Discovery, Appearance and Meaning of Cave paintings in France and Spain - Essay Example

Discuss the Discovery, Appearance and Meaning of Cave paintings in France and Spain. Introduction: The capabilities of human beings to give expression to the images in their mind goes back to pre-historic times and cave paintings believed to be nearly 30,000 years old. Pre-historic cave paintings have been found spread in many corners of the world ranging from Europe to Africa, and on to Australia. The cave paintings of in southwest France and northern Spain in Europe stand out as the most significant of the pre-historic cave paintings, because of their number, and the sophistication seen in them. (The art of our species). Discovery: Nearly two hundred cave paintings have been discovered so far in France and Spain, and they still continue, as the recent discovery of cave paintings in the Vilhonneur forests, in the Charente region of western France suggest. However, the cave paintings in the Lascaux Cave of Montignac, in the Dordogne region of southwest France, and Altamira, in northwest Spain, still remain the more significant examples of pre-historic cave paintings. (25,000-Year-Old Cave Paintings?) The initial discovery of the caves, and the paintings at Altamira were made in the later half of the nineteenth century by accident. In 1868 a hunter’s dog chasing a fox fell among some boulders, and the hunter, in attempting to rescue the dog discovered the entrance to the famous cave. The cave paintings took more than a decade later to be discovered, again by accident. The owner of the estate in which the cave was located was an amateur archeologist. His young daughter accompanied him on one of his trips into the cave, to look for tools, in 1879. She looked up at the ceiling, and became the first person in modern times to espy the herd of red animals painted across the ceiling. Initially these paintings were not accepted as pre-historic paintings, and believed to be forgeries a mere twenty years old. In the beginning of the twentieth century efforts of the French priest Henri Breuil made the world aware of this finest example of pre-historic cave paintings, till the discovery of the Lascaux caves, in France, four decades later. (Cave Paintings and Sculptures). Appearance of the Cave Paintings: The prehistoric cave paintings are made up of engraved or painted works done on open-air rocks or on the floors, walls, and ceilings of the caves. Some of these paintings are found in deep and nearly inaccessible locations in the caves. The earliest art forms appear to be rudimentary images of finger drawings in soft clay on rock surfaces. It is possible that our ancestors were following the claw marks made by animals. This is supposedly followed by engravings, making use of flakes of sharp flint and occasionally may be even tone picks. A variety of rocks, and rock formations were utilized to provide for variety, color and depth. As the final part of this feast of art come the impressive paintings, using red, black, yellow, and brown pigments. (Cave Paintings). The subject matter of most of these paintings was animals. Animals were important to prehistoric man, being the source of their food and also the threat some of them posed. Herds of animals have been painted, as also individual animals like the massive eighteen- foot painting of a bull found in the Lascaux Cave. The impressive element of these paintings is the quality of many of them, where the outlines are firm and vigorous, and the poses lifelike. To give roundness to the animals, the figures have been sometimes shaded. Natural protrusions of the rock have been used to provide the form more fullness, and tippling has been used to give indication of the texture of the pelt. (Prehistoric Painting). The animals that were the subject matter include aurochs, bear, bison, boar, horses, ibex, lion, musk ox, red deer, reindeer, and wooly rhinoceros. (Ancestral Art). There are a few depictions of human beings. In sharp contrast to the elaborate paintings of animal herds and animals, the depiction of these few images of humans, at times with bows and arrows, are small and roughly drawn stick figures. (Prehistoric Painting). Paint materials and Painting Techniques: Paints used in these prehistoric paintings came from materials that were available. Red, the predominant color of these paintings was obtained from red ochre or hematite and heating or burning was employed to vary the shades from dark to light. Manganese or charcoal provided them black color. (Ancestral Art). The extender used consisted of a mixture of biotite and feldspar. At Grotto Chauvet, these simple black and red paints were found to be a complex mixture of minerals. The black pigment used at Lascaux, was made up of fifteen percent manganese dioxide as the colorant, and twenty percent quartz, and the balance forty percent calcium phosphate. Heating bone up to four hundred degree Celsius, and then grinding it gave them calcium phosphate. (Jacobs, Q.J. (1998). The Dawn of Prehistoric Rock Art). The paints were made by grinding the pigments and suspending them in water, and may be even urine, using stone mortars and pestles. (Ancestral Art). There are suggestions that the fixing of the paints was done with blood, animal fat, fish glue, egg white, and juice of vegetables, in addition to water or urine. (Cave Paintings and Sculptures). The brush of the paintbrushes was made from the fur of animals like badger, fox, and sable, and human hair, and plant stems, by tying them together, and at times chewing them to get the ends frayed. The glue that was used to stick the hair to the vegetable stems was the same strong glue that was in use to fix flint edges to handles. This gave them paintbrushes of different shapes and thickness. To assist in painting, the paint was kept in palettes made from limestone or schist. Dabbing or sponging also was used for filling of the figures drawn. For this purpose fine skin like a chamois was filled with short animal hair, and plant fibers mixed with a thick paste of the pigment was used. This mixture was put into the fine skin, and made into a ball and the surface of the pierced with a needle to produce small holes. The outer surface of the ball would be moistened, causing a small amount of the pigment to dissolve, bringing the paint to the surface for dabbing on the surface of the rocks. When the pigment was exhausted the filling process was repeated. The precise lines seen in the cave paintings were done using stencils made from bark or skin. No widespread drips, spots, smudges or other artifacts are seen in the caves, and this gives the impression that imperfections were removed while the paint was still wet. (Ancestral Art). The art kit of these prehistoric painters was thus complex, and would have consisted of the paints, a limestone or schist palette to hold the paints, paintbrushes of various shapes and thickness, dabbing or sponging implements, bark or skin stencils, moist fine skins for erasing, and water or any of the other fixing agents used by them. The pictures depicted provide clear impressions of the animals, and the hunting of them, requiring intimate knowledge of the animal and the hunting, and this suggests that artists were male. The caves where these paintings were found have not revealed any traces of human habitation, except in Altamira, where evidence of human habitation was found in only one painted room, and this suggests that the caves were not lived in to preserve the paintings. (Prehistoric Painting). Meaning of the Prehistoric Cave Paintings: The meaning of the prehistoric Cave paintings can be only educated guesses, as we are dealing with prehistoric times. This has led to different views on it. There are views that these galleries were an expression of the artistic nature of prehistoric human beings. Many believe that these paintings could not just be art galleries, and have a greater meaning attached to them like religion. (paintings of animals). The paintings may have been a part of the ritual functions to make sure of a good hunt, or to enhance the fertility of the animals they hunted. Another speculation is that these paintings were a guide to methods of hunting, and this view arises from the hunt element apparent the paintings. (Prehistoric Painting). Significance of the Cave Paintings: The significance of the cave paintings in relation to the older theories is that it may suggest that art developed much earlier than was thought. This aspect of the cave paintings becomes clear in the words of French researcher Helene Valladas, “Prehistorians, who have traditionally interpreted the evolution of prehistoric art as a steady progression from simple to more complex representations, may have to reconsider existing theories of the origins of art". (Whitehouse, D. (2001). Science shows cave art developed early). Mistakes at Lascaux and the Solution: The paintings at the Lascaux remained well preserved over this long period of time, because of the geological features, which caused erosion to deposit limestone over the entrance to the cave. The discovery of the cave, and its opening led to thousands of tourists visiting the caves. Deterioration in the cave paintings was noticed. This deterioration was caused by the visitors to the cave, as the carbon dioxide and water combined to form acid, leading to corrosion of the rock and calcite in the cave. The solution was the closing of the cave to tourists and visitors, to preserve the cave paintings. (The Cave of Lascaux). African-Saharan Rock Art (2,500 – 1,500 BC: The Sahara desert houses many rock painting, which remains preserved in the dry desert heat. The Sahara desert was once fertile and green, thus home to many people and different kinds of animals. Human beings had passed the stage of hunting and gathering, and this is reflected in the art. Thus in contrast to the prehistoric cave paintings, besides the animals that were hunted, the art depicts human beings mostly of ancestors and ancestor couples, as ancestry was an important part of the culture in those times. (South from the Sahara: Early African Art). The art of this period depicts human figures, richly colored animals and figures that are a combination of human and animal features, which are called therianthopes and linked to shamanism. (African Rock Art). Threats to the African-Saharan Rock Art The African-Saharan Rock Art has been under threat from the colonial days with the defacing by graffiti of the colonial explorers, settlers, bandits, and now by the modern populations. Rock art sites have been dynamited to meet additional housing requirements, or to construct roads and dams. Ravages of war are another threat. In addition to these threats, pollutants in the rains are erasing the images. (Braun, D. 2001. Africas Imperiled Rock Art Documented Before it Disappears). Literary References 1. “The art of our species”. HISTORY OF PAINTING. HISTORY WORLD. 14 March 2006. . 2. “25,000-Year-Old Cave Paintings?” Feb. 2006. CBS NEWS. 14 March 2006. . 3. “Cave Paintings and Sculptures”. Don’s Maps. 14 March 2006. . 4. “Cave Paintings”. 14 March 2006. . 5. “Prehistoric Painting”. BEYONDBOOKS.com. 14 March 2006. . 6. “Ancestral Art”. Dec. 16, 2003. 14 March 2006. . 7. Jacobs, Q.J. “The Dawn of Prehistoric Rock Art”. 1998. 14 March 2006. . 8. “paintings of animals”. 14 March 2006. . 9. Whitehouse, D. “Science shows cave art developed early”. Oct. 3, 2001. BBC NEWS. 14 March 2006. . 10. “The Cave of Lascaux”. THE BLAKE SCHOOL. 14 March 2006. . 11. “South from the Sahara: Early African Art”. 14 March 2006. http://www.accd.edu/sac/vat/arthistory/arts1303/Africa.htm>. 12. “African Rock Art”. 14 March 2006. . 13. “Braun, D. Africas Imperiled Rock Art Documented Before it Disappears”. Oct. 5, 2001. National Geographic News. Read More