Africa, Europe, and the Near East in the Stone Age
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• Understand the origins of art in terms of time period, human development and human activity.
• Explore origins of creativity, representation, and stylistic innovation in the Paleolithic period.
• Describe the role of human and animal figures in
Paleolithic art.
• Examine the materials and techniques of the earliest art making in the Paleolithic period.
• Illustrate differences between the Paleolithic and
Neolithic art as a result of social and environmental changes.
• Understand and evaluate the types of art prevalent in the Neolithic period.
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• Paleolithic: “Old Stone Age” – from the Greek– paleo = old; lithos = stone
• Neolithic: “NEW Stone Age” – from the Greek– neo = old; lithos = stone
• Incise: To cut into a surface with a sharp instrument; a means of decoration, especially on metal and pottery.
• Twisted Perspective: A convention of representation in which part of a figure is shown in profile and another part of the same figure is shown frontally; a composite view.
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• Why art must be intentional and representational in order to be called art.
– Must be modified by human intervention beyond mere selection.
• How do we know this pebble was “selected”?
• Why does it need to be modified to be called art?
– Intentional creation of art objects dates to 30,000 BCE
Makapansgat pebble
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AFRICA: Namibia during the Paleolithic period
Early paintings were portable
Questions the artist would ask:
• What is my subject ?
– An animal
• How shall I represent it?
– Strict profile: can see all body parts– completely informative
• Moved from recognition of animal forms to representation of animal forms.
Namibia: Apollo 11 Cave
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AFRICA: Namibia during the Paleolithic period
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WESTERN EUROPE: Germany:
Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave:
– Carved from Ivory-1 foot tall.
– Composite creature: human with feline head.
– Bridges time gap between the
Makapansgat pebble and the
Namibian animal.
– No way to know what the intention was – sorcerer?
Humans dressed as animals?
– Did involve skill & time, so was important.
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• Women in Paleolithic Art:
Representations of humans during this period were almost always of unclothed women.
– Called “Venuses” after the
Greco-Roman goddess of beauty.
• Not accurate because there is no proof of the idea of named gods or goddesses in that era.
“Venus” of Willendorf 
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“Venus” of Willendorf 
• Why were they thought to be fertility images?
• What is the evidence against that?
• What CAN we safely conclude?
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• Lack of focus on naturalism.
– No facial features.
– Evidence in the sculpture that it is a fertility figure?
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“Laussel Venus”: woman holding a bison horn, found in Dordogne, France.
• Probably later than the
Willendorf figure.
• One of the earliest relief sculptures.
• Originally part of a large stone block.
– Red ochre was applied to the body. [Ochre is a pigment
made from tinted clays]
– Similar emphasis on the female form to the
“Willendorf Venus”
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Another example of a “fertility” relief [including bison horn]
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Rock-Cut Women:
La Magdelaine,
France
• Relief sculptures of nude women on cave walls.
• Used the natural contours of the cave wall as a basis for the representation.
– Incised and carved.
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Clay Bison:
Le Tuc d’Audoubert,
France-12-17k yrs ago
• Strict profile- 2 ft long
• Modeled in clay from the cave itself
Antler Sculpture:
• 4 inches long
• Compare?
– Engraving
– Represented with the head turned – probable reason?
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• Altamira was the first prehistoric cave with paintings to be discovered in 1879.
– Now paintings are known at 200 other sites.
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Floating Bison
Strict profile – maintained by changing the viewpoint in the case of the curled up bison.
• Not a group
– no common ground line
– No setting, background or indication of place .
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• Checks, dots, squares, lines are found alongside the animals
[Lascaux image]
– May include a primitive kind of writing.
• Also common: representations of human hands, mostly with pigment around the shape.
[Pech-Merle, France]
• Murals at Pech-Merle :
Indicate animals chosen for a particular place in the cavehorses/hands painted on concave surfaces- bison on convex.
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• To SEE in the caves they used stone lamps with animal marrow or fat.
• To DRAW they used chunks of red and yellow ochre, but also other minerals.
• The PALATTE was a large flat stone.
• BRUSHES were made from reeds, bristles or twigs.
– May have used reed or blowpipe to spray paint on hard to reach locations.
• Used ledges and perhaps primitive scaffolds to reach the walls.
• Hard to ascertain WHY the paintings were made– there are numerous theories
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• Paintings include animals other than bulls, but the name has stuck!
• Differences in style suggest paintings done at different times.
– Both colored and outline examples.
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• The horns are represented in twisted perspective: Bull is in profile, but horns viewed from the front.
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"The Shaft of the Dead
Man."
• 2 animals and a stickman lying on the ground.
• Indication of narrative in cave paintings.
– Cleary a man
– Many interpretations.
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• Oldest cave paintings yet discovered. [in 1994]
• Horns rendered in strict perspective.
• Possible narrative in the two rhinos confronting each other.
• Dating is in question …
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•Understand the effect of climatic and lifestyle changes during the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic period.
•Illustrate artistic development as a result of differences between the Paleolithic and Neolithic society and environment.
•Understand and evaluate the different types of art prevalent in the Neolithic period.
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• The Ice recedes from Northern Europe c. 9000 BCE
– Climate grew warmer, reindeer migrated north; wooly mammoth and rhinoceros disappeared.
– MESOLITHIC: Transitional period of change
• NEOLITHIC: Settled in fixed abodes and domesticated animals and plants.
• Beginning of AGRICULTURE:
– Oldest communities near the Tigris & Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia. [part of modern day Syria/Iraq]
– Neolithic innovations: systematic agriculture, weaving, metalworking, pottery, and counting & recording with tokens.
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•Inhabited long before Joshua’s
Biblical battle. [Jordan River valley.]
– Small village as early as 9 th millennium BCE.
–Developped around 7 th mil.
BCE.
• Town’s wealth grew along with powerful neighbors, thus fortifications were built.
–2,000 people estimated in
7500 BCE
• Circular Stone Tower stairway.
– 33 ft diameter at base with inner
–Built with simple stone tools.
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Neolithic settlement, near
Amman, Jordan. 8-6 th mil.
– Homes of irregularly shaped stones, plastered, painted walls and floors.
Plaster Statues : Mid-7 th mil.
Appears to be a ritual burial.
–Plaster over a core of reeds and twine.
–Orange & black hair, clothing and some body painting. Gender was rarely indicated
–Beginning of monumental sculptures [3 ft.]
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• City without streets: 7-5 th mil BCE -- predetermined plan
– Twelve building levels excavated, thus revealing the development of a NEOLITHIC culture based on trade in obsidian.
– Narrative Painting: Regular appearance of human figure.
• Composite view based on what presented the most information about the body segment.
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•First “landscape” painting? [may have been a map]
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Around 4000 BCE
Megaliths
[standing stones] and Henges [circles of stones] were developed in
Western Europe.
STONEHENGE
2000 BCE
• Terms:
Sarsen
Lintel,
Trilithons
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 In the textbook, emphasis is placed on a criterion of intentional manipulation of an object in order for it to be classified as “art.” Is this criterion valid? What is your definition of art?
 Why do you think that images of man were less prevalent in
Paleolithic art than those of women?
 What accounts for the lifestyle changes which effect the art?
 How is the human figure presented differently in the
Paleolithic to the Neolithic periods?
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 Describe the differences between the socalled Venus of Willendorf (FIG. 1-4) and the relief of the Woman from Laussel (Fig. 1-
5)?
 When comparing two figures you can begin with facts like size, material and technique, approximate date, and what is know about where they were found.
 Then go on to describe the bodily features of each figure and how the similarities and differences might be interpreted.
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