Art historians ask questions about art objects:

•When was this made?

•By whom?

•For whom?

•Why was it made?

•What was its function?

•What is the subject matter?

•What is the iconography?

•What is it the medium?

When did we become “human”? When did art begin?

•Australopithecus afarensis: 4,000,000-2,500,000 BC

•Homo erectus: 2,000,000-300,000 BC, Africa, Asia, Europe

•Homo Neanderthalensis, 350,000-30,000 BC

•Homo sapiens (early modern): 200,000-60,000

•Homo sapiens sapiens (us): ca. 50,000 forward

(Pebble from Makapansgat, 3,000,000 BC, found in South Africa with Australopithecus bones in a rock shelter )

Paleolithic humans also made art, often quite sophisticated: left, ceramic female figure, fired in a kiln, 28,000 BC; right: carved ivory female head, 28,000 BC, both from Dolni Vestonice in Russia

When did art begin? We don’t know; the date keeps moving back!

Some art goes back almost a million years, long before the rise of modern homo sapiens!

3 types of Paleolithic art:

body art (jewelry, clothing)
mobile art (easy-to-carry objects)
cave art (called “parietal” art, meaning “associated with walls”)

Many similar female figures found in all Paleolithic settlements—but almost no male figures. Some scholars believe these are “self-representations” made by women looking down on their own bodies (hence getting a distorted view, with top parts of body looking large and legs and feet looking shortened and smaller).

CLICK HERE to view some more pictures of Paleolithic Art

Parietal art: deep in caves, not where people lived.

**Lascaux Cave, France: Wounded Bison Attacking a Man, ca. 15,000-10,000 BC

Chauvet Cave—35,000-17,000 BC—almost three times as old as Lascaux and Altamira!

Chauvet Cave—not used as a residence—the paintings are in quite inaccessible parts of the cave.

In totally dark cave chambers, artists used torches or fat-burning lamps to faintly light their work. To reach high places, they built wooden scaffolding with supports pounded into the stone walls!

Medium: ground charcoal, ochre, or chalk mixed w/ fat, water, or saliva. Brushed or blown (thru tube or from mouth) onto wall; also applied w/ fingers or hands. Images sometimes incised (cut) into wall.

Formal Elements:
Chauvet Cave, Lion Panel, ca. 25,000 to 17,000 BC

•Line

•Color

•Pattern

•Overlapping

•Incorporation of pre-existing three-dimensional rock knobs to enhance sense of space & distance

•Positive & negative space

•Line and pattern are visual conventions

•Another visual convention is always showing the animals in profile (the only was to see all the important charactertistics of the animal