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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