Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 12e

1. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 12e Chapter 1 The Birth of Art: Africa, Europe, and the Near East in the Stone Age

2. Dating Conventions and Abbreviations B.C.=before ChristB.C.E.=before the Common Era A.D.=Anno Domini (the year of our Lord)C.E.=Common Era c. or ca.= circa C.=century

3. Prehistoric Europe and the Near East

4. Goals • 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.

5. Prehistoric Art

6. Hall of the Bulls (Lascaux), c. 15,000-13,000 BCE

7. art as a tool for survival/ art for use in rituals/ twisted perspective/ figure ground relationship/ naturalistic renderings

8. Left:“Macaroni style” with bison head from Altamira Aurignacian Style(25,000 – 15,000 BCE) Right: Magdalenian Style (15,000 –10,000 BCE)

9. Wounded man and disemboweled bison (Lascaux), c.15,000 –13,000 BCE

10. Wall Painting in Chauvet Cave, Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, (Ardeche), c. 30,000-28,000 BCE

11. Spotted horses and negative hand imprints (Pech-Merle, Lot, France), c. 22,000 BCE

12. Bison at Altamira (Santander, Spain), c. 12,000-11,000 BCE

13. Bison with turned head (La Madeleine), c. 12,000 BCE, reindeer horn

14. Examine the nature and reasons for the earliest sculpted forms, the majority of which are stylized depictions of women. The Earliest Sculpted Forms

15. Lascaux Caves 650 paintings, mostly animals, only one of a human Some paintings hundreds of feet from the entrance to the cave Bison, horses, aurochs, stags, etc. Many animals “killed” Negative hand prints Bodies in profile, horns turned to front Emphasis on large meat areas of body Short legs Overlap of bodies Heavy black outlines Limited color palette Uncertain if a narrative is intended http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/ Venus of Willendorf Only four inches tall Fertility symbol Exaggerated breasts, belly button Pregnant? Hair covers most of head Small arms rest on breasts No feet May have had painted features Prehistoric Art

16. Figure 1-4 Nude woman (Venus of Willendorf), from Willendorf, Austria, ca. 28,000–25,000 BCE. Limestone, approx. 4 1/4” high. Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna.

18. Venus of Hohle Fels (Venus of Schelklingen) Mammoth Ivory Dated to between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago Discovered in September 2008 in a cave called Hohle Fels ("hollow rock") near Schelklingen, by a team from the University of Tübingen

19. Woman of Lespugue from cave of Les Rideaux, France ca. 20,000 B.C.E. mammoth ivory 5 3/4 in. high

20. Venus of Willendorf (Austria), c. 28,000- 23,000 BCE, limestone cult of the fertility goddess/ lack of naturalistic rendering

21. 1.2 Neolithic Art 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.

22. Human skull from Jericho, c. 7000-6000 BCE spirit trap

23. Çatal Hüyük, (Turkey), c. 6000-5900 BCE Çatal Hüyük/ Anatolia/ no streets or doors/ shrines with bucrania and wall paintings

24. Above: wall painting from Çatal Hüyük Left: Reconstruction of a shrine at Çatal Hüyük possibly the first known landscape

25. Prehistoric Architecture Stonehenge • Post and lintel • Megaliths are 21 to 24 feet tall, including height of lintel, and buried four feet in the ground • Cromlech • Solar and lunar orientation • Stones dragged from far away to this site • Circle of megaliths embrace structure, enclosing it • Inside circle of megaliths is a larger horseshoe-shaped group of megaliths which frame an “altar stone”

27. Prehistoric Architecture Stonehenge(con’t.) • Horseshoe shaped stones face midsummer sunrise over Heel Stone • “Altar Stone” is a green sandstone taken from a mine in Wales, over 200 miles away • Heaviest stones 50 tons apiece hauled by sledges • Tools for building: ropes, levers, rollers, axes • Built in several phases over hundreds of years on a sacred site on Salisbury Plain

28. Stonehenge (Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England), c. 2000 BCE

31. cromlech

33. dolmen

35. Left and Below: Menhirs in the Carnac region of France (Neolithic period)

36. Neighbor for stonehenge? http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/interactive/2010/jul/22/stonehenge-sacred-landscape-archaeology Reconstruction http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=stonehenge+reconstruction&view=detail&mid=669E132D56AE74C0A7FB669E132D56AE74C0A7FB&first=0

37. Discussion Questions • 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?