Art History: Prehistory in Europe
What is this (cave painting)? It's the start of civilization. How did ancient people start to settle, to farm? Art lead to agriculture, development, domestication, not the other way around.
Picasso: "we have learned nothing."
Images created of specific animals (horses, bison, reindeer). Why?
Pictures weren't of what they ate, very little correlation. Images usually out of the way / inaccessible. (sensory deprivation, hallucination theory).
Thought of as temporary, the paintings eventually stopped being made.
No definite conclusions; most of Pre-history is just that: before written records! Mostly theories.
The power of the image perhaps came from its making, not its viewing. Painting an Aurochs may give some mystical control over the creature.
Gouges indicate spears were sometimes thrown at the images.
Bulges in stone may have represented animal spirits residing in the stone, shamanism may have been a prominent religion.
Hybrid Figure:
foot-tall figure carved from primitive stone tools, very difficult. Powdered iron ore to polish/abrasive. Purpose unclear, shamanistic?
Woman of Willendorf:
19th C archaeologists called all nude female figures Venus due to similarities in presentation. Debated. Avoid anachronism by calling it Venus.
Importance childbirth must have played. No doctors, modern medicine; if they thought a bodacious rock would help, it just might!
Gobelki Tepe:
Found in the 1960's, dug in 90's by a German: Klaus Schmidt.
Built before writing, the wheel, animal husbandry, but super organized which isnt what we associate with Paleolithic peoples. Hunter-gatherers built it!
Lions, birds, boars, insects - visible by torchlight. Low relief.
Wheat from 10 miles away in the mountains brought to the hill/plains to plant after the fact.
"First came the temple, then the city."
We don't know how such a workforce was mobilized or rewarded. Must have needed thousands. No conclusions, 5% dug out, total mystery.
Catal Huyuk:
7,500 BCE, trading town in obsidian (valuable black glasslike stone, strong and sharp).
No streets, windows, door. Access through ladders which could be pulled up for defense. Hole in roof was only way in to main chamber, doubled as a smoke vent.
Rooms decorated with bulls horns, plaster breasts (fertility?), plaster walls (painted hunt scenes). First "landscape" ever: Catal Huyuk beneath the nearby volcano Hasan Dag.
Female and Male Figures:
In Europe, artists used clay to sculpt figures just like Woman of Willendorf. Highly abstract, very linear. Emphasis on 3D nature making the viewer look at it from all sides (in the round).
Tempting to interpret it, with the flirting pose, but we have no idea what it may have meant in the CONTEXT of the creating culture. All we know it was found in a tomb, represents the dead? SPEAKING OF TOMBS...
ARCHITECTURE IN EUROPE
In Europe, concerns about ceremonial burials and rituals (rather than protection) inspired monumental architecture. Individual dwellings were made of wattle and daub. More permanent structures built for ceremony, why?
Menec is the name of the place. Over 3,000 megaliths set up along regular intervals over two miles.
What is a post and lintel monument that you've all heard of before?
Stonehenge.
At the center of the most dense collection of Neolithic and bronze age monuments in England - includes several hundred burial mounds.
Human cremated remains found on site date to 3,000 BCE, when the initial ditch surrounding it was dug.
Was forested at the time, three ancient holes found where 3ft wide tree trunks were arranged in the ground. The site clearly held some ritualistic significance.
In 1920's buildings were springing up very near to monument, people collected money, bought land, donated to the Crown, demolished all nearby buildings.
Graffiti: on sarsen stones (exterior), dagger, axe.
Was definitely a celestial observatory. Other theories include a place of healing (deformed remains), ancestor worship site.
Merlin built it with the help of giants. Magic African stones.
Friar's Heel (heelstone):
Sun appears over it during summer solstice when standing inside henge, looking through portal.
local folk tale about devil buying stones from a woman in Ireland, sets stones up in England.
Devil: "no one will know how it came here!"
Friar: "that's what you think!"
Splat.
1985 battle of the bean field; convoy of hundreds of new age travelers beaten by police for wanting to set up at the site. Future ritual use is tightly controlled.
What is this (cave painting)? It's the start of civilization. How did ancient people start to settle, to farm? Art lead to agriculture, development, domestication, not the other way around.
Picasso: "we have learned nothing."
Images created of specific animals (horses, bison, reindeer). Why?
Pictures weren't of what they ate, very little correlation. Images usually out of the way / inaccessible. (sensory deprivation, hallucination theory).
Thought of as temporary, the paintings eventually stopped being made.
No definite conclusions; most of Pre-history is just that: before written records! Mostly theories.
The power of the image perhaps came from its making, not its viewing. Painting an Aurochs may give some mystical control over the creature.
Gouges indicate spears were sometimes thrown at the images.
Bulges in stone may have represented animal spirits residing in the stone, shamanism may have been a prominent religion.
Hybrid Figure:
foot-tall figure carved from primitive stone tools, very difficult. Powdered iron ore to polish/abrasive. Purpose unclear, shamanistic?
Woman of Willendorf:
19th C archaeologists called all nude female figures Venus due to similarities in presentation. Debated. Avoid anachronism by calling it Venus.
Importance childbirth must have played. No doctors, modern medicine; if they thought a bodacious rock would help, it just might!
Gobelki Tepe:
Found in the 1960's, dug in 90's by a German: Klaus Schmidt.
Built before writing, the wheel, animal husbandry, but super organized which isnt what we associate with Paleolithic peoples. Hunter-gatherers built it!
Lions, birds, boars, insects - visible by torchlight. Low relief.
Wheat from 10 miles away in the mountains brought to the hill/plains to plant after the fact.
"First came the temple, then the city."
We don't know how such a workforce was mobilized or rewarded. Must have needed thousands. No conclusions, 5% dug out, total mystery.
Catal Huyuk:
7,500 BCE, trading town in obsidian (valuable black glasslike stone, strong and sharp).
No streets, windows, door. Access through ladders which could be pulled up for defense. Hole in roof was only way in to main chamber, doubled as a smoke vent.
Rooms decorated with bulls horns, plaster breasts (fertility?), plaster walls (painted hunt scenes). First "landscape" ever: Catal Huyuk beneath the nearby volcano Hasan Dag.
Female and Male Figures:
In Europe, artists used clay to sculpt figures just like Woman of Willendorf. Highly abstract, very linear. Emphasis on 3D nature making the viewer look at it from all sides (in the round).
Tempting to interpret it, with the flirting pose, but we have no idea what it may have meant in the CONTEXT of the creating culture. All we know it was found in a tomb, represents the dead? SPEAKING OF TOMBS...
ARCHITECTURE IN EUROPE
In Europe, concerns about ceremonial burials and rituals (rather than protection) inspired monumental architecture. Individual dwellings were made of wattle and daub. More permanent structures built for ceremony, why?
Menec is the name of the place. Over 3,000 megaliths set up along regular intervals over two miles.
What is a post and lintel monument that you've all heard of before?
Stonehenge.
At the center of the most dense collection of Neolithic and bronze age monuments in England - includes several hundred burial mounds.
Human cremated remains found on site date to 3,000 BCE, when the initial ditch surrounding it was dug.
Was forested at the time, three ancient holes found where 3ft wide tree trunks were arranged in the ground. The site clearly held some ritualistic significance.
In 1920's buildings were springing up very near to monument, people collected money, bought land, donated to the Crown, demolished all nearby buildings.
Graffiti: on sarsen stones (exterior), dagger, axe.
Was definitely a celestial observatory. Other theories include a place of healing (deformed remains), ancestor worship site.
Merlin built it with the help of giants. Magic African stones.
Friar's Heel (heelstone):
Sun appears over it during summer solstice when standing inside henge, looking through portal.
local folk tale about devil buying stones from a woman in Ireland, sets stones up in England.
Devil: "no one will know how it came here!"
Friar: "that's what you think!"
Splat.
1985 battle of the bean field; convoy of hundreds of new age travelers beaten by police for wanting to set up at the site. Future ritual use is tightly controlled.