3.2 Prehistory - Paleolithic Art

Paleolithic Art

Artistic expressions produced during the Paleolithic period

Petroglyphs and Pictographs, Mobiliary Art, Parietal Art, Relief Sculpture, Pottery/ Ceramic Art

Paleolithic Art in chronological order

Petroglyphs

images made by chipping away on the surface of the rock or cave face, likely with the use of a stone tool such as a chisel.

Pictographs

images made by the application of natural pigments extracted from the soil or ground-up stone

Petroglyphs and Pictographs

Most historians believe that this medium was a precursor to the development of writing.

Mobiliary Art

small-scale objects that are transportable

portable art

"mobiliary art," is also called ____________

Venus figures

mobiliary art are often in the form of carved figurines, such as the _____________.

Venus Figures

general term used to describe statuettes of women found to belong to the Upper Paleolithic

lozenge; belly

Venus figures are Typically________-shaped, with a wide fat ____ tapering to the head and legs.

arms; feet; facial detail

Venus figures Usually bears no ____ or ____ or any _________

Reproductive parts

In venus figures, ______________ are deliberately exaggerated.

fertility; religious worship

Venus figures were most likely used as _____ symbols or icons for _____________.

Lion Man of the Hohlenstein Stadel

• mobiliary sculpture found in a cave in southern Germany.

• made from Mammoth Tusk

• carved around 40,000 years ago, making it the

• oldest representation of a non-physical being

Lion Man

The ___________ was the oldest ivory sculpture

Lion Man

The __________ was the oldest representation of a non-physical being

Venus of Berekhat Ram

mobiliary sculpture found in the Golan Heights between Israel and Syria

Venus of Tan-Tan

mobiliary sculpture discovered in Morocco

Venus of Berekhat Ram; Venus of Tan-Tan

These two mobiliary sculptures pre-date the other figurines by thousands of years, dating back to the Lower Paleolithic, making them the oldest figurines ever to be discovered.

Venus of Hohle Fels

• made from Mammoth bone

• oldest of all the Venus figures and the earliest undisputed example of figurative art known to archeology.

Venus of Willendorf

remains to be one of the most famous and compelling Paleolithic sculptures due to its graphic depiction of obesity.

Venus of Brassempouy

• mobiliary sculpture most likely part of a larger statue but was broken, and the other parts were lost.

• oldest known portrait of the human face

Parietal Art

denotes all art found within the interior environs of caves.

Relief Sculpture

works that project from but which still belong to the wall or other types of background surface on which it is carved.

Venus of Laussel 

• [relief sculpture] As an example of Venus figure art, the image is considered to be a fertility symbol,

• as evidenced by its engorged breast and swollen belly.

• The inclusion of a horn with its 13 notches may refer to the 13 days of the waxing moon or the 13 months of the lunar year and may thus be associated with either menstruation and fertility or other ritualistic lunar issues. 

Salmon of Abri du Poisson

[relief sculpture] only known prehistoric sculpture of a fish.

Pottery/Ceramic Art

creation of objects, mainly cooking or storage vessels, made out of clay and then hardened by heat.

Venus of Dolni Vêstonice

world’s oldest known ceramic artifact, made of terracotta.

Totemism, Shamanism

2 Theories on the Functions of Paleolithic Art

Totemism

• magico-religious system characteristic of hunter-gatherer tribal society

• a system that provides a group with its identity that depends upon a certain intimate and exclusive relationship towards a particular animal or plant.

Shamanism

religious practice where there is communication with good and evil spirits through a professional class of priest-seers

Fertility, Propitiation, Death

Types of Magic in Paleolithic Culture

Fertility Magic

thought to assist the procreation of useful species by depicting pregnant females

Propitiation Magic

used to pacify the dead

sympathetic magic

based on the belief that there is a relationship between resembling objects.

Death Magic

type of sympathetic magic wherein weapons painted on animals were used as talismans to guide the hunters’ aim.