Lecture, Prehistoric Art

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Prehistoric Art The Flintstones, Hanna-Barbera, ca. 1960s History of the World: Part I Mel Brooks, 1981 http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v = W_v_ubcYsTI

Transcript of Lecture, Prehistoric Art

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)

Man vs. Image

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

Contemporary Art Meets the Stone Age

Ana Mendieta, from Silueta series, ca. 1970sJames Turrell, Roden Crater

near Flagstaff, Arizona, 1979 to present