lecture, prehistoric art
TRANSCRIPT
Prehistoric Art
The Flintstones, Hanna-Barbera, ca. 1960s
History of the World: Part IMel Brooks, 1981http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_v_ubcYsTI
The Stone Age • “The first known period of
prehistoric human culture characterized by the use of stone tools” (Merriam-Webster)
• Prehistoric (pre-history = a time before writing and recorded history)
• Earliest Stone Age art comes from Southern Africa
• Important Stone Age artifacts on every continent except Antarctica
• Bias in Stokstad textbook toward European art
• Variety of materials used (clay, stone, cave paintings, relief sculptures)
Incised ochre plaque, Blombos Cave, South Africa, 70,000 BCE
Map of Prehistoric Europe
Paleolithic Art
30,000 BCE 9,000 BCE
Paleolithic Neolithic
Paleo = “old” lithos = “stone”
Neo = “new”
(oldest known art objects)
The Female Nude denotative = literal, descriptive meaning
Connotative = meaning derived from context (cultural/historical)
Jenny Saville, Self-Portraitca. 1990 Rineke Dijkstra,
Saskia Harderwijk, Netherlands March 16 1994, c-print
Paleolithic Sculpture - Venus of Willendorf
Denotative
• 4 ¼ “
• limestone
• Nude woman
• Exaggerated
reproductive anatomy (breasts, belly, pubic triangle)
• Arms and hands very small (hidden)
• No face (decorative braids)
Nude Woman (Venus of Willendorf)28,000 - 25,000 BCE
Willendorf, Austria
Connotative
• One of many other small Paleolithic female nudes
• Both lack faces, arms
• Both exaggeratebreasts, belly, pubic region
• Suggest emphasis on fertility (female, Earth?)
• Representation of womanhood not a specific woman?
Venus of DolníVĕstoniceca. 29,000 BCEceramicCzech
• Focus on Southern France and Northern Spain
• At least 300 sites discovered• Still rare considering they range
in date from ca. 30,000 BCE – ca. 10,000 BCE
• Most are paintings on walls (deep in caves); some relief sculptures (in clay), some wall engravings
• Paintings red or black (red or yellow ochre, iron oxides like hematite, charcoal or manganese dioxide)
• Crushed into powder and mixed with binder (water) then applied with brushes made of twigs, reeds
• Or blown onto surface through hollowed reed or bone
• Illuminated work through stone lamps using fat as fuel
• Could complete a wall in a day• These deep, dark spaces
uninhabited by man
Paleolithic Cave Art
Powdered red ochre Hematite rock
Active Learning Project(see worksheet)
“Paleolithic Cave Art in France”
By Jean Clottes
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/clottes/index.php
Focus in your readings on “Themes Chosen”
“Human and Animal Activities” and “Meaning(s)”
• Shows most common subject (animals)
• Clay relief of two bison• Modeled by hand and
smoothed with spatula• Fingers used to create
mane and facial features
• In profile (most common & complete, descriptive rendering)
• “Pictorial definition” of subject
Paleolithic Cave Art – Groups 1 & 2
Two bison, reliefs in the cave at Le Tuc d’Audoubert, France
ca. 15,000 – 10,000 BCE, clayeach 2ft long
• Shows most common subject (animals)
• Two horses and handprints
• Animals rendered in profile
• Shape dictated by rock formation on right?
• Accompanied by geometric forms (here, dots)
• Handprints created by blowing paint through hollowed reed or bone (artist’s or other signature?)
Paleolithic Cave Art – Groups 3 & 4
Spotted Horses and negative handprintsCave at Pech-Merle, France
ca. 22,000 BCE11’2” long
• Shows most common subject (animals)
• Not all are bulls• Also shown in profile and
in twisted perspective • Contoured and shaded
bodies• “Hall” added to over time• Probably not intended to
represent a herd• Some share a ground
line while some float above
• Lack of setting or background
• Focus on pictorial definition of animal (conceptually rendered) not narrative or scene
Paleolithic Cave Art – Groups 5 & 6
Hall of the BullsLascaux, France
ca. 15,000 – 13,000 BCElargest bull 11’ 6” long
detail of above
• Shows most common subject (animals – rhinoceros and bison)
• Animals in profile (rhino more naturalistic than schematic bison)
• Not painted by single artist• One of earliest appearances
of man (not woman)• Suggested narrative?
(although since deep in cave, not necessarily meant to be “read”)
• Bison is disemboweled; bird man (masked?) falling or dead?
• Aftermath of man vs. animal? (see spear & staff)
Paleolithic Cave Art – Groups 7 & 8
Rhinoceros, wounded manand disemboweled bison
well shaft, Lascaux, France15,000 – 13,000 BCE
bison, 3’8” long
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
2010
Werner Herzog, director
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZFP5HfJPTY
Film Screening:
Neolithic Art
30,000 BCE
(oldest known art objects)
9,000 BCE
Paleolithic Neolithic
Paleo = “old” lithos = “stone”
Neo = “new”
Neolithic Art - Ḉatalhöyük
http://www.catalhoyuk.com/#
• Neolithic community from 7,000 – 5,000 BCE in present-day Turkey • First excavated in 1958 • One of first city dwellings• Houses constructed by timber frame and mud-brick
• Plastered walls withplatforms• Dead buried beneath floor• Walls typically decorated with mural paintings and plaster reliefs• Shrines?
• Shows striking change since Paleolithic cave painting• Regular use of human figure (alone and in groups)• Introduction of pictorial narrative• Organized hunting party• Heads and facial features delineated• Details include bows, arrows, and clothing• Painted on prepared (plaster) surface (vs. directly on wall)• Use of composite frontal and profile views (head in profile, torso frontal, profile view for arms and legs) • Composite view would become standard (pictorial definition of subject) for millennia
Deer hunt (detail)
wall paintingḈatalhöyük
Turkey5750 BCE
Neolithic Art - Ḉatalhöyük
Diagram of ancient Egyptiancanon of proportions
Detail from Hall of Bulls, Lascaux
Neolithic Art - Stonehenge
John Constable, Stonehenge, 1835, watercolor
• One of most famous prehistoric sites in world• Period saw development of monumental architecture• Use of huge rough-cut stones (megaliths)• Inspired name of period (megalithic)• Range from 17 - 24 ft. in height and up to 50 tons each• Arranged in a circle (henge) and surrounded by a ditch• Use of sarsen (like sandstone) and smaller “bluestones” • Post-and-lintel system• Characteristic of other megalithic monuments in Britain
Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire England, 2550 – 1600 BCE
24’
Neolithic Art - Stonehenge
97 ft. diameteroutermost ring
sarsen stones24 ft. tall support lintels (beams) bluestones
horseshoe of trilithons (three-stoneconstructions)posts weigh 45 – 50 tons each
(marks point of summer solstice)
Stonehenge diagram, Salisbury Plain,Wiltshire England, 2550 – 1600 BCE
Connotative Meaning:
astronomical observatory?
(solar calendar)
Stonehenge in Popular Culture
Jim Reinders, Carhenge, Alliance Nebraska, 1980s
This is Spinal Tap, 1984, Rob Reinerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zdyo4vJuCU
Wiccans at Summer Solstice