Prehistoric Art

Mimesis

mimicry; the imitation of the real world in art and literature

Verisimilitude

imitation; the appearance of being true or real

Paleolithic

“Old -stone”; before the written word and this period is split up into three sections (Lower, Middle, Upper (most recent))

The surviving artwork we see is from the Upper Paleolithic.

Civilization

the ordered society came from surplus food and the specialization of jobs for different people in the civilization. Civilization also introduced things like class/racial injustice, hierarchies, and slavery.

First city (4th millennium) - Sumerian called Buruq

Hunter-gatherer

groups that would be made of typically men as the hunters and the women who gathered the more common fruits and vegetables to eat. These hunter-gatherer groups might have exchanged the Women from Willendorf figurines as a sign of friendship.

Surplus and specialization

These were the two factors which led to the creation of civilization. The surplus of food that came with formalized agriculture. This lack of extreme hunger allowed people to specialize their tasks outside of hunters and gatherers.

The Woman from Willendorf, Austria, c. 24,000 BCE, limestone, colored with red ocher, 4 3/8” height

Description: Limestone figurine that features an egg-shaped head but no face, big breasts, wide hips, large stomach, and dimpled buttocks.

Possible Meaning/Function: This could have been a figure that was used for purposes of communication among hunter-gatherer groups. These figures may have represented strong fertility and health among groups and the other group would receive this positive connotation as a way to establish friendly connection during a time of distinct climatic change.

Name Conventions: These figurines were originally called Venus of Willendorfs and this is a very Eurocentric title. This imposes a meaning upon a figure that had not tie to the greco-roman cultural tradition at all. It was named this way because the Western tradition is largely shaped by greco-roman art and tradition and so a lot of beautiful artworks were named like this when a European “discovered” the art.

Woman from Brassempouy, c 22,000 BCE, Ivory, 1.5" tall (Musee des Antiquites Nationales St.-Germain-en-Laye)

Description: Tiny human head which captures the memory image of a human head. Includes an egg-shaped head, long neck, wide nose, strong browline, deep set eyes, and engraved square patterned hair or headdress.

Notes: The figure may have originally been painted with ocher or another pigment. She does not have distinct eyes and has no mouth, so she shows (abstraction). Figures, like this woman, would come about during times of climatic change and may have been exchanged as tokens to communicate possible partnership between hunter-gatherer groups.

Caves at Lascaux, Hall of Bulls, general view and details, c. 15,000 BCE, pigment on limestone rock

Notes/Description: The paintings had some deeper functions because people kept coming back to these drawings of animals for generations and adding more animals. They are also painted in deep, dark corners, so people put themselves through these conditions to continue drawing.

The animals were painted in a mimetic style. While people at this time were painted in abstract forms with geometric bodies.

Possible Functions: These paintings may have been for storytelling, religion (shamans and rituals), or migration. The animals painted on the walls do not seem to have been eaten by the people who drew them.

Three Types of Cave Paintings

1. spraying pigment from the mouth

2. Drawing with fingers or blocks of ocher

3. Daubing a paintbrush of hair or moss

Neolithic Period (Revolution)

Time Period (11,000 - 8,000 BCE) - Period of about 3,000 years

It was shifted from hunting and gathering to agriculture as agriculture provides a more predictable food supply and this allows job specialization.

By 8,000 BCE Neolithic agriculture and settlement were prevalent.

Neolithic Europe lasted from 8,000 - 2,300 BCE

Male and Female figures from Romania, c. 4,000-3,500 BCE, clay (National History Museum of Romania, Bucharest)

They were found together in a gravesite. They are not known for their purpose as they could be representations or spiritually based.

Description: The woman is ample, sturdy, and she has a kind of shy and timid pose. She seems to be inquisitive, and she looks up at something. The man seems to be pondering something as he sits down and he’s not looking out, and though they have some verisimilitude they are not very detailed.

Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, England, c. 2500-1600 BCE, limestone, circle, 97’ in diameter, trilithons 24’ high

Function (Speculative): To have been a cemetery. The circular arrangement of the post-and-lintel construction was important as this formation was seen again.

Description: The outside stones are limestone, the middle stones are 24’ high, and the blue stones of Stonehenge are thought to have been carried from a site 126 miles away from Wales, which denotes the importance of the configuration of the site.

The Ancient Near East

1. Between Tigris and the Euphrates River - in the Bronze Age - in the era of the written word.

2. Mesopotamia was called the “Cradle of Civilization” because this was where the birth of civilization and agriculture was.

3. We see the beginnings of agriculture, surplus, specialization

4. First city (4th millennium) - Buruq, Sumeria

Ancient Sumeria

Time Period: c. 3500-2430 BCE (4th-3rd millennium)

1. cuneiform was the written language and there were thousands of tablets found today with writing in cuneiform

2. Writing was invented for commercial purposes; to keep track of inventory; to keep track of debts

3. Sumerians invented the wheel, the plough, and the 60-minute hour

4. Sumerian and Mesopotamian culture is told through temples, ziggurats, and tombs

Warka Vase (Presentation of Offerings to Inana), Uruk (modern Warka), Iraq, ca. 3200-3000 BCE, Alabaster, 3’ 1/4” high.

1. This vase was dedicated to the goddess Inana who sits at the top of the vase on a throne. Her domains are fertility, love, and war.

   1. Love and war are a part of the same cycle of creation and death.

Description: The decorations/carvings are arranged in registers (rows of image or color blocks). The figures are perpetual and the images are associated with successful harvest and wealth.

1. The first row at the very bottom of the vase shows depictions of barley and crops as tribute to Inana; then a step up are animals.

2. On this register, male figures are bringing Inana as they ask for more blessings and thank the goddess for the blessings they have been afforded.

3. Inana sits on a throne while others stand around her and give her the tribute they have brought up.

Beaker with animal direction (Ibex), from Susa, Iran, ca. 4000 BCE, Painted ceramic, 11 3/8” high. Musee du Louvre, Paris

The potter had to have used a ceramic wheel since the objects’ walls are so thin - and this beaker is also divided into registers

1. (bottom) there are lines striping horizontally around the base

2. The Ibex with exaggerated features like the ibex’s horns. There is a degree a mimesis, but a lot of the shapes are still mostly geometrical interpretations of the animal’s form.

3. Elongated dog figures

4. Abstract, long necked bird figures create a rhythm around the vase

Female head (