Prehistoric art

prehistoricart

Timeline Stone Age

Paleolithic Era (2,500,000 – 10,000 BC) Lower Paleolithic (2,500,000 – 200,000 BC) Middle Paleolithic (200,000 – 40,000 BC) Upper Paleolithic (40,000 – 10,000 BC)

Mesolithic Era 10,000 – 4,000 BC) Neolithic Era (4,000 – 2,000 BC)

Bronze Age (3,300 – 1,200 BC)

Iron Age (1,300 BC – 200 AD)

a hunter-gatherer culture

paleolithicera

Stone Age Art

Petroglyphs - cupules, engravings, drawings, symbols

Sculpture/Carving Cave Painting

Venus of Berekhat Ram230,000 BCfound at the Berekhat Ram in Golan Heights (Syria)1.4 inches long

Venus of Tan-Tan500,000- 300,000 BCfound in Morocco2.4 inches long quartzite rockinterpreted as the depiction of the human form, gender indeterminate and faceless

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Cupule and meander petroglyph on a boulder at the Auditorium Cave, Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh, India; 700,000 – 290,000 BC

petroglyph found at the Blombos Cave located in the limestone cliff, about 100 meters from the sea of the southern coast of South Africa; 70,000 BC

series of beads made from shells; 75,000 BC

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La Ferrassie Cupules approximately 60,000 BC; situated in South West France

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Venus of Hohle Fels (hollow rock) or Venus of Schelklingen40,000 – 35,000 BC; found in Schelklingen, Germany; oldest known figurative art; made of woolly mammoth tusk; 2.4 inches in height

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Swabian Jura Ivory Carvingsfound at a plateau in German state of Baden-Wurttemberg

Mammoth Ivory Figurine

33,000 BCE oldest figurative carving

1.5 inches long weighs 7.5 grams

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Ivory Carving of Horse33,000 BC in Vogelherd Cave

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The Lion Man32,000 BC in the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave the oldest known anthropomorphic animal figurine in the worldthe first sculpture of a male figure11.7 inches tall, 2.2 inches wide, and 2.3 inches thick

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Chauvet Cave paintings Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, France30,000 BC; over 300 paintings and engravings; depicted images of lions, mammoths, rhinoceroses, panther, owl, horses, bison, aurochs, ibex, reindeeer, red deer, musk-oxen, red ochre hand stencils, handprints

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Chauvet Cave paintings…

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Cosquer Cave paintings near Marseilles, France25,000 BCE; the entrance to Cosquer cave is situated over 100 feet below sea level; contains, hand stencils, charcoal drawings and about 100 polychrome paintings of horses and other animals

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Cosquer Cave paintings…

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Pech-Merle Cave paintings Cabrerets, Midi-Pyrénées, France25,000 BC; painted in charcoal and ochre on limestone; polychrome; second oldest cave art; contains about 1,300 meters of galleries; contains footprints, tools, food remains, and other signs of human habitation; famous for “The Dappled Horses” panel which is 4 meters long

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Pech-Merle Cave paintings…

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hic Venus of Brassempouy or “Lady with the Hood”

about 25,000 BCfound in Brassempouy, France

one of the earliest known realistic representations of a human face

and hairstylecarved from mammoth ivory

1.4 inches high, 0.9 inches deep, and 0.7 inches wide

Venus of Lausselaround 25,000 BC found in Southwestern France18 inches highlimestone bas-relief painted with red ochre

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Venus of Willendorf24,000 – 22,000 BC

found in Lower Austria4.3 inches long; carved from limestone

and tinted with red ochre

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Venus of Kostenki23,000 – 21,000 BCfound in Kostenki settlement in Russialimestoneabout 4 inches in height

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Lascaux Cave paintings Montignac, Dordogne, France17,000 BC; contains seven decorated chambers with over 2000 painted images; polychrome (red, yellow, black, brown, and violet); best known for the huge scale of animal pictures and exceptionally realistic portrayal

The Crossed Bison

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Lascaux Cave paintings…

The Great Hall of the Bulls

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Lascaux Cave paintings…

Shaft of the Dead Man

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Cave of Altamira paintings near Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, Spain 15,000 BC; “Sistine Chapel of Paleolithic Art", polychrome

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Cave of Altamira paintings…

Things to ponder…

1. What motivated primitive man to create such art?2. What does it mean to be human?3. How was the art of the prehistoric period related to society?

Vannessa E. San JuanPhilippine High School for the

Arts/Art Studies IV16 June 2011

Prehistoric art

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