Transcript Document

Gardner’s Art Through the Ages,
12e
Chapter 1
The Birth of Art:
Africa, Europe, and the Near East
in the Stone Age
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Goals
• Understand the origins of art in terms of time
period, human development and human activity.
• Explore origins of creativity, representation, and
stylistic innovation in the Paleolithic period.
• Describe the role of human and animal figures in
Paleolithic art.
• Examine the materials and techniques of the
earliest art making in the Paleolithic period.
• Illustrate differences between the Paleolithic and
Neolithic art as a result of social and
environmental changes.
• Understand and evaluate the types of art prevalent
in the Neolithic period.
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Definitions
• Paleolithic: “Old Stone Age” – from the Greek–
paleo = old; lithos = stone
• Neolithic: “NEW Stone Age” – from the Greek–
neo = old; lithos = stone
• Incise: To cut into a surface with a sharp
instrument; a means of decoration, especially on
metal and pottery.
• Twisted Perspective: A convention of
representation in which part of a figure is shown in
profile and another part of the same figure is
shown frontally; a composite view.
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Prehistoric Europe and the Near East
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Paleolithic Art in Western Europe and Africa
• Why art must be intentional and representational in
order to be called art.
– Must be modified by human
intervention beyond mere
selection.
• How do we know this pebble
was “selected”?
• Why does it need to be modified
to be called art?
– Intentional creation of art
objects dates to 30,000 BCE
Makapansgat pebble
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Paleolithic Art in Western Europe and Africa
AFRICA: Namibia during the Paleolithic period
Early paintings were portable
.
Questions the artist would ask:
• What is my subject?
– An animal
• How shall I represent it?
– Strict profile: can see all
body parts– completely
informative
• Moved from recognition
of animal forms to
representation of
animal forms.
Namibia: Apollo 11 Cave
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Paleolithic Art in Western Europe and Africa
AFRICA: Namibia during
the Paleolithic period
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Paleolithic Art in Western Europe and Africa
WESTERN EUROPE: Germany:
Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave:
– Carved from Ivory-1 foot tall.
– Composite creature: human
with feline head.
– Bridges time gap between the
Makapansgat pebble and the
Namibian animal.
– No way to know what the
intention was – sorcerer?
Humans dressed as animals?
– Did involve skill & time, so was
important.
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The Earliest Sculpted Forms
• Women in Paleolithic Art:
Representations of humans
during this period were almost
always of unclothed women.
– Called “Venuses” after the
Greco-Roman goddess of
beauty.
• Not accurate because
there is no proof of the
idea of named gods or
goddesses in that era.
• “Venus” of Willendorf 
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The Earliest Sculpted Forms
“Venus” of Willendorf 
• Why were they thought to be
fertility images?
• What is the evidence against
that?
• What CAN we safely conclude?
----------------• Lack of focus on naturalism.
– No facial features.
– Evidence in the sculpture that
it is a fertility figure?
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The Earliest Sculpted Forms
“Laussel Venus”: woman
holding a bison horn, found
in Dordogne, France.
• Probably later than the
Willendorf figure.
• One of the earliest relief
sculptures.
• Originally part of a large
stone block.
– Red ochre was applied to
the body. [Ochre is a pigment
made from tinted clays]
– Similar emphasis on the
female form to the
“Willendorf Venus”
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The Earliest Sculpted Forms
Another example of a “fertility” relief [including bison horn]
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The Earliest Sculpted Forms
Rock-Cut Women:
La Magdelaine,
France
• Relief sculptures
of nude women
on cave walls.
• Used the natural
contours of the
cave wall as a
basis for the
representation.
– Incised and
carved.
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The Earliest Sculpted Forms
Clay Bison:
Le Tuc d’Audoubert,
France-12-17k yrs ago
• Strict profile- 2 ft long
• Modeled in clay from
the cave itself
Antler Sculpture:
• 4 inches long
• Compare?
– Engraving
– Represented with the
head turned –
probable reason?
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Discovery of Altamia
• Altamira was the first
prehistoric cave with paintings
to be discovered in 1879.
– Now paintings are known
at 200 other sites.
Floating Bison
• Strict profile – maintained by
changing the viewpoint in the
case of the curled up bison.
• Not a group
– no common ground line
– No setting, background or
indication of place.
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Signs & Hands
• Checks, dots, squares, lines are
found alongside the animals
[Lascaux image]
– May include a primitive kind
of writing.
• Also common: representations
of human hands, mostly with
pigment around the shape.
[Pech-Merle, France]
• Murals at Pech-Merle:
Indicate animals chosen for a
particular place in the cavehorses/hands painted on
concave surfaces- bison on
convex.
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Examining Materials and Techniques
• To SEE in the caves they used stone lamps with animal
marrow or fat.
• To DRAW they used chunks of red and yellow ochre,
but also other minerals.
• The PALATTE was a large flat stone.
• BRUSHES were made from reeds, bristles or twigs.
– May have used reed or blowpipe to spray paint on
hard to reach locations.
• Used ledges and perhaps primitive scaffolds to reach the
walls.
• Hard to ascertain WHY the paintings were made– there
are numerous theories
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The Bulls of Lascaux
• Paintings include animals other
than bulls, but the name has
stuck!
• Differences in style suggest
paintings done at different times.
– Both colored and outline
examples.
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Lascaux: The Bulls of Lascaux
• The horns are represented in twisted perspective: Bull is
in profile, but horns viewed from the front.
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Lascaux: The Well Scene
"The Shaft of the Dead
Man."
• 2 animals and a stickman lying on the
ground.
• Indication of narrative
in cave paintings.
– Cleary a man
– Many
interpretations.
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Chauvet
•
•
•
•
Oldest cave paintings yet discovered. [in 1994]
Horns rendered in strict perspective.
Possible narrative in the two rhinos confronting each other.
Dating is in question …
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FRANCE:
Maps of Other Caves
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Neolithic Art: Goals
•Understand the effect of climatic and lifestyle changes
during the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic
period.
•Illustrate artistic development as a result of differences
between the Paleolithic and Neolithic society and
environment.
•Understand and evaluate the different types of art
prevalent in the Neolithic period.
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Changing Environment and Lifestyle
• The Ice recedes from Northern Europe c. 9000 BCE
– Climate grew warmer, reindeer migrated north; wooly
mammoth and rhinoceros disappeared.
– MESOLITHIC: Transitional period of change
• NEOLITHIC: Settled in fixed abodes and domesticated
animals and plants.
• Beginning of AGRICULTURE:
– Oldest communities near the Tigris & Euphrates rivers
in Mesopotamia. [part of modern day Syria/Iraq]
– Neolithic innovations: systematic agriculture, weaving,
metalworking, pottery, and counting & recording with
tokens.
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Neolithic Art: Jericho Stone Fortifications
•Inhabited long before Joshua’s
Biblical battle. [Jordan River valley.]
– Small village as early as 9th
millennium BCE.
–Developped around 7th mil.
BCE.
• Town’s wealth grew along with
powerful neighbors, thus
fortifications were built.
–2,000 people estimated in
7500 BCE
•Circular Stone Tower – 33 ft
diameter at base with inner
stairway.
–Built with simple stone tools.
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Neolithic Art: Sculpture at Ain Ghazal
Neolithic settlement, near
Amman, Jordan. 8-6th mil.
– Homes of irregularly
shaped stones, plastered,
painted walls and floors.
Plaster Statues: Mid-7th mil.
Appears to be a ritual burial.
–Plaster over a core of reeds
and twine.
–Orange & black hair,
clothing and some body
painting. Gender was rarely
indicated
–Beginning of monumental
sculptures [3 ft.]
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Neolithic Art: Catal Hoyuk
• City without streets: 7-5th mil BCE -- predetermined plan
– Twelve building levels excavated, thus revealing the
development of a NEOLITHIC culture based on trade in
obsidian.
– Narrative Painting: Regular appearance of human
figure.
• Composite view based on what presented the most
information about the body segment.
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Neolithic Art: Catal Hoyuk
•First “landscape” painting? [may have been a map]
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Monumental Architecture
Around 4000 BCE
Megaliths
[standing stones]
and Henges [circles
of stones] were
developed in
Western Europe.
STONEHENGE
2000 BCE
• Terms:
Sarsen
Lintel,
Trilithons
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Monumental Architecture
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Discussion Questions
 In the textbook, emphasis is placed on a criterion of
intentional manipulation of an object in order for it to be
classified as “art.” Is this criterion valid? What is your
definition of art?
 Why do you think that images of man were less prevalent in
Paleolithic art than those of women?
 What accounts for the lifestyle changes which effect the art?
 How is the human figure presented differently in the
Paleolithic to the Neolithic periods?
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Small Group Discussion
Describe the differences between the socalled Venus of Willendorf (FIG. 1-4) and
the relief of the Woman from Laussel (Fig. 15)?
 When comparing two figures you can begin
with facts like size, material and technique,
approximate date, and what is know about
where they were found.
 Then go on to describe the bodily features
of each figure and how the similarities and
differences might be interpreted.
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