Ly Nguyen
October 28, 2012
AP Art History 2B
Essay 1
Paleolithic and Neolithic Art
The prehistoric period made art pieces of varying sizes according to when they were
made. The Paleolithic people made small, transportable art pieces and object for transportation
conveniency such as the Venus of Willendorf c. 25,000 BCE, while the Neolithic people were no
longer nomads, thus they had more time to make or build big art pieces such as the Stone Henge
c. 2,500 BCE.
Paleolithic people carried around small objects such as the Venus of Willendorf in hopes
of attracting good fortune for their wives when giving child birth and raising their child. The
Venus of Willendorf emphasized female fertility shown through the big breasts and wide hips.
The Paleolithic people believed that carrying the Venus of Willendorf, with her obvious
emphasized fertility body parts, would help draw in good fortune for their wives.
The Venus of Willendorf was small enough to fit in the size of their palms, thus, it was
not only small enough to carry, but it was also light enough to hold in their hands while they
were traveling. Due to the fact that the Paleolithic people were nomads, they were always
moving in order to find food so they did not have time to make big, or detailed, objects. The
Venus of Willendorf is a great example of this fact.
Although very small, the Paleolithic people believed that the Venus of Willendorf held
great power over their female nomads. The breasts and hips are greatly exaggerated and the
sculpture was not intended for natural stance. They believed that wherever they took the
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sculpture, the luck will follow them throughout their journey. Reproduction was very important
to them in order to carry on their tribe so they desired that their wives would have these attributes
in order to have a healthy and strong baby. The wide hips for ease of birth and the big breasts for
breast feeding. With these characteristics utilized into the Venus of Willendorf, they believed
that it was possible these characteristics would follow into their female reproducers.
Hundreds of years later, after the Paleolithic era ended and the Neolithic began, nomads
were replaced by farmers. Without the constant need to relocate, the Neolithic people had more
time to take on bigger art projects such as the Stone Henge. The Neolithic people no longer had
to worry about moving, thus, they had time to find and collect megaliths, gathering them, and
placing them into wherever they desired to form Stone Henge; in this case, Wiltshire, England.
With more time on their hands, rather than spending time worrying about where to move
next in order to survive, they constructed the first hint of architecture. Stone Henge shows their
advancement in basic structural design using not only mortise and tenon, but also post and lentil
construction. Utilizing both these strategies, they were able to form Stone Henge’s first basic
arches.
Some stones that were used to create Stone Henge were imported from over 200 miles
away exemplifying how much more time they had to collect these megaliths. With no advanced
technology, transferring the stones from one place to another took longer compared to how much
time it would take in present day. The Neolithic people did not have to worry about returning to
an empty village, thus, one could make a safe prediction that the Neolithic has settle into their
society without depending of natural food supplies.
In prehistoric history, the Paleo and Neolithic era had varying sizes within their art pieces
depending on when the art pieces were made. The Paleolithic people were nomads, thus they had
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to move from place to place in order to survive and have a food supply, thus they did not have
time to spend making large art pieces, an example being the Venus of Willendorf. The Neolithic
people, on the other hand, were farmers, so they did not have to worry about moving, thus they
could spend more time on bigger art pieces such as the Stone Henge, which took over 1,000
years to build. Although both eras came before history, they varied differently in size.