Enduring Understanding: Culture, beliefs, and physical settings influence art creation, subject matter, and siting.
* Learning Objective: Discuss how these factors influence art (e.g., Stonehenge).
* Essential Knowledge:
* Prehistoric art predates writing.
* Climate change impacts prehistoric art.
* Art found in practical and ritual objects.
* Art reflects awareness from cosmic phenomena to commonplace materials.
Enduring Understanding: Locally available materials and processes influence art making.
* Learning Objective: Discuss how materials, processes, and techniques influence art (e.g., Jade cong).
* Essential Knowledge:
* Oldest objects from Africa or Asia.
* First art forms: rock paintings, geometric patterns, human/animal motifs, monuments.
* Ceramics first produced in Asia; Pacific people bring ceramic techniques from Asia.
* European cave paintings and megalithic monuments indicate ritual traditions.
* Early American objects use natural materials for ritual objects; similarities to Asian shamanic practices.
Art Historical Understanding and Interpretation
Enduring Understanding: Art history is best understood through evolving theories and interpretations.
* Learning Objective: Discuss how art interpretations evolve based on visual analysis and evidence (e.g., Running horned woman).
* Essential Knowledge:
* Scientific dating sheds light on use of prehistoric objects.
* Archaeology increases understanding.
* Art historical methods are foundational but evolve with new findings.
Understanding Prehistoric People
Prehistoric people were not primitive or ignorant despite lacking reading and writing.
Archaeological divisions:
Paleolithic (Old Stone Age): Hunter-gatherers.
Neolithic (New Stone Age): Cultivated earth and raised livestock.
Neolithic people lived in organized settlements with job specialization and constructed the first homes.
Creation predates abilities like writing, math, farming, domestication, or using metal.
The reason for early art is unknown, based on speculation, but it seems to have had a function beyond decoration or amusement.
Prehistoric Sculpture
Most prehistoric sculpture is portable, often small images of humans, particularly female.
Female figures emphasize enlarged sexual organs and diminutive limbs.
Sculptures made from bones, sandstone, or ceramics.
Camelid Sacrum in the Shape of a Canine
Form: Bone sculpture resembling a dog/wolf, from a camel-like animal.
Content: Carved to represent a mammal’s skull, sacrum symbolizes the soul in some cultures; bone at base of spine; natural form used to shape another.
Context: Mesoamerican idea of sacrum as a “second skull;” found in Valley of Mexico in 1870.
*Cross-Cultural Comparisons:
*Tuffery, Pisupo Lua Afe (Corned Beef 2000)
*Muybridge, The Horse in Motion
*Cotsiogo (Cadzi Cody), Hide Painting of a Sun Dance
Anthropomorphic Stele
Form: Anthropomorphic (resembling human form); belted robe; double-bladed knife/sword; double cords across body with awl unifying them.
Function: Religious or burial, perhaps a grave marker.
Context: Early known art from Arabia; found in area of ancient trade routes.
*Cross-Cultural Comparisons:
*Mutu, Preying Mantra
*Female deity from Nukuoro
*Braque, The Portuguese
Jade Cong
Form: Circular hole within a square; abstract designs of faces of spirits/deities, mask design with mouth, eyes, and headdress.
Materials & Techniques: Carved jade using drills/saws/sand; may have been heated or ritually burned.
Context: Jade placed in burials of high-rank individuals in elaborate rituals, some broken/burned; Chinese linked jade to durability, subtlety, beauty; Neolithic era in China.
*Cross-Cultural Comparisons:
*Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow
*Relief Sculpture from Chavín de Huántar
*Martínez, Black-on-black ceramic vessel
The Ambum Stone
Form: Composite human/animal figure (anteater head, human body); ridge line from nostrils to shoulders.
History: Stone Age work found in Ambum Valley, Papua New Guinea; used as ritual object by Enga people; sold to Australian National Gallery; damaged in 2000, restored.
*Cross-Cultural Comparisons:
*Detail from the Lakshmana Temple
*Tuffery, Pisupo Lua Afe
*Buk (mask)
Context/Interpretation: Some figures show deformities (Siamese twins, stillborn); bifacial images/defects may express duality; found in graves (funerary context); Tlatilco, Mexico, is noted for pottery.
*Cross-Cultural Comparisons:
*Veranda post
*Power figure
*Reliquary of Sainte-Foy
Terra Cotta Fragment
Form: Curved stamped patterns (dots, circles, hatching) inspired by tattoos; oldest human face in Oceanic art.
Materials: Lapita culture of Solomon Islands known for pottery; comb-like tool used for dentate stamping.
Technique: No potter’s wheel; white coral lime applied to make patterns pronounced.
Tradition: Continuous tradition; used in modern Polynesian tattoos/tapas.
*Cross-Cultural Comparisons:
*Hiapo
*Malagan mask
*Lindauer, Tamati Waka Nene
Prehistoric Painting
Surviving paintings are in caves; animal images dominate with black outlines.
Paintings appear unrelated, possibly executed over centuries.
Animals shown realistically; humans as stick figures.
Handprints (negative prints) abound; often left hands, possibly indicating voluntary mutilation (missing joints/fingers).
Apollo 11 Stones
Form: Animal in profile, possibly composite.
Materials: Charcoal.
Context: Oldest art (25,500–25,300 B.C.E.) found in Wonderwerk Cave, Namibia; stone fragments brought from elsewhere; cave shows 100,000 years of human activity.
History: Named after 1969 moon landing, the year cave was discovered.
*Cross-Cultural Comparisons:
*Grave stele of Hegeso
*Tomb of the Triclinium
*Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and three daughters
Form: Bodies in profile; frontal/diagonal horns/eyes/hooves; twisted perspective of horns; overlapping figures.
Materials: Natural pigments (charcoal, iron ore, plants); walls scraped smooth; paint colors bound with animal fat; lamps lit interior.
Context: Animals placed deep inside cave; scaffolding visible; negative handprints (signatures?); caves not dwellings (migratory people); shelter at cave mouths. Discovered in 1940; opened to public after WWII; closed in 1963 due to damage from humans; replica opened nearby.
Theories: Ensure successful hunt; ancestral animal worship; narrative elements; shamanism (shamans contact nature forces in trancelike state).
*Cross-Cultural Comparisons:
*Tomb of the Triclinium
*Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper
*Walker, Darkytown Rebellion
Running Horned Woman
Form: Composite view of body; some drawings naturalistic, some abstract; horned figure attending ritual.
Form & Content: Stylized aquatic birds, running dogs, ibex with abstract horns.
Materials & Techniques: Made on potter’s wheel/handmade; thin pottery walls.
Context & Interpretation: Clan symbol inside horn; perhaps identifies deceased’s group/family; near burial site with baskets/bowls/metallic items; Susa, Iran.
*Cross-Cultural Comparisons:
*Martínez, Black-on-black ceramic vessel
*The David Vases
*Koons, Pink Panther
Prehistoric Architecture
Shelters built from large animal bones.
Most famous structures for worship: menhirs (large individual stones) erected singularly/in rows.
Megaliths: Menhirs cut to rectangular shapes in prehistoric complexes.
Henge: Circle of megaliths with lintels, align with calendar dates.
Post-and-Lintel: Erected architecture fundamental in history architecture.
Stonehenge
Technique: Post-and-lintel construction; mortise and tenon system.
Context: Large megaliths (some >50 tons) imported from >150 miles away indicate sacred significance; perhaps took 1,000 years to build in three phases.
Tradition: Maybe inspired by previous wood circles; stone circles common in Great Britain.
Theories: Oriented toward sunrise at summer solstice/sunset at winter solstice (observatory); death/burial ceremonies; healing site.
*Cross-Cultural Comparisons:
*Chavín de Huántar
*Pantheon
*Great Mosque of Djenné
Multiple Choice Practice Questions
Lascaux Cave paintings purpose: (C) shamans entered trancelike state before painting.
Unusual Tlatilco anatomical shapes: (A) Unusual cluster of congenital abnormalities.
Masks, such as “running horned woman,” indicate interest in: (D) ritual presentations where participants paint bodies and dance.
Beaker with ibex motifs found in Susa indicates use: (A) as part of burial.
Funerary purpose seen in: (D) jade cong found in burial site.
Vocabulary
Anthropomorphic: Having human characteristics, though not human in form.
Archaeology: The scientific study of ancient people and cultures through excavation.
Cong: A tubular object with a circular hole cut into a square-like cross-section.
Henge: A Neolithic monument with a circular ground plan, used for rituals and marking astronomical events.
Lintel: A horizontal beam over an opening.
Megalith: A stone of great size used in prehistoric structures.
Menhir: A large uncut stone erected as a monument; a standing stone.
Mortise and tenon: A groove cut into stone or wood (mortise) shaped to receive a projection (tenon).
Post-and-lintel: Construction where two posts support a horizontal beam.
Shamanism: A religion where spirits influence good/evil, accessed by shamans.
Stele (pl. stelae): An upright stone slab used to mark a grave or site.
Stylized: A schematic, nonrealistic manner of representing the visible world.