Cave of Lascaux c. 15,000 B.C.

Today’s Lesson

•Learning about the ancient art of cave painting.

•Creating a Petroglyph Painting that includes symbols and drawings.

Vocabulary Definitions• Symbol

▫ A design or picture that stands for a thing or an idea.

• Petroglyph

▫ A design or symbol scratched or carved into a rock.

• Crayon Resist

▫ The technique used when you paint a thin tempera wash over a crayon drawing.

▫ The crayon will repel the paint.

Petroglyph Symbols• Geometric symbols

that stand for things in nature▫ animals, humans,

plants, fire, natural disasters

• Fascinating reminders of ancient people.

• Native Americans of the Southwest drew many petroglyphs on rocks and canyon walls to tell stories of everyday survival of ancient people.

What do these petroglyph symbols mean to you?

Cave of Lascaux • Pronounced: “la-sko”• The Cave of Lascaux was discovered in 1940 by four

teenagers while exploring around an old manor house looking for an underground passageway.

• It consists of connecting caves with many paintings and carvings.

Cave of Lascaux

•The most famous cave paintings in the world.

•Click here to watch a short video entering the actual Cave of Lascaux (1:25)

Cave of Lascaux

•The oldest paintings known in the world are found on the walls and roofs of caves in western Europe.

Cave of Lascaux • The earliest pictures

may be more than 30,000 years old, and the latest are about 9,500 year old▫Around the time of

the Ice Age▫Humans lived by

hunting great herds of animals

Cave of Lascaux • It appears that the pictures may have been sketched with

charcoal first. • The paints were made from substances containing iron

and manganese the artists found in the earth, that were ground to a powder and mixed with animal fat or water.

Reds, yellows and buffs came from iron mixtures

Dark browns and black came from manganese

Cave of Lascaux • The artists skillfully

drew and painted bison, wild cattle and horses, red deer and reindeer, mammoths and other hunted animals.

• There are not many drawings of human

• No landscapesWhat do you think this painting symbolizes?

Cave of Lascaux • Some artists created petroglyphs by cutting

their pictures on the walls with a sharp flint • Some petroglyphs are have been carved away

to make sculptures that stand out.

Cave of Lascaux • The caves are closed to the public because the drawings

were starting to become damaged.▫ The carbon dioxide that the visitors breathed out was

leading to the corrosion of the walls of the cave.

These carvings are from Northern Arizona.

What do you think they would feel like if you could touch them?

What We Will Be Doing• Tear edges of the paper to resemble a piece of rock wall. • You can use red, yellow and buff crayons to create symbols

on the paper and to color them in. • Try to make up your own petroglyph symbols. • You should press hard without breaking the crayon when

coloring the symbols. • Use a light colored crayon to color in a background around

the symbol designs. • Then outline each symbol with a black marker.• Crumple the paper in a tight ball and then open it up flat. • Art Masterpiece guide will brush tempura paint over

picture to create the crayon resist.