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Overview
Overview
Context (Where and when?):
Context (Where and when?):
Africa and Asia have the first instances of rock painting, sculpture, and architecture. Approximately 77,000 years ago existed the first "art" created as rock paintings and carved natural materials.
PALEOLITHIC "OLD STONE": 25,000 BCE
40,000-8,000 BCE in the Near East40,000-4,000 BCE in Europe- Humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers.
MESOLITHIC = "MIDDLE STONE AGE"
NEOLITHIC "NEW STONE": 5,000 BCE
8,000- 3,000 BCE in the Near East4,000- 2,000 BCE in Europe- Humans cultivated the earth and raised livestock.
- Lived in organized settlements, divided labor into occupations, and constructed the first homes.
Central Ideas
Central Ideas
The need to create is one of the strongest human impulses. People created before they had the ability to write, cipher math, raise crops, domesticate animals, invent the wheel, or use metal. People painted before they had anything that could be called clothes or lived in anything that resembled a house.
All attempts to explain prehistoric motivations are founded on speculation. Since no written records survive, it is not known why these early people painted or sculpted.
Art has a function. Artworks do not merely decorate or amuse; they are designed with a purpose.
Enduring Understandings & Essential Knowledge
Enduring Understandings & Essential Knowledge
ENDURING UNDERSTANDING: The culture, beliefs, and physical settings of a region play an important role in the creation, subject matter, and siting of works of art.
Essential Knowledge:
Prehistoric art existed before writing.
Prehistoric art has been affected by climate change.
Prehistoric art can be seen in practical and ritual objects.
Prehistoric art shows an awareness of everything from cosmic phenomena (astronomy and solstices) to the commonplace (materials such as clay and stone).
ENDURING UNDERSTANDING: Art making is influenced by locally available materials and processes.
Essential Knowledge:
The oldest objects are African or Asian.
The first art forms appear as rock paintings, geometric patterns, human and animal motifs, and architectural monuments.
Ceramics are first produced in Asia.
The people of the Pacific are migrants from Asia, who bring ceramic-making techniques with them.
European cave paintings and megalithic monuments indicate a strong tradition of rituals.
Early American objects use natural materials, like bone or clay, to create ritual objects.
Similarities with Asian shamanic religious practices can be found in ritual ancient American objects.
ENDURING UNDERSTANDING: Art history is best understood through an evolving tradition of theories and interpretations.
Essential Knowledge:
Scientific dating of objects has shed light on the use of prehistoric objects.
Archaeology increases our understanding of prehistoric art.
Basic art historical methods can be used to understand prehistoric art, but our knowledge increases with findings made in other fields.
Art Style, Forms, and Corresponding Artworks (* = in addition to the 250)
Art Style, Forms, and Corresponding Artworks (* = in addition to the 250)
Prehistoric Painting
Prehistoric Painting
Most survive in caves; deeply recessed from openings.
Series of cave paintings usually have no relationship to one another; created by multiple groups establishing a presence in a given location.
Stark black outlines emphasizing contours.
Mostly images of animals realistically represented with 3D qualities.
Some human images; mostly depicted as stick figures with little anatomical detail.
Handprints: hands were placed on the wall and paint was blown/splattered over it to leave silhouettes. Most handprints are of left hands as most humans are right-handed. Some hands are missing fingers/joints demonstrating that prehistoric people possibly practiced voluntary mutilation.
Apollo 11 Stones
Apollo 11 Stones
The Great Hall of the Bulls
The Great Hall of the Bulls
Running Horned Woman
Running Horned Woman
Beaker with Ibex Motifs
Beaker with Ibex Motifs
Prehistoric Sculpture
Prehistoric Sculpture
Portable and small.
Images of humans, particularly female, have enlarged sexual organs and diminutive feet and arms.
Carvings on cave walls make use of the natural modulations in the wall surface to enhance the image.
Rarely, sculptures are built from clay and lean on slanted surfaces.
Sculpture materials could be from found objects (bones), natural materials (sandstone), or carved with other stones.
Some are made with early forms of human-made materials such as ceramics.
Venus of Willendorf*
Venus of Willendorf*
Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine
Camelid sacrum in the shape of a canine
Anthropomorphic Stele
Anthropomorphic Stele
Jade Cong
Jade Cong
The Ambum Stone
The Ambum Stone
Tlatilco Figurine
Tlatilco Figurine
Terra cotta fragment
Terra cotta fragment
Prehistoric Architecture
Prehistoric Architecture
Known to build shelters out of large animal bones heaped in shape of a semicircular hut.
Most famous structures were for worship and not habitation.
Neolithic structures may have been built to align with the important dates in the calendar.
Prehistoric people established the use of megaliths (large stones) to construct a circle (henge) and placed horizontal stones on top two vertical megaliths as a "doorway" structure (post-and-lintel).
Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Unit Vocabulary
Unit Vocabulary
PALEOLITHIC - "Old Stone Age". Earliest period of Stone Age characterized by rough/chipped stone implements. Hunter-gather/nomadic lifestyle.
NEOLITHIC - "New Stone Age". Development of agriculture, domestication of animals, new technologies, settled communities.
SHAMAN - Religious practitioner who interacts with the spirit/unseen world through altered states of consciousness.
ABSTRACTION - Freedom from representational qualities in art.
RITUAL - A sequence of activities involving gestures, words, action, or objects performed according to a set sequence.
MONOLITH - A large single upright block of stone, especially one shaped into or serving as a pillar/monument.
ANTHROPOMORPHIC - The attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities.
MOTIF - A decorative design or pattern.
PROFILE - The outline of something as seen from one side.
SILHOUETTE - The dark shape/outline of something visible against
GEOMETRIC - Non-representative nature that uses straight and curved lines and color to form shapes, patterns, and designs.
STYLIZED - Depicted or treated in a mannered and non-realistic style.
STELE - A stone or wooden slab erected in the ancient world as a monument with text, ornamentation, or both.
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Resources
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