1. Art Before the Written Word
In Art: A Brief History, 2nd ed. (2004) by Marilyn Stokstad

2. Outline
• Upper Paleolithic Art
• Art in the Neolithic Period

3. UPPER PALEOLITHIC ART

4. Landscape
•
•
•
•
c. 42,000 – 8000 BCE
Hunting and gathering
People lived in small nomadic groups
Glaciers of the last ice age still covered
northern stretches of Europe, North
America, and Asia

5. Characteristics of Art
• Mostly small figures or figurines, of
people and animals
• Materials used include bones, ivory,
stone and clay
• Women as more frequent subjects
• Sculpture shows an aesthetic sense
and the ability to pose and solve
problems

6. Lion-Human
From HohlensteinStadel, Germany
c. 30,000-26,000 BCE
Mammoth Ivory
height 29.6cm
Ulmer Museum, Ulm,
Germany

7. Woman from Brassempouy
Grotte du Pape, Brassempouy Landes, France. c.
22,000 BCE. Ivory, height 3 cm. Musée des Antiquits
Nationales, st.-Germain-en-Laye. (abstraction)

8. Woman from
Willendorf
Austria
c. 22,000 – 21,000 BCE
Limestone
Height 11 cm
Naturhistorisches
Museum Vienna

9. Characteristics of Art
• Composition shows that the ritual of
making the painting is more important
than the finished work
• Rock engraving: pecking designs into
rock with stone tools
• Used red and brown pigments derived
from manganese dioxide

10. Mimis and Kangaroo
Prehistoric rock art, Oenpelli, Arnhem Land, Australia.
Older painting 16,000-7000 BCE. Red and yellow
ocher and white pipe clay. (x-ray style)

11. Wall painting with Four Horses
Chauvet cave, Vallon-Pont-d’Arc Ardèche gorge,
France. C. 28,000 BCE. Paint on limestone.

12. Hall of Bulls
Lascaux caves. C. 15,000-13,000 BCE. Paint on
limestone.

13. Bison
On the ceiling of a cave in Altamira, Spain. c. 12,000
BCE. Paint on limestone, length approx. 2.5m.

14. ART IN THE NEOLITHIC
PERIOD

15. Landscape
•
•
•
•
Around 8000 BCE in Europe
Development of organized agriculture
Practice of animal husbandry
Foundation of permanent, year-round
settlements
• Introduction of metalworking (Bronze
Age, 2300 BCE in Europe)

16. Characteristic of Art
• Wall paintings
• “Flying gallop” – an animal (in motion)
leaps forward with fully extended legs;
the conventional way to indicate speed

17. People and Animals
Detail of rock-shelter painting in Cogul Lérida, Spain.
c. 4000-2000 BCE. Museo Arqueológico Barcelona

18. Village of Skara Brae
Orkney Islands, Scotland. By c. 3100 BCE

19. House Interior
Skara Brae. (post and lintel construction)

20. Characteristic of Art
• Megalithic Architecture: massive
tombs and monuments built from huge
stones
• Dolmen: a tomb chamber; was formed
of huge upright stones supporting one
or more table-like rocks (capstones)
• Passage graves: elaborate burial sites;
oriented towards the rising sun in
midsummer

21. Tomb Interior
With engraved stones, Newrange, Ireland. c. 30002500 BCE

22. Stonehenge
Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England. c. 2750-1500 BCE
(post and lintel construction)

23. Diagram of Stonehenge
Henge means a circle formed by stones or wooden
posts, often surrounded by a ditch with built-up
embarkments

24. Characteristic of Art
• Cult of the Sun
• Bronze Age: metal work
• Megalithic sculpture offers some of the
greatest art historical conundrums

25. Horse and Sun Chariot
From Trundholm, Zealand, Denmark. c. 1800-1600
BCE. Bronze, length 59.2 cm. National Museum,
Copenhagen

26. Colossal Head
From La Venta, Mexico. Olmec culture, c. 900-500 BCE.
Basalt, height 2.26m. La Venta Park, Villahermosa,
Tabasco, Mexico

27. Ancestor figures (moai)
Ahu Nau Nau, Easter Island, Polynesia. c. 1000-1500
CE, restored 1978. Volcanic stone (tufa), average
height approx. 11 m.

28. Ancestor figures (closer)

29. Synthesis
• Human beings have always strived
toward ever-more perfect expressions
of artistic and cultural values.
• History and art history can be seen as
a series of cumulative developments.
• Many cultural transitions occurred at
the same time in geographically
unrelated and unconnected places.
However, some of the same changes
happened on very different timetables
from place to place.

30. HU 102 / 2013