prehistoric lascaux

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PREHISTORIC ART

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PREHISTORIC ART

Lascaux (Lascaux CavesLascaux (Lascaux Caves) is the setting of a

complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village ofMontignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. Lascaux (Lascaux Caves) is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village ofMontignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art.

Upper PaleolithicThe Upper Paleolithic (or Upper

Palaeolithic, Late Stone Age) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of agriculture.

A painting of the Giant Deer from Lascaux.

According to one theory, the eyes of the bull, the bird, and the bird-man may represent the three 

stars Vega, Altair, and Deneb commonly known as the Summer Triangle.

DescriptionThe cave contains nearly 2,000 figures, which can be grouped into three main categories: animals, human figures and abstract signs. The paintings contain no images of the surrounding landscape or the vegetation of the time.[9] Most of the major images have been painted onto the walls using mineral pigments, although some designs have also been incised into the stone.

Interpretation

Some anthropologists and art historians also theorize that the paintings could be an account of past hunting success, or could represent a mystical ritual in order to improve future hunting endeavors. This latter theory is supported by the overlapping images of one group of animals in the same cave-location as another group of animals, suggesting that one area of the cave was more successful for predicting a plentiful hunting excursion.

CAVES OF ALTAMIRA

Altamira (Spanish for 'high views')Altamira (Spanish for 'high views') is a cave in Spain famous for its Upper Paleolithiccave paintings featuring drawings and polychrome rock paintings of wild mammals and human hands.

Its special relevance comes from the fact that it was the first cave in which prehistoric cave paintings were discovered.

It is located near the town of Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain.

 Painting of a bison in the cave

DESCRIPTIONThe artists used Charcoal and ochre or haematite to

create the images, often diluting these pigments to produce variations in intensity and creating an impression of chiaroscuro. They also exploited the natural contours in the cave walls to give their subjects a three-dimensional effect.

Dated to the Magdelenean occupation, these paintings include abstract shapes in addition to animal subjects. Solutrean paintings include images of horses and goats, as well as handprints that were created when artists placed their hands on the cave wall and blew pigment over them to leave a negative image.

Venus of Willendorf

Venus of Willendorf

The Venus of Willendorf, now known in academia as the Woman of Willendorf, is an 11 cm (4.3 in) high statuette of a female figure estimated to have been made between 24,000 and 22,000 BCE.

Several similar statuettes and other forms of art have been discovered, and they are collectively referred to as Venus figurines, although they pre-date the mythological figure ofVenus by millennia.

INTERPRETATIONThe purpose of the carving is the subject of much speculation. It never had feet and does not stand on its own. The apparent large size of the breasts and abdomen, and the detail put into the vulva, have led scholars to interpret the figure as a fertility symbol. The figure has no visible face, her head being covered with circular horizontal bands of what might be rows ofplaited hair

The Bhimbetka rock shelters

DESCRIPTION

The Bhimbetka rock shelters are an archaeological site of the Paleolithic, exhibiting the earliest traces of human life on the Indian subcontinent, and thus the beginning of the South Asian Stone Age. It is located in the Raisen District in the Indian state ofMadhya Pradesh. The Bhimbetka shelters exhibit the earliest traces of human life in India.

DESCRIPTION

The rock shelters and caves of Bhimbetka have a large number of paintings. The oldest paintings are considered to be 30,000 years old, but some of the geometric figures date to as recently as the medieval period. The colors used are vegetable colors which have endured through time because the drawings were generally made deep inside a niche or on inner walls. The drawings and paintings can be classified under seven different periods.

The only painting in the caves showing, "a man" being hunted by a beast, Bhimbetka Cave paintings

Bhimbetka rock painting showing man riding on horse.

Period I - (Upper Paleolithic): These are linear representations, in green and dark red, of huge figures of animals such as bison, tigers and rhinoceroses.

Period II - (Mesolithic): Comparatively small in size the stylised figures in this group show linear decorations on the body. In addition to animals there are human figures and hunting scenes, giving a clear picture of the weapons they used: barbed spears, pointed sticks, bows and arrows. The depiction of communal dances, birds, musical instruments, mothers and children, pregnant women, men carrying dead animals, drinking and burials appear in rhythmic movement.

Period III - (Chalcolithic) Similar to the paintings of the Chalcolithic, these drawings reveal that during this period the cave dwellers of this area were in contact with the agricultural communities of the Malwa plains, exchanging goods with them.

Period IV & V - (Early historic): The figures of this group have a schematic and decorative style and are painted mainly in red, white and yellow. The association is of riders, depiction of religious symbols, tunic-like dresses and the existence of scripts of different periods. The religious beliefs are represented by figures ofyakshas, tree gods and magical sky chariots.

Period VI & VII - (Medieval) : These paintings are geometric linear and more schematic, but they show degeneration and crudeness in their artistic style. The colors used by the cave dwellers were prepared by combining manganese, hematite and wooden coal.