Prehistoric Art - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

If the first discrete demonstrations of the prehistoric art date from the end of the Paléolithique means, this one becomes real extensive only at the beginning of the Paléolithique superior (- 30 000 with -12 000 years before J. - C.). It then is very diversified in its sets of themes, its techniques and its supports. It includes figurative representations Animal are, of the anthropomorphic representations often diagrammatic, as well as many Signe S.

With the Mesolithic (- 12 000 with -8 000 before J. - C.), the figurative artistic events are rare. From this time are known painted or engraved rollers geometrical figures.

With the Neolithic (- 8 000/à- 3 000 before J. - C.), the rupestral Art develops, including figurative elements and in particular pets. It also develops on new supports, for example at the time of the decoration of ceramics potteries.

The emergence of art to the Paleolithic one

According to certain authors, the esthetic concerns could have appeared as of the Paléolithique inferior and it several manners:

collection of natural objects

a red roller of jaspillite was found on a site attended by the Australopithèque S there is nearly 3 million years.
a Double-side , gone back to 300.000 years and found with Swanscombe in England, was worked in a rock comprising a fossil sea urchin.

use of dyes: the use of Hematite or Ocre is attested in various places of the sphere as from 100.000 years.
use of remarkable stones in the production of tools: Jasper in Corrèze, rock crystal in various sites, Obsidian at the time of the Paleolithic means in Ethiopia…
manufacture of objects whose form does not have an obvious functional explanation:

of the bolas , the worked and more or less regular stone balls, obviously too heavy to be used as projectiles, was found in particular in Sidi Aderrhamane in Morocco.
in the same way, certain authors regard the search for symmetry at the time of the size of the Biface S Acheuléen S as one of the first concerns of an esthetic nature.

However, it is only at the end of the Paléolithique means that the first incisions deprived of functional role, on bones or stones appear. In South Africa, the site of Blombos delivered engraved and coloured stones complex geometrical reasons, associated with objects of ornament in shell. This discovery, dated of more than 70.000 years front JC, is one of the oldest forms of human artistic expression. It translates the capacities of abstraction of the Homo sapiens of the time.

Certain sites Moustérien S also delivered strange minerals or fossils collected by the Néandertaliens during their displacements. It is the case in particular Grottes of Arcy-sur-Cure.

The art of the Paleolithic superior

See also: Aurignacien, Gravettien, Solutréen, Magdalénien

The explosion of the forms of art is undoubtedly characteristic of the Paléolithique superior. Homo sapiens is probably the main actor of this revolution, even if researchers think today that certain works can be allotted to the Homme of Néandertal.

There is approximately 32 000 years, art is very diversified and succeeded. In the Cave Chauvet, one of oldest the decorated caves known, a great number of techniques (engraving, painting, Traced digital, prints, etc) was employed to carry out animal figurations sometimes very realistic. At the same time, Statuette S in Ivoire are also known. No evolution, since simple forms towards more complex forms, is truly perceptible. Even if the art of the Paleolithic superior covers nearly twenty thousand years, it is possible to release a certain number of general characteristics without entering in detail of the chronology.

Supports of art

The art of the Paleolithic superior arises in the form of parietal paintings but also of Sculpture S in Argile, in stone, Ivoire or Os. Works in Wood, fabric S or in other perishable materials unfortunately disappeared. One can only imagine what they were to be, and it is certain that our knowledge remains very partial.

The Métal is not yet known. Certain objects, very fine and fragile, do not seem exclusively utility, and can have a function of Apparat. Many witnesses of art appear on elements of the daily life which undoubtedly had a nonartistic role, like the Propulseur S.

Parietal art

Movable art

Movable art is the art of the objects, that those are utility or not. One finds in this category of the rounds bumps, like the Venus, but also of the weapons carved like engines, and objects of the daily life, like lamps out of ground engraved of signs.

One often notices a correspondence between movable art and parietal art: even iconography, even style.

The men of Paleolithic could already decorate their weapons. They had a movable art made up of pendeloques and decorated plates.

Iconography

Three types of figurations are carried out: signs, animals and representation human.

Signs

The signs are by far the most frequent elements, most various and most difficult to interpret. One finds them as much in parietal art as in movable art. Generally, they accompany by the animals, but there exist also panels of signs, as in the Grotte of Niaux.

Which are these signs? Points, arrows, negative and positive hands, with a number of variable fingers, Tectiforme S, coloured squarings of various colors, kinds of sheets, etc the list is almost impossible to establish, so much they are varied. The color always seems to have a great importance.

According to Andre Leroi-Gourhan, many these signs must be interpreted like sexual symbols. For example, on the panel of signs of the cave of Niaux, the arrow signs would be to associate with the woman and the points with the man. Other prehistorians think that it is about a kind of numerical system.

Fauna

The animals are the second subject of predilection of the prehistoric artists, who were inspired obviously by their daily environment. The bestiary varies according to the areas and the times: however, one finds in majority of large herbivores (horses, Bison S, Aurochs), as in the Grotte of Lascaux. Other species are more rarely represented, sometimes with strong the dominant local ones: Lion S and Rhinoceros in the Cave Chauvet, in Ardeche, Hind S in the caves of the area of Cantabres in Spain or Mammoth S with Rouffignac, in the Dordogne. It also happens that animals indéterminables (or " are represented; fantastiques") : a figure of room of the Taureau X of Lascaux is called Licorne.

Styles of animals more or less uniform are sometimes perceptible on an area scale. For the horses of the South-west of the France, for example, one notes a belly round, broad, whereas the legs are hardly outlined.

The animals are often gathered, installed in a scenography. Thus, one finds with the Chauvet cave the representation of a Rhinocéros surmounted several dorsal lines, which gives an impression of depth and a herd. The groups can comprise animals of the same species, but often gather several different types. The superpositions and scrapings are also currency. Sometimes, an individual is drawn aside, like the horse in the passage, in Lascaux.

Movable art also comprises many animal representations, in particular at the end of engines. The engine of the fawn to the bird is one of most delicate. Element of prestige from its brittleness, he is the chief of work of an important series of objects of the same type. Horses in sculpture in the round are also frequent.

Human representations

The human representations pose obviously problem for the artists of this time, who perhaps prefer subsituer with the human character an animal.

the masculine representations shine by their scarcity. One finds them mainly in the caves, and in general the man is very stylized, taking animal features. Two types can be released:

men in situation of weakness vis-a-vis an animal : one finds of it an example in the puit of the cave of Lascaux, for the Roc of Be used and on a plate coming from the Mas from Azil preserved at the Musée from the National antiquities from Germain saint in Bush hammer. The man is lying face a charging animal, or fights against him;
" sorciers" : semi-human characters semi-animals, sometimes reduced to masks as in the cave of Altamira in Spain or foot, as in the Cave of the Three-Brothers.

the female representations are more current. Most of the time, the woman seems to be a symbol of fruitfulness, as the statuettes of “ Venus show it”, whose hips and belly are hypertrophiiés and the head and the members reduced to the state of stubs. The Venus de Willendorf is one of the most famous examples. The stylized vulvas and engravings of women present in parietal art reinforce this assumption. It is necessary however to mention the exception of the Dame to the hood, out of ivory of mammoth, whose head is represented in a detailed way, with a marked hair.

Interpretations

Many interpétations were advanced to explain paleolithic art. Here three principal interpretations, by order of appearance:

a function magico-nun was first of all evoked, in particular by Henri Breuil. However, it was very early shown that the illustrated species were different from the driven out species and the assumption of a magic of hunting was abandoned. One moreover found in the Chauvet cave of the traces of step of children, which made doubt this assumption. A place attended by children does not seem to be able to be crowned;
A. Leroi-Gourhan proposed a structuralist theory : it would be acted in fact of a notation symbolic of the company, where the animals would represent human groups;
for Jean Clottes, which takes as a starting point ethnological observations of South Africa, it would act rather of the demonstration of ritual chamanic, but this reading is based on a very reductionistic vision of the Chamanisme.
of other researchers, as Denis Vialou insists on the differences and specificities regional and local, by stressing that each cave corresponds initially to a system which is clean for him, and by refuting an approach globalisante, regarded as reducing.

The art of the Mesolithic era

August 1st