Cave Paintings vs Graffiti Art
Personal Portfolio Making
Lascaux Caves
• Complex caves in southwestern France,
famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings.
40,000 to 10,000 BC
Cave Art Subjects
Cave art portrays human hands; large numbers
of animals in different activities, including
various species, such as the woolly rhinoceros,
which are now extinct, and a few which were
extinct even at the time they were painted;
geometric figures and signs.
Cave Art Materials
• Finger drawings done with soft clay
• Engraving by means of stone picks, flint, rocks
• Painting- with pigments from soil, rocks, plant
matter that was burned, mineral fragments
• Water and animal oils were binders (like how
tempera paint uses egg to bind pigment, or
acrylic uses plastic)
• Stencils were used, paints were blown through
pipes made from bird bones to apply paint.
• http://www.artchive.com/artchive/C/cave.html
Graffiti Art History
Late 1960s Graffiti was used primarily by political activists to make
statements and street gangs to mark territory.
1970s NYC: Street tags from writers such as TAKI183 were being
recognized.
Streets and Subways were being covered.
Goal was to have as many tags up as possible. Tags started getting larger,
designs started getting added in, and before long the “masterpiece” was
being produced. (color and scale combined for drama)
In the 1980s graffiti legislation made it harder for artists to work in the
streets.
Now modern graffiti artists aren’t using their skills for strictly vandalism
purposes, but instead transform public spaces into beautiful, culture-rich
street art, that help define the time and place in which we live with
powerful images.
http://www.mcny.org/content/citycanvas#view-gallery
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs
/10-street-artists-you-should
Your Portfolio Cover:
• How are cave paintings and graffiti similar?
How are they different?
• How are social media, cave paintings and
graffiti connected to each other?
• How can you use your portfolio as a way to
express the time and place in which you live
and what’s important to you?