals they hunted for food)- horses, bison, long extinct animals such as cave lions, wooly mammoths, wooly rhinoceroses, cave bears. The animals are usually shown parading and running along the cave walls Why do you think they painted these animals? -Some of them were important sources of food (bison, deer). -Others, like wooly mammoths and cave bears, had a special place in their culture. Scholars think they painted animals that they valued in a spiritual or mythological way
Slide 5 What did the cave artists paint? The Dominance of Animals What is the same/different about this paintings vs. the last one? Cave painters also painted: -abstract signs like circles, zig zags, other patterns; these may have been early counting methods -human stick figures If early humans could draw realistic animals like this bison, certainly they could have drawn more realistic people. Why do you think the animals are realistically drawn but the humans are stick figures? Why are the animals so much more prominent? Do you think animals are dominant today? Maybe these paintings show the power, privilege and dominance that animals had over humans at the time. There were many more animals and fewer people than there are today. Animals were dominant and it was difficult to survive; people were at the mercy of nature.
Slide 6 What did the cave artists paint? Handprints What is the artist doing? Many handprints have also been found in caves. Scholars believe that the handprints may have been a way for the artist to sign his or her work. These paintings were created before a written language so the handprint may have served as a signature. Cave paintings were also created before a number system was invented. When you buy a painting today, the artist signs his or her name and dates it so that you know when it was painted. The handprints were applied by using a spray painting technique- early man blew paint through a hollow reed or bone. The hand on the wall served as a stencil and the paint outlined the hand.
Slide 7 How were cave paintings made? Materials & Techniques What colors do you see? What colors don t you see? What else do you see in this image? Where do you think the painting materials came from? Imagine you are an artist 40,000 years ago. Where would you get your paint or paintbrushes? Would you go to an art supply store? No! You d have to make them! - The materials you find in nature will dictate what color paints you will be able to make. Red, yellow, brown: clay ochre (pigment of clay and sand) Black: charcoal or burnt bones - How would you make paint? Early man ground up the pigments or materials into a powder, mixed them with cave water, vegetable juices, or animal fats to make the paint stick to the rock s surface. They used stones, hollowed out bones, and seashells to hold their newly made paints - What would you use as a brush or how would you apply paint to the walls? Paints were applied using pads of moss, wads of fur, brushes made of animal hair, bunches of twigs or vegetable fiber, lumps of pigment that formed crayons or even directly with the artists fingers.
Slide 8 - How were cave paintings made? Process/Artistic Tradition When you sit down to draw a picture what is the first thing you do? What do you think the cave artists did? What do you see in this cave painting? Do the animals look like they are standing still or moving? Do you think the animals were all painted at the same time? This painting is from the Chauvet [shavay] cave in France. Typically, early man followed three steps to cave painting. 1- created a preliminary sketch. This was an outline in black charcoal or an etching (carving) into rock with a stone tool 2- colored in the drawing with colored pigments 3- shaded the edges of the animal s body with black to show three dimensionality (depth) The artists often studied the walls closely to find places where the shape or contours of a wall suggested parts of an animal. For example, a painter might paint the shoulders of a bison over a bulge in the rock wall. This would make the muscles look realistic and give dimension. The curved lines also give a sense of volume and weight. The artists also used techniques such as shading, overlapping to make the animals more dynamic. Remember that these are the very first drawings made by man. It s extraordinary that they used such sophisticated drawing methods to show depth, movement, and form. The artists did not have drawing classes or models. They studied their subject matter in nature and then drew from memory. These artistic methods were passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. The artistic conventions spanned across great distances and over time as cave artists added to the original cave paintings.