Prehistoric cave art from over 40,000 years ago provides some of the earliest examples of human artistry. Famous sites like the Lascaux Caves in France and Altamira Caves in Spain contain intricate paintings of animals, humans, and symbols on cave walls and ceilings. Similarly, the Venus of Willendorf statue from 24,000-20,000 BC depicts exaggerated feminine features and is thought to represent fertility. In ancient Egypt during the New Kingdom, monumental architecture like the pyramids at Giza and finely crafted objects show the culture's artistic heights, as seen in the gold death mask of Tutankhamun and the delicate portrait of Queen Nefertiti.

1. HISTORY
OF
ART AND DESIGN
By
Assoc. Prof.
Hj. Mohamed Ali Abdul Rahman
•F A C U L T Y O F A R T A N D D E S I G N , U N I S E L , S E S S I O N 2 0 1 1 / 2 0 1 2
CHAPTER 7

2. Chapter 7.1 : P
• Began about 40,000 years
ago.Prehistoric people often
represented their world and
perhaps their beliefs-through
visual images.
• Art emerged with the appearance
and dispersion of fully modern
people through Africa, Europe,
Asia, Australasia, and the
Americas.
• Paintings, sculptures,
engravings, and, later, pottery
reveal not only a quest for beauty
but also complex social systems
and spiritual concepts.
• The cave art of all social groups
consists of five principal motifs:
 Human figures
 Animals
 Tools and weapons
 Rudimentary local maps
 And symbols or ideograms
• The motifs occur on;
– Portable object (engraved,
sculpted or clay modeled) and
– Immovable surfaces (rock
paintings and engravings)

3. LASCAUX CAVE PAINTING
• The most famous section
of the cave is The Great
Hall of the Bulls where bulls,
equines and stags are
depicted.
• Lascaux cave, near Montignac,
France has been found by in
1940
• But it is the four black bulls
that are the dominant figures
among the 36 animals
represented here.
• One of the bulls is 17 feet
(5.2 m) long, the largest
animal discovered so far
in cave art.
• Additionally, the bulls
appear to be in motion.

4. The Great Hall of the Bulls

6. Cave of Altamira
• Altamira (Spanish for 'high
view') is a cave in Spain
famous for its Upper
Paleolithic cave paintings
featuring drawings and
polychrome rock paintings of
wild mammals and human
hands.
• This cave paintings were
discovered by Don Marcelino
Sanz de Sautuola Marquis at
Altamira, Santander, Northern
Spain in 1879. He was the
archaeologists
• The cave is 296 meters long
[1], and consists of a series
of twisting passages and
chambers. The main
passage varies from two to
six meters high.

7. • The artists used charcoal
and ochre or haematite to
create the images, often
scratching or diluting these
dyes to produce variances
in intensity and creating an
impression of chiaroscuro.
• They also exploited the
natural contours in the cave
walls to give a three-
dimensional effect to their
subjects.
• The Polychrome Ceiling
is the most impressive
feature showing a herd
of bison in different
poses, two horses, a
large doe and a possible
wild boar.

8. • This art is dated to the
Magdelenean occupation
and as well as animal
subjects also included
abstract shapes. Solutrean
images include images of
horses, goats and handprints
created from the artist
placing his hand on the cave
wall in spraying paint over it
leaving a negative image of
his palm.

9. • The cave contains
nearly 2,000 figures,
which can be grouped
into three main
categories animals,
human figures and
abstract signs.

10. SCULPTURE
Venus of Willendorf
• among the earliest sculpture is
the Venus of Willendorf found.
produced between 24.000 to
20.000 BC
• measuring no more than 5 inches
high
• made of limestone
• Willendorf statue believed to be
the name of this place is
produced in an area in Austria
• Venus is believed to mean fertility
This sculpture characteristics of
are: -
his face is not in point importance
the hair is described in detail a
little, curly
fertility is shown in the chest and
back

11. CHAPTER 8: The Art of the Ancient Kingdoms
The Golden Age
• With the re-establishment by the Theban princes
of pharaonic authority and the tradition of the
king's divine descendancy, Thebes became the
magnificent capital of the New Kingdom (18th-
20th dynasties, с 1570- 10б9вс). The splendour
and extravagance of the art of this period is
exemplified in an exceptional variety of pictorial
and plastic forms. The descriptive realism that
had marked the configurations of the Middle
Kingdom was revived, particularly in funerary
painting, which now depicted naturalistic scenes
of daily life.

12. Nefertiti
• The delicately rendered
portrait of Queen
Nefertiti, found during
excavations at Amarna
in 1912, is arguably the
most memorable work
of art from New
Kingdom Egypt.

13. Tutankhamun's chair
The "Golden Throne"
• The throne of Tutankhamun
is a work of masterly
refinement, covered with
gold, silver, and vitreous
paste. The back-rest is
adorned with figures of the
young royal couple, and the
armrests are protected by a
winged uraeus (the sacred
cobra symbol).

14. Tutankhamun
Gold death mask
• Valley of the Kings the tomb
of the boy pharaoh,
Tutankhamun, complete
with its fabulous hoard of
treasure. The royal mummy,
its face covered by a mask
of gold, was placed inside
three priceless coffins in a
burial chamber adorned
with paintings.

15. TUTANKHAMUN
• Nut greeting
Tutankhamun;
Opening of the Mouth
ritual, performed on
Tutankhamun as Osiris
by Ay

16. Painted limestone relief showing
Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and the princesses under the rays of Aten.
Staatiche Museen, Berlin
• In relief carving and
paintings, artists
depicted tender scenes
of domesticity, showing
the king with his wife
Nefertiti or bouncing his
daughter on his knee.

17. Pyramids of King Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, Giza
• The PyramidsIt was a pharaoh of the third
dynasty. Djoser, and his royal official
Imhotep who created the complex of
Saqqara. This was a vast area enclosed by
a white limestone wall, inside which stood
the Step Pyramid and several smaller
structures. The project was impressive in
its unprecendented use of calcareous
stone instead of perishable materials,
such as the bricks and wood that had
been common in the preceding age.
During the fourth dynasty, stepped
structures, such as the rhomboidal
pyramid of King Sneferu at Meidum, gave
way to the uniformly smooth-walled
pyramids of King Khufu, Khafre, and
Menkaure in the necropolis of Giza, near
Cairo. Erected between 2550 and 2470bc,
they were listed by the Greeks as one of
the Seven Wonders of the World.

18. • The grandiose dimensions of
these funerary monuments, built
to preserve the bodies of the
dead kings for eternity, conveyed
a sense of timeless-ness and
immutability. In this, they were
like the circumpolar stars towards
which the pyramid sites were
orientated and to which the
pharaohs, departed from this
earth, would return as gods to
take their place among the
divinities. The pyramids form part
of a large complex, including
mortuary temples, and mastabas,
the burial places of priests,
nobles, and high ranking officials.