Cave Paintings

An artistic depiction of a group of rhinoceros, was completed in the Chauvet Cave 30,000 to 32,000 years ago.

See think wonder

What do you see in the picture?

What do you think is happening and what was the artist trying to tell you with this picture?

What does this picture make you wonder about?



Cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin, and the oldest known are more than 44,000 years old (art of the Upper Paleolithic), found in both the Franco-Cantabrian region in western Europe, and in the caves in the district of Maros (Sulawesi, Indonesia). The oldest are often constructed from hand stencils and simple geometric shapes.[1] However, more recently, in 2021, cave art of a pig found in an Indonesian island, and dated to over 45,500 years, has been reported.[2][3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting

Cave artists use a variety of techniques such as finger tracing, modeling in clay, engravings, bas-relief sculpture, hand stencils, and paintings done in two or three colors. Scholars classify cave art as "Signs" or abstract marks. [21] The most common subjects in cave paintings are large wild animals, such as bison, horses, aurochs, and deer, and tracings of human hands as well as abstract patterns, called finger flutings.

One of the oldest known figurative paintings, a depiction of an unknown bovine, was discovered in the Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave and dated to be more than 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old

Caves in the Maros-Pangkep karst(Sulawesi, Indonesia). Hand stencils estimated between 35,000–40,000 BP, stencils of right hands shown.

Where they got their Color/Pigment

A lot of research has been done in this area and one thing that has been noted is the palette range of this period. In the Lascaux cave in France there are red and yellow hydrated and anhydrous haematite (iron(III) oxide ochres, manganese oxide browns, blacks, and calcite white. In Altamira, Spain, red haematite (iron(III) oxide) is dominant while in Provence, Southern France, alongside the haematite and red earth there is the use of bauxite (red aluminium oxide) and maghemite (a red form of iron(II) oxide). This implies the colour and properties of the pigments were important and not the mineral type

https://edu.rsc.org/resources/prehistoric-pigments/1540.article

calcite for white paint

red hematite

Bauxite

red aluminum oxide

ochre

manganese oxide

Yellow Hematite

maghemite

Reasons for cave paintings:

To write down mythology

as warnings about territory/danger

to inform about hunts

story telling

combat boredom (for art itself)

record daily life


Assignment

Students will create 2 pictures of something about mythology (religion or spirituality), as a warning or rule, to inform about an activity, to tell a story, for fun, or about their daily life.

The two pictures will be rendered in natural colors including browns, reds, black, and white. The two pictures will be two parts of an action beginning and end.

How do people express ideas through art?

Why do people use images to communicate?

How has art been used throughout history to tell stories or to show us what people in other times and places considered important?


Explain how paintings and drawings help convey significant ideas and events, and how people today understand the past from putting together stories and history from these images.

Explain how pictures function as symbols, recognizing the way in which the relationship between pictures and words allows images to convey meaning.

Analyze and organize a series of images in a way similar to that of putting together words to form a story and gain knowledge about the past.


https://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plans/cave-art-discovering-prehistoric-humans-through-pictures


Drawing articulated Stick Figures