Cave Paintings

Cave Paintings:

The discovery of magnificent cave paintings thought the world caused great shock waves around the globe. Not only because the paintings were remarkably powerful and astonishingly sophisticated works of art.

Because radiocarbon tests established these paintings and many like them to be over 30,000 years old.  Dating as far back as 10,000 – 15,000 years ago, have been discovered  in France and Spain to name a few. Being referred to as Prehistoric art or Stone Age art, the universal motif of the paintings is the depiction of animals and geometric signs.

Now.. as I rub my hands together.......

Were going to go thorough a bit of a  history lesson here. Nooooo.... not in the way you think. Nothing boring, I promise you..........

In order to learn more about being an artist, we need to learn more about art. I am not going to go through dates and where these drawings were found. What I want to do is walk you through each painting we have here. And just discover, learn what might have been going through these first artists of our time.

Now I saw a documentary not long ago about the evolution of art and what it meant. And I was very interested to learn what this documentary said about cave paintings.

It was said that these first drawings were not done through the necessity of their beliefs and culture. A far more interesting observation came up. In which I think we could take very seriously.

At this time there was no form of writing, And that these drawings came out of the necessity of telling something. A form of communication, in telling other people what had happened to this person or tribe. The first way of communication to other peoples in the most basic form of what we call writing now.

Now There are many theories, yet this is a new and very - I think competitive theory in how stone age man came to put paintings on a surface.

Lets observe this first painting, remembering that the caves were dimly lit. You can see the angles of some of these lions are so well done. The use of color from black to white is used. The artist has caught the actual way a lion would hold itself. The shape of the lions head and neck, has shown that a man of this early stage of development has indeed studied these lions very well. I want to impress these importance's, because the development of the human mind was just forming at this stage. Yet look at the artistic flair in these drawings.

 Detail of the lions. (Chauvet Cave, France

Here we have some early horses, proportions might not be as sound as the lions above. You can see how the jaw line is drawn. Being one of the most prominent of the horses features. Just remember that horses were very small to what they are today. And you can see the failure cropped manes of the prehistoric horse is exactly depicted in these drawings, as they still are today.

Detail horses’ heads. (Chauvet Cave, France).

In cave paintings like the bison, one of the most famous of all the cave paintings. You have seen this picture in many a book, I'm sure...........    Its mouth and nostrils have been captured in the drawing in detail, and the overall depiction of strength that the artist has tried to show is, shown in "more than a thousand words".

A bison with multiple outlines was endowed with seven or eight legs, could have been a mistake and redrawn, or to indicate movement. (Chauvet Cave, France).

Here we have a rhinoceros, the crisp clean lines and detail is clean and uninterrupted by any other forms of animal, and the rhinos horn is exaggerated. Probably showing that it was a great obstacle for stone age man, who only hunted with spears at that time.

A rhinoceros with an enormous horn.  (Chauvet Cave, France).

The depiction of these animals, done by man many  thousands of years ago. Should have you in ore. I know I am..... to think that this was a form of expression, where they had no other person to learn from.

Being the pioneers of art, to how it has evolved today.  These first artists have shown, just through their drawings, how they worked out and showed us the way in what is art today.

Have a good look at these drawings and really.... study. And you will see just how brilliant these first drawings are..................

Lets return from Cave Paintings to Subject Study