Prehistoric Art and Architecture

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Prehistoric Art and Architecture

• In
• Western Europe

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Paleolithic

• Ice Age
• Nomadic hunters and gatherers
• Simple social organization
• No writing but symbolic marks
• Ritual burial practices
• Simple tools

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Mesolithic

• Ice age over
• Transition period
• People lived around bodies of water
• Fishing - major source of food
• Crude farming tools
• Agricultural farms begin

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Neolithic

• Organized villages
• Domesticated animals
• Pottery textiles
• Polytheistic religion
• First food to stored food
• River Valley Civilizations
• Egypt (Nile River)
• Mesopotamia (Tigres/Euphrates Rivers)
• India (Indus River)
• China (Yellow River)

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Cave Painting

• Pigment- colored powders made from organic
  material
• Binder- the liquid (spit, blood, urine, animal
  fat) used to mix with pigment to make it stick
• Support- this is what the pigment is stuck on and
  in this case it is the cave wall/ceiling
• Tools- fingers, sticks, boar hair, moss
• Subject matter- animals they hunted (deer, boar,
  bison, horse)

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Altamira Caves

• Used natural bulges of rock to suggest contours
  of animals helped create sculptural effects
• Also carved the rock to shape figures

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Lascaux Caves

• more skilled and naturalistic
• Drew outline then filled in with pigment
• Best at showing movement and exaggerating
  characteristic features
• Used scaffolding
• www.lascaux.culture.fr/index.php?Ingen-/fr/02_00.
  xml

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Chauvet Caves

• Subject matter - exotic dangerous animals and sea
  life
• Extinct species
• Palm prints
• Contour line drawings

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Interpretations of Paleolithic Cave Paintings
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• Hunting magic- successful hunt
• Fertility rituals- reproduce
• Social ceremony- coming of age
• Literal representation- record keeping

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Paleolithic Sculpture
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Sculpture in the Round

• Sculpture completely detached from original
  material so can be seen from all sides

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Venus of Willendorf

• Paleolithic
• Monumental object (having quality of appearing
  big)
• Fertility goddess
• Oval shapes, no facial features or neck, lower
  legs almost gone, undeveloped arms

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Mother Goddess

• Neolithic period
• Monumental in the sense of size (30)
• Pleated skirt
• Bulbous legs
• Feet shown
• Red ocher smeared on upper portion of legs

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Relief Sculpture

• Some of original material remains and forms
  background plane

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Bison with Turned Head

• Early Mesolithic
• Incised lines (finely cut lines) on mane
• Carving- subtractive process on a hard material
• Illustrates naturalism

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Two Bison

• Modeled- additive
• process using soft,
• pliable material
• Features incised
• Naturalistic

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Neolithic Age Monumental Stone Architecture

• Megaliths- large monuments created from huge
  stone slabs

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Menhirs

• Long stones
• Unhewn slightly shaped single stones
• Standing upright in the ground
• Clustered or rows

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Dolmens

• Table stones
• 2 or more vertical stones supporting a large
  single stone
• Early-tombs
• Later-passageways

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Cromlechs

• Circle place
• Groups of menhirs arranged to form circles or
  semicircles
• Out circle is post and lintel (massive posts that
  support cross beams or lintels
• Example-Stonehenge