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Ever since the beginning of the humankind history people were trying to express their thoughts and feelings, and deliver them to the next generations. The first examples of the art form are dated back to the prehistoric ages. The paintings on the cave walls is just one of the many forms of art that managed to live through the many centuries. Sometime between 30, 000 and 40, 000 thousand years ago modern humans began creating the first signs ever created on earth. These signs were something ther than simple traces f mtr activities r the results and residues f instrumental tls. They were marks left as signs carrying meaning fr the wh left them and, fr the f us wh find them nw.
These signs appeared in the Late Palaeolithic r Early Neolithic area in relative abundance, rather suddenly, in great variety, and reflecting great skill. Human desire to depict the nature of their environment led to the first impressions of art. The first identifiable works of art were jewellery. The jewellery stage to the more permanent cave art stage spanned between 15, 000 and 20, 000 years. Palaeolithic artists evolvement from physical ornamentation to the development of art in more permanent places exhibited a startling act of lateral thinking (Jugas, 76).
Palaeolithic artists were using art to give meaning to and impart knowledge regarding the nature of their physical world to themselves and others. Scholars have identified three different forms of symmetry in Palaeolithic art: mirror symmetry, symmetry of mass and oblique symmetry (Fiero). Although some Palaeolithic artworks may be considered rudimentary by todays standards, many of the cave paintings are breath taking in their beauty. With the exception of a sense of movement, all of the components deemed essential by modern fine art standards were demonstrated in their naturalistic representations.
Most interesting was the inclusion of symmetry in the artists techniques. Symmetry is an important, pervasive element of nature, art, and science. It denotes a pattern of identical or, at least, similar shapes used in balance on either side of a common axis. It is readably identifiable, catches the eye, and is considered beautiful. It can be observed in birds, fish, plants, flowers, and humans.
Symmetry is not just pleasing to look at, but it is a vital element of "hard-wired" survival mechanisms dictated by DNA. The art of prehistoric era included frequent images of horses, bison, mammoths, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, red deer, and ibex. The range of quality, as judged by current standards, is considerable. Many of the animal images seem extremely crude and incomplete while others strike us as exquisitely beautiful. There are also numerous enigmatic signs: rectilinear forms and characteristic shapes such as the tectiforms or claviform es, dots (solitary or in clusters or series, lines, either rectilinear or wavy series sometimes referred to as spaghetti) (Jugas). There are als comply fund positive and negative images f handprints and even images f handprints carved in the cave walls.
Human images are als fund but are rare, free incomplete, and generally crudely rendered. While there are bth temporal and geographical variations there are a number f distinctive features that justify characterizing the graphics as having a particular style. When animals r ther bject's are depicted free nly the concluding bund's f the best are depicted. Even and slid chromatic images scratching, engraving, and application f contrastive coming unlike concluding bund's.
This characteristic f utilizing and the simplicity f the many f the images products an effect f a can-like image. The can-like quality is enhanced by anther can feature, the use f caricature r exaggeration f distinctive features f the bject's depicted. Palaeolithic images f animals are all but invariably depicted in profile, at least the may components such as head, neck, trs, and legs are in profile. However, these prfile's als frequently have a twisted perspective in which has, antlers, tusks, feet, and sometimes ears are presented in perspectives that deviate frm ver-all profile presentation in varying degrees. Perhaps one of the most striking images in Palaeolithic art may be seen in images and icons of women. Distinctive features standing for whole figures may be found in the portrayal of female figures.
In the very great majority of these figures the distinctive features consist exclusively of breasts, buttocks, bellies and vulva's. These are emphasized and greatly exaggerated, while the extremities: head, arms, hands, legs and feet, are very much diminished r missing. Sme f the images, such as the famous Willendrf Venus, are virtually sell closed f distinctive features. Rather than features attached t the basic infrastructure f the trs they essentially constitute the best.
Palaeolithic art grew out of the human aspiration to depict the nature of the environment in which they lived. This innate yearning to define and understand the nature of the world and the advent of symbols with which to communicate ideas gave birth to science. Science led to technology and, ultimately, to the extremely complex and marvellous civilization we live in today. Human arrogance has often led us to believe that as we no longer live in the trees as our non-human, primate cousins do and are able to manipulate our environment that we have evolved above nature and are somehow separate from it.
And yet with each new incredible discovery, we find that nature has been there before us. Nature, art, and science are innately, wonderfully, and beautifully unified. Bibliography: Jugas, Joseph. Early Art. New York: Madison House, 1975.
Fiero, Gloria K. The Humanistic Tradition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002.
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Research essay sample on F Distinctive Features Images F Handprints Art
