sign in sign up
<<
Home , Caves in Somaliland, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, How Art Made the World, Laas Geel, Rock shelter

Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2019 Being : The figure in art Mark Ledbury 6/7 February 2019

Lecture summary:

This lecture explores the human hand, and the human figure, as it is articulated, rendered and explored in the earliest human-made visual art –from the Upper period- to be found in and sites throughout the globe. The human hand, as an object and a , is a privileged object of the earliest art, and stencils and prints of hands have recently been dated to as far back in Human history as 80,000 years BCE. Often human hands interact with later, sophisticated depictions of the animal world and the environment in cave systems that remained occupied for tens of thousands of years. In almost all cases these depictions of hands and animals are developed before human figure painting as we know it develops. This lecture will describe and explore some of this very early art and suggest ways we might understand its importance and impact in the history of human culture and in the history of art.

Slide list: 1. Reproduction of M de Suatola’s sketches of Bison, Altamira Caves, published 1905. 2. Selection of photographs of Altamira cave paintings 3. Red Bison, Altamira, (c.15,000 BCE?) 4. Great Black Bull, , , (c.15,000-13,000 BCE) 5. Fighting Bison and Horses, , Pont-les-Arcs, France (C. 32,000-28,000 BCE?) 6. “The Venus and the Sorcerer” Chauvet Cave (c.32,000 BCE) 7. The Venus of Hohe Fels, Carved Mammoth Ivory, c.40-35,000 BCE 8. Engravings at Abri Castanet , France, c.40-35,000 BCE 9. Hand Stencils and Animal (Pig) Maros Cave, Sulawesi, - now dated to c.39000- 35000 BCE 10. Cave Complex, , (Discovered 2002) Animals and Herders Depicted. 3000-1000 BCE 11. Tasilli n’Ajjer Mountain Caves, : from 6000 BCE 12. Points from the “” South - evidence of some dating to c.100,000 BCE 13. Hand “Stencils” made by blowing around a hand pressed against a wall: Indonesia, Maros in Southern Sulawesi – c.39000 BCE 14. Hand Stencil, Maltravieso cave, Spain, (minimum age c.67,000 BCE, perhaps c.85,000 BCE?) 15. Hand Stencils, El Castillo Cave System, Spain: c.35000 BCE? 16. The Cave of the Hands, Santa Cruz, (C20,000bce-500bce) 17. Nawarla Gabarnmang, Southern Arnhem Land, - earliest marks c.45000 bce? 18. Hand Stencils and depictions, Carnarvon Gorge Rock Shelter, Queensland 19. Decorated Hand Stencils, Mount Borradaile, Arnhem Land 20. Variant hand stencils, Central Queensland, showing different ‘gestures’/symbols? 21. Illustrations to Walsh, (art.cit), proposing animal and human symbolic possibilities of hand symbols/stencils.

Proudly sponsored by:

22. Banksy, The Grim reaper. Stencil - Originally painted on the side of the Thekla Social boat, now M Shed, Bristol 23. Raphael, The Creation of the Animals, 1518-19, Palazzo Apostolico, Vatican) 24. Minoan frescoes of , Akrotiri 25. Hunt of the Hare, 12th century Mural painting tranferred to canvas, 185 x 360 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid 26. Jacques-Louis David, The Oath of the Horatii (Oil on Canvas, 1785, Paris: Louvre- detail) 27. Edweard Muybridge, The Horse in Motion, (Photo-series, 1878) 28. Willem de Kooning, Untitled (graphite on paper), 1967 29. Jacob Epstein, Genesis 1929-1930 (Marble: Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester) 30. Gold and Coral Amulet, Spain, 17th Century (British Museum) 31. Blue Glazed Amulet with hand of Nut, Eygpt: (British Museum) 32. Hand Amulet, Bolivia: Stone, (British Museum) 33. Khamsa, Biskra, c.19th century, (British Museum) 34. Khamsa (Hand of Fatima), c.1900, Silver, , British Museum 35. Albrecht Durer, Praying Hands (Study of the Hands of an Apostle) Graphite on Paper, c.1508, , Albertina 36. Henry Moore, “The Artist’s Hand IV”, (Etching on Paper, 1979, Tate Britain) 37. Antoine Watteau, Study of a Woman’s Head and Hands, Red and white chalk and graphite on off-white laid paper, c.1717, New York, MMA) 38. Thomas Lawrence, Study of arms and hands; lady's arms from elbow to hand Black and red chalk heightened with white chalk with graphite (London, British Museum) 39. Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam, (c.1510, Fresco, Rome: The Vatican)

Reference:

General studies and guides Bednarik, R.G.; Achrati, A.; Tang, H.; Muzzolini, A.; Dimitriadis, G.; Seglie, D.; Coimbra, F.; Sher, Y.A.; Consens, M. Glossary: A Multilingual Dictionary, Expanded Second Ed.; Australian Rock Art Research Association: Melbourne, Australia, 2010 Jean Clottes Cave Art. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2008. Jean Clottes, What Is Paleolithic Art? Cave Paintings and the Dawn of Human Creativity. (Chicago, 2016) Bruno David, Cave Art, (London, Thames and Hudson, 2017). Bruno David, Paul S. C Taçon, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Jean-Michel Geneste, and ANU E Press. The of Rock Art in Western Arnhem Land, Australia, 2017. Lewis-Williams, D.,The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art. London: Thames and Hudson 2002. Conkey, Margaret W., Olga Soffer, Deborah Stratmann and Nina G. Jablonski (eds). Beyond Art: Image and Symbol. (Berkeley, 1997) McCarthy, F. D. Australian Aboriginal Rock Art. Sydney: Australian Museum, 1979. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. Rock Art. Canberra, A.C.T.: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, 2004. 30,000 Years of Art: The Story of Human Creativity across Time & Space., (London: Phaidon 2015.) Jo Macdonald and Lucia Clayton, “Rock Art Thematic Study” (prepared for Australian Government), at https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/90e93195-385b-4e34- 89f9-14d44a189b3b/files/rock-art-thematic-study.pdf

For access to all past lecture notes visit: https:// www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/members/current-members/member-events/being- human-figure-art/

Specialist studies Dobrez, Patricia. “Hand Traces: Technical Aspects of Positive and Negative Hand-Marking in Rock Art.” Arts 3, no. 4 (December 2014): 367–93. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts3040367. ———. “The Case for Hand Stencils and Prints as Proprio-Performative.” Arts 2, no. 4 (December 2013): 273–327. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts2040273. Derek Hodgson, and Pettitt, Paul , “The Origins of Iconic Depictions: A Falsifiable Model Derived from the Visual Science of Palaeolithic Cave Art and World Rock Art.” , Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2018, no 5, 1-22 Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Bruno David, Jean-Michel Geneste, Margaret Katherine, Bryce Barker and Ray L. Whear, “The social construction of caves and rockshelters: Chauvet cave (France) and Nawarla Gabarnmang (Australia)” Antiquity. 87.335 (Mar. 2013) Walsh, G.L. 1979. “Mutilated hands or signal stencils? A consideration of irregular hand stencils from Central Queensland”. Australian Archaeology no.9, 33-41. D.R. Moore, “The Hand Stencil as Symbol” , in P.J.Ucko (ed.) Form in Indigenous Art, (Canberra, 1977)

In the News: “U-Th Dating of Carbonate Crusts Reveals Neandertal Origin of Iberian Cave Art | Science.” Accessed January 29, 2019. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6378/912.

Websites: https://www.donsmaps.com/index.html (a generalist but well-informed site about rock art, cave art and other early archaeology) Australian National University. Types of Rock Art. Available online: http://rsh.anu.edu.au/rockart/index.php/types-of-australian-rock-art https://www.dur.ac.uk/archaeology/research/projects/all/?mode=project&id=640 (a current Hand Stencils project with links to further scientific reading and useful discussion of gender and the ‘collaboration’ needed in many hand-stencils) http://www.kimberleyfoundation.org.au/understanding/ Bradshaw Foundation. Bradshaw Foundation World Rock Art; Hand Paintings. Available online: http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/hands/ Films: : (Wenders on Chauvet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_xDcdVWnOiE#t=145

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNwMvVB5LkI - lascaux caves https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQWKpKbvc9M - Nigel Spivey, “How art made the world” (ep.2)

Proudly sponsored by: