Cave art emerged during the Upper Paleolithic period, with France and Spain (especially Cantabrian region) providing the most numerous and famous cave art. Cave art spread rapidly around the expansion of Homo sapiens throughout the world (although artistic expression in Neandertals is being disputed), which was around 40,000 years ago. During that time, human societies were hunter-gatherers, with the main activity being hunting. Therefore, they did not have permanent settlements, since they were connected to natural cycles of animals and their movement. Nevertheless, the most prominent and delicate cave art is the one found in Franco-Cantabrian region.
One of the most famous of all caves is Lascaux in France, although not among the oldest ones – the oldest dated paintings are around 17,000 years old, and drawings expanding through next several thousands of years. The cave is entirely covered with scenes and individual representations. In Lascaux, as in the most caves with parietal art, representations of animals are dominant. Here, we can see large herbivore fauna such as horses, deer, ibex, bison, rhinoceros that dominate the space. Representations of carnivores, and only few of them, such as bears and cave lions are placed in the furthest part of the cave (1). There are also some scenes showing human figures, which is an uncommon theme in cave art in general. Here we have an unusual scene, so called “Well scene” showing a lying man next to a bison, with a bird scepter and probably a spear next to them (Fig.1). Of other representations there are numerous dots, and colored square shapes.
Concerning the method of depicting the scenes and animals, we can see several different approaches. First, there are animals drawn only as outlines. Second, we have a full use of color, having several hues applied to one representation, and animals colored fully in brown, black or red. And third is engraving technique, which is often combined with the two previous ones (Ontañn-Peredo, Rodrigues-Asensio 2014).
Most of the animal representations are very realistically displayed. Although almost minimalistically portrayed, we are always completely aware which animal and in which movement is shown. We can see a pronounced bison’s hump, masculine horse legs, delicately drawn hoofs, that the “artist”[1]
tried to emphasize in order to get a more naturalistic impression. And indeed, the proportions of the Lascaux paintings are not natural. However, overrepresentation and emphasizing of some body elements comparing to the rest, gives an impression of the animal in space, and of movement as well. In cave art we can see how minimalism and two dimensionality gives the impression of real, three dimensional space.
In the cave art representations, we mostly see large herbivores as the main theme, as something that societies at prehistoric times were mostly occupied with. During the Upper Paleolithic, hunting was still the main strategy for food and resource gathering. Therefore, the most important thing for the survival of the community were these herbivores. In the cave art, we can see how detailed the animal behavior was observed by the people of that time. By looking at the scenes, we can clearly see flocking of horses and moments captured during the running, for example. On the contrary, on the example of “Well scene” of Lascaux we can see a huge contrast between human and animal representation, where the human is depicted schematically and almost unskillful. This could be the case since people tended to emphasize the animals themselves, and show their behavior, and in this way probably transmit some message: in which way certain animal groups move, what are some aspects of individual animal behavior etc. Whether these animals or their spirits were seen as a form of deities, we cannot say, but people of that epoch surely had more close relation with nature.
Neolithic
As Upper Palaeolithic went through a revolutionary period regarding art, we can say that later periods stagnated on this matter. During the Neolithic, nevertheless, important things occurred which shaped the course of human societies and cultures. That is the process of domestication of plants and animals, the emergence of first long lasting settlements, emergence of more durable architecture, use and development of clay objects etc. Perhaps, with the evolution of such important things, art also went through changes, although, we nowadays do not have much record of it, since many things, especially those of organic matter, could not be preserved.
However, in what we have preserved today from the Neolithic period are stone and clay sculptures that point out artistic and symbolic minds of people of that time. One such extraordinary example is “The Thinker”(Fig. 2), a clay sculpture made of clay, around 5,000 years BC, belonging to the late Neolithic culture of Hamangia in present day Romania.
Thinker of Hamangia culture represents male human sculpture in sitting on a small chair and contemplating. The body and the posture are very stylized, resembling to statues of modern art of Alberto Giacometti or Henry Moore. By looking at the sculpture we do get the impression of a person deeply sunk into their thoughts. The face and the emphasized eyes, especially show a puzzling emotion, we get the impression of nostalgic and yet a cheerful facial expression. Together with the other Hamangia sculpture “Sitting woman”, “The thinker” represents one of the most famous Neolihic artistic representations.
Neolithic art is principally oriented towards representation of humans. It is mostly oriented towards sculpture. These sculptures are made of clay or stone, and are very stylized, that in most cases their function, or representation itself, is not clear. Such human figures occur during the whole Neolithic period, from Anatolia to Balkans, and Europe. There are various approaches to what these Neolithic figures represented to the people of that time. Some of the approaches include explanations of worshiping fertility deities, or, connected with some kind of ritual ceremony, while other emphasize the functional utility of the figurines, such as that they might have been children’s toys (Bailey 2007; Bailey 2010).
In these Neolithic representations we can see some kind of standardization of what is shown, and in which way it is shown. Surely, a great symbolic lies behind this, very well known to the people who made them, and had the interactions with them. The most figures do not reveal any obvious activity or emotional expression that we can unequivocally attribute to certain emotional state or action preformed. However, in Hamangia figurines, we can see the message: a person deeply in his thoughts, whether he is observing something, or only contemplating.
Although we cannot draw one single line from Palaeolithic to Neolithic art of Europe that follows the evolution of its development, we can assume some things. In the Palaeolithic representations of animals, we see a tendency towards naturalism, and realistic depiction of real events in everyday life of humans: animal behavior, details in animal movement, hunting, emotions in animals. Whether or not these representations also bear symbolic or religious note behind them, we cannot surely state.
After several thousand years, during the Neolithic period, we can see obvious stylisation of the art form. The emphasis goes from animals towards human figure. The human figure is often so stylised that we can assume it represents the human being only from the shape of the body. These representations surely show some level of symbolic thought, whether they represent imagination, religious act or deity or something else.
1 http://archeologie.culture.fr/lascaux/en/themes
Bailey, D. (2007). The anti-rethorical power of representational absence: incomplete figurines from the Balkan Neolithic. In Renfrew, C., and Morley, I. (eds.), Material Beginnings: a Global Prehistory of Figurative Representation, Cambridge, McDonald Institute, 117-126. Retrieved from http://www.columbia.edu/~sf2220/Absence/web-content/Bailey.pdf
Bailey, D. (2010). The figurines of Old Europe. In Anthony, D. (ed.), The Lost World of Old Europe, The Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BC, The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 113-127. Retrieved from https://e-edu.nbu.bg/pluginfile.php/586999/mod_resource/content/1/Anthony%20et%20al%20ed_2010_The%20Lost%20World%20of%20Old%20Europe%20Catalogue.pdf
Ontañn-Peredo, R., " Rodriguez-Asensio, J., (2014), Cave of Altamira and palaeolithic cave art of northern Spain. Composition, characteristics and management, Cuadernos de Arte Rupestre, 7, 37-57. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/30852008/Cave_of_Altamira_and_palaeolithic_cave_art_of_northern_Spain._Composition_characteristics_and_management
Fig. 1, “Well scene” in Lascaux cave (Retrieved from https://bucks.instructure.com/courses/200544/files/2586316?module_item_id=1474282)
Fig. 2, “The Thinker”, Hamangia culture (Retrieved from https://www.ziuaconstanta.ro/diverse/stiri-calde/statuia-neolitica-ganditorul-nu-mai-merge-in-china-expozitia-comorile-romaniei-de-la-beijing-a-fost-amanata-505060.html)
[1] Or rather the individual that was depicting a reality around him.
