1 Chapter 1: Prehistoric Art in Europe Art History 1 2 In this Chapter You Will... • Be able to examine the origins of art in the prehistoric past. • Discover the location and motifs of Paleolithic cave art and assess the range of scholarly interpretations for them. 3 In this Chapter You Will... • Investigate the early use of architecture in domestic and sacred contexts, including megalithic monuments such as Stonehenge. 4 In this Chapter You Will... • Explore the use and meaning of human figurines in the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. 5 In this Chapter You Will... • Be able to trace the emergence of pottery making and metalworking and examine the earliest works made of fired clay and hammered gold. 6 What is Prehistory? • Prehistory includes all of human existence before the emergence of writing; long before that, however, people were carving objects, painting images, and creating shelters and other structures 7 Discovering Ancient Art • In the Chauvet Cave in southeastern France we find images of horses, deer, mammoths, aurochs, and other animals that lived 30,000 years ago covering the walls and ceilings. 8 What’s so special about ancient art? • It is important to realize that 30,000 years ago our ancestors were not making “works of art” • Things we view as “art” today, may have only been tools of necessity or survival for their ancient makers. 9 Learning from the Past: • Art historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists use ancient art- along with fossils, pollen and artifacts- to help understand early human life and culture 10 How Early Art is Dated 1 • Relative dating 1 • Absolute dating 2 • Radiometric dating • Radiocarbon dating 11 Homo sapiens & Homo sapiens sapiens • The species called Homo sapiens are said to have appeared about 400,000 years ago • The subspecies to which we belong, Homo sapiens sapiens evolved about 120,000 to 100,000 years ago 12 Movement of Modern Humans 13 The Stone Age • Researchers divide the Stone Age into the Paleolithic & the Neolithic periods • Paleolithic (from the Greek paleo- “old”, & lithos- “stone”) • Neolithic (from the Greek neo- “new”) • Paleolithic has three phases: Lower, Middle, and Upper (Upper being the most recent, lower is the earliest) 14 Prehistoric Art • In Australia, some of the oldest images date 50,000 to 40,000 years ago. • In western Arnhem land, rock art image of the Rainbow Serpent have their origins in prehistory, & were perhaps first created during times of substantial changes in the environment. 15 Prehistoric Art • Africa, as well, is home to ancient rock art in both its northern & southern regions. • Archaeologists associate the arrival of Homo sapiens sapiens in these regions with the advent of image making. 16 The Paleolithic Period • Human beings made tools long before they made “art” • 2 million years ago during the Lower Paleolithic period in Africa, early humans made tools using flint • “Art”, or image making, is the hallmark of the Upper Paleolithic period 17 Paleolithic Hand-Axe • By 1.65 million years ago, significant changes in our ancestors’ cognitive abilities and manual dexterity can be seen in sophisticated stone tools, such as the teardrop-shaped hand-axes that have been found at sites across Eurasia. 18 Neanderthals 2 • Evolutionary changes took place and by 400,000 years ago, during the late Middle Paleolithic period, Homo sapiens subspecies called Neanderthals inhabited Europe 19 The Homo sapiens sapiens • Homo sapiens sapiens- fully modern humans- must have had social organization, rituals, & beliefs that led them to create art. 20 Decorated Ocher, Blombos Cave, South Africa • The world’s earliest pieces of art come from South Africa: two 77,000 year old, engraved blocks of red ocher. 21 Shelter or Architecture? • Architecture: the enclosure of spaces with at least some aesthetic intent • In the Upper Paleolithic period, humans in some regions used great ingenuity to build shelters that were far from simple. 22 Mammoth-Bone Houses • The bone framework was probably covered with animal hides & turf. • Most activities centered around the inside fire pit, or hearth, where food was prepared & tools were fashioned. 23 Artifacts or Works of Art? • These self-contained 3-dimensional pieces are examples of sculpture in the round. • Carvers also produced relief sculpture, which the surrounding material is carved away, forming a background that sets off the figure 24 The Lion-Human • Example of sculpture in the round- the Lion-Human- depicts a human figure with a feline head • Made around 30,000 - 26,000 BCE & found during an excavation in Hohlenstein-Stadel, Germany 25 Female Figures • While a number of figurines representing men have been found recently, most human figures from the Upper Paleolithic period are female. • The most famous female figure, The Woman from Willendorf, from Austria, dates from about 22,000-21,000 BCE 26 Woman from Willendorf • The female attributes have been exaggerated by giving it large breasts, a big belly with deep navel, wide hips, dimpled knees and buttocks and solid thighs 3 27 Understanding the Female Figures • The most recent analysis of the Paleolithic female sculptures has replaced the traditional fertility interpretation with more nuance understandings of how and why the human figure is represented in this way, and who may have had these kinds of objects made. 28 Who are these Female Figures? • Art historian Leroy McDermott suggests that the body-shape of the female figures tell us a great deal about who made them. 29 Woman from Dolni Vestonice • The site of Dolni Vestonice is important because it marks a very early date (23,000 BCE) for humans to use fire to make durable objects out of mixtures of water and soil. • By mixing soil with water and placing the wet figures in a hot kiln to bake, the makers were not intending to create durable, well-fired statues. 30 Woman from Brassempouy • It’s a tiny ivory head (1 1/4 in.) & dates as early as 30,000 BCE • The carver captured the essence of a head in what psychologists call the memory image- those generalized features that reside in our standard memory of a human head 31 Discovering Cave Painting • No one knew of prehistoric cave painting until one day in 1879, a young girl, exploring with her father, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, in northern Spain, crawled through a small opening in the ground and found herself in a chamber with ceilings covered with painted animals 32 Cave Painting Questioned • Marcelino told authorities about the paintings and published his discovery the following year. • Few people believed that these amazing works could not have been done by “primitive” people and were originally called a hoax 33 Explaining Cave Art • Since the discovery of Altamira, anthropologists and art historians have come up with several hypotheses to explain the existence of cave art. 34 What do Cave Paintings Mean? • Early scholars proposed that the cave paintings might be products both of totemistic rites to strengthen clan bonds & increase ceremonies to enhance the fertility of animals used for food. 35 Other Possible Meanings • In 1903, French scholar Salomon Reinach suggested that cave paintings were 4 expressions of sympathetic magic • Others believed they were also used for initiation rites & as places of worship 36 Meanings Change... • Scholars have always agreed that cave art must have special meaning. • There is evidence of people returning to these caves over several generations, in some cases over thousands of years. 37 Chauvet Cave • The earliest known site of prehistoric cave paintings today was discovered in December 1994 in southeastern France. • The caves hold hundreds of paintings with dramatic images of animals grazing, running, or resting. 38 Pech-Merle Cave, Dordodne, France 25,000- 24,000 BCE • A cave site in southern France where images of animals, handprints, & nearly 600 geometric symbols have been found in thirty different parts of the underground complex 39 Prehistoric Wall Painting Methods 40 • The best-known cave paintings are those found in 1940 at Lascaux in southern France. • The Lascaux artists painted cows, bulls, horses and deer along the natural ledges of the rock. 41 Scenes from Lascaux Cave • One scene at Lascaux was discovered in a remote setting on a wall at the bottom of a 16 foot shaft that contained a stone lamp and spears. • Bird-Headed man with Bison dates from 15,000 BCE. 42 Altamira - Bison • The cave paintings at Altamira have been dated to about 12,500 BCE. • To produce the herd of bison on the ceiling of the main cavern artists used red & brown ochers to paint the large areas of the animals’ shoulders, backs, & flanks, then added details in black & brown. 43 Cave Sculpture • Caves were often adorned with relief sculpture as well as painting. 44 Lamp with Ibex Design, 15,000-13,000 BCE • Painters & sculptors worked not only in large caverns but also in far back smaller chambers and recesses, so the use of stone lamps such as this one helped them see. 45 The Neolithic Period • To determine the onset of the Neolithic Period in a specific region, archaeologists look for evidence of three conditions: – One: an organized system of agriculture 5 – Two: the maintenance of herds of domesticated animals – Three: permanent, year-round settlements 46 New ways of living... • People responded to these new conditions by inventing new hunting technologies or improving old ones. 47 Neolithic Farming • As larger numbers of people became farmers, they began to live in villages & produce more than enough food to support themselves. • Over time early societies became more complex and by the end of the period, villages were larger, trading developed and advanced building technology produced awe-inspiring architecture. 48 Neolithic Architecture • At the site of Lepenski Vir, on the Serbian banks of the Danube River, rows of trapezoidal buildings made of wooden posts, branches, mud and clay face the river from which inhabitants took large river fish.