Which drawing is the oldest? It must probably be drawn on an old, dilapidated piece of papyrus, which is now kept in some museum under certain temperature conditions. But time will not spare such a drawing even under the most optimal storage conditions - after a few thousand years it will inevitably turn into dust. But destroying the rock, albeit in a few tens of thousands of years, is a difficult task even for the all-devouring time. Perhaps, in those distant times, when a person only began to live on Earth and huddled not in houses built by his own hands, but in caves and grottoes created by nature, he found time not only to get his own food and maintain a fire, but also to create?
Indeed, rock paintings dating back several tens of thousands of years BC can be found in some caves scattered around the world. There, in a dark and cold enclosed space, the paint for a long time retains its properties. Interestingly, the first rock paintings were found in 1879 - relatively recent by historical standards - when the archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, walking with his daughter, wandered into the cave and saw numerous drawings that adorned its vault. Scientists around the world did not believe in the amazing find at first, but studies of other caves around the world confirmed that some of them really served as a refuge for an ancient person and keep traces of his stay, including drawings.
To determine their age, archaeologists radiocarbon analyze the particles of paint that were used to paint the images. After analyzing hundreds of drawings, experts saw that rock art existed ten, and twenty, and thirty thousand years ago.
This is interesting: Having “arranged” the found drawings in chronological order, the experts saw how the rock art changed over time. Starting with simple two-dimensional images, the artists of the distant past improved their skills, adding more details to their creations, and then shadows and volume.
But the most interesting, of course, is the age of the rock paintings. The use of modern scanners in the study of caves reveals for us even those rock paintings that are already indistinguishable to the human eye. The record of antiquity of the found image is constantly updated. How deep were we able to penetrate into the past, exploring the cold stone walls of caves and grottoes? To date, the cave boasts the oldest cave paintings. El Castillo located in Spain. It is believed that the most ancient rock paintings were found in this cave. One of them - the image of a human palm by spraying paint on a hand leaning against a wall - is of particular interest.
The oldest drawing to date, age ~ 40,800 years. Cave of El Castillo, Spain. Since traditional radiocarbon analysis would have given too much variation in the readings, to more accurately determine the age of the images, scientists used the method of radioactive decay of uranium, measuring the amount of decay products in stalactites formed over thousands of years on top of the picture. It turned out that the age of the rock carvings is about 40,800 years, which makes them the oldest on Earth among those found on this moment. It is quite possible that they were not even painted by homo sapience, but by a Neanderthal.
But the El Castillo cave has a worthy competitor: the caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. To determine the age of the local drawings, scientists examined the age of calcium deposits formed on top of them. It turned out that calcium deposits appeared no less 40,000 years ago, which means that the cave paintings cannot be younger. Unfortunately, it is not possible to more accurately determine the age of the works of the ancient artist. But one thing we know for sure: in the future, even more ancient and amazing finds await humanity.
Illustration: image of a bison in the cave of Altamira, Spain. Age around 20,000 years
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Prehistoric rock art is the most abundant evidence available of how mankind took the first steps in the field of art, knowledge and culture. It is found in most countries of the world, from the tropics to the Arctic, and in a wide variety of places - from deep caves to mountain heights.
Several tens of millions of rock paintings and artistic motifs have already been discovered, and more and more are being discovered every year. This solid, durable, cumulative monument of the past is clear evidence that our distant ancestors developed complex social systems.
Some common false claims about the origins of art should have been rejected at their very source. Art, as such, did not appear suddenly, it developed gradually with the enrichment of human experience. By the time the famous cave art appeared in France and Spain, it is believed that artistic traditions were already well developed, at least in South Africa, Lebanon, Eastern Europe, India and Australia, and no doubt in many other regions that are still should be investigated accordingly.
When did people first decide to generalize reality? This is an interesting question for art historians and archaeologists, but it is also of broad interest, given that the idea of cultural primacy has an impact on the formation of ideas about racial, ethnic and national value, even fantasy. For example, the claim that art originated in the caves of Western Europe becomes an incentive to create myths about European cultural superiority. Secondly, the origins of art should be considered closely related to the emergence of other purely human qualities: the ability to create abstract ideas and symbols, to communicate at the highest level, to develop an idea of \u200b\u200bthemselves. Apart from prehistoric art, we have no real evidence from which to infer the existence of such abilities.
THE BEGINNINGS OF ART
Artistic creativity was considered a model of "impractical" behavior, that is, behavior that seemed to be devoid of a practical goal. The oldest clear archaeological evidence of this is the use of ocher or red iron ore (hematite), a red mineral dye removed and used by people several hundred thousand years ago. These ancient people also collected crystals and patterned fossils, colorful and oddly shaped gravel. They began to distinguish between ordinary, everyday objects and unusual, exotic ones. Obviously, they developed ideas about a world in which objects could be distributed into different classes. Evidence first appears in South Africa, then in Asia, and finally in Europe.
The oldest known rock painting was made in India two or three hundred thousand years ago. It consists of bowl-shaped depressions and a sinuous line chiselled into the sandstone of the cave. Around the same time, simple linear signs were made on various kinds of portable objects (bones, teeth, tusks and stones) found at the sites of the sites of primitive man. Sets of carved lines collected in a bundle first appear in central and eastern Europe, they acquire a certain improvement, which makes it possible to recognize individual motifs: scribbles, crosses, arcs and sets of parallel lines.
This period, which archaeologists call the Middle Paleolithic (somewhere between 35,000 and 150,000 years ago), was decisive for the development of human mental and cognitive abilities. It was also the time when people acquired seafaring skills and detachments of colonists could make transitions up to 180 km. Regular maritime navigation, obviously, required the improvement of the communication system, that is, the language.
People of this era also mined ocher and flint in several world regions. They began to build large joint houses out of bones and put up stone walls inside the caves. And most importantly, they created art. In Australia, some samples of rock art appeared 60,000 years ago, that is, in the era of the settlement of the continent by people. Hundreds of places contain objects believed to be of more ancient origin than the art of Western Europe. But during this era, rock art also appears in Europe. Its oldest example of those that are known to us - a system of nineteen cup-like signs in a cave in France, carved on a stone rock slab, covered the place of a child's burial.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this era is the cultural unanimity that prevailed in the then world in all regions of settlement. Despite the differences in tools, no doubt due to differences in the environment, cultural behavior was surprisingly stable. The use of ocher and an expressively uniform set of geometric markings testify to the existence of a universal artistic language between archaic Homo sapiens, including European Neanderthals and others known to us from fossils.
Figured images (sculptures) arranged in a circle first appear in Israel (about 250-300 thousand years ago), in the form of modified natural forms, then in Siberia and central Europe (about 30-35 thousand years ago), and only later in Western Europe. About 30,000 years ago, rock art was enriched by intricate finger-cuts on the soft surface of caves in Australia and Europe, and stencil images of palms in France. Two-dimensional images of objects began to appear. The oldest examples, created approximately 32,000 years ago, come from France, followed by South African drawings (Namibia).
About 20,000 years ago (very recently in terms of human history), significant differences begin to form between cultures. Late Paleolithic people in Western Europe began fine traditions, both in the sculptural and graphic arts of ritual and decorative consumption. About 15,000 years ago, this tradition led to such famous masterpieces as the painting in the caves of Altamira (Spain) and Lescaut (France), as well as the appearance of thousands of elaborately carved figures from stone, tusks, bone, clay and other materials. It was a time of the finest multicolored works of cave art, drawn or minted by a certain hand of master craftsmen. However, the development of graphic traditions in other regions was not easy.
In Asia the forms of geometrical art developed into very perfect systems, some resembling official records, others mnemonic emblems, peculiar texts intended to refresh the memory.
Starting around the end of the ice age, about 10,000 years ago, rock art has gradually moved beyond the caves. This was dictated not so much by the search for new better places, but (there is almost no doubt here) by the survival of rock art through selection. Rock art is well preserved in the permanent conditions of deep limestone caves, but not on rock surfaces more open to destruction. So, the unquestioning spread of rock art at the end of the Ice Age does not indicate the growth of artistic production, but the overcoming of the threshold of what ensured good preservation.
On all continents, bypassing Antarctica, rock art now shows the diversity of artistic styles and cultures, the progressive growth of the ethnic diversity of mankind on all continents, as well as the development of major religions. Even the last historical stage in the development of mass migrations, colonizations and religious expansion is thoroughly reflected in rock art.
DATING
There are two main forms of rock art, petroglyphs (carvings) and pictors (drawings). Petroglyphic motifs were created by carving, gouging, chasing or polishing rock surfaces. In pictograms, additional substances, usually paint, were superimposed on the rocky surface. This difference is very important, it determines the approaches to dating.
The methodology of scientific dating of rock art has been developed only during the last fifteen years. Therefore, it is still at the stage of its "childhood", and the dating of almost all world rock art remains in poor condition. This, however, does not mean that we have no idea of his age: often there are all kinds of landmarks that allow us to determine the approximate or at least probable age. Sometimes it is lucky to determine the age of a rock carving quite accurately, especially when the paint contains organic substances or microscopic inclusions that allow dating due to the radioactive isotope of carbon they contain. A careful evaluation of the results of such an analysis can determine the date quite accurately. On the other hand, the dating of petroglyphs remains extremely difficult.
Modern methods are based on determining the age of mineral deposits that could be deposited on rock art. But they allow you to determine only the minimum age. One way is to analyze the microscopic organic matter embedded in such mineral layers; laser technology can be successfully used here. Today, only one method is suitable for determining the age of the petroglyphs themselves. It is based on the fact that the mineral crystals, which were chipped during the gouging of petroglyphs, initially had sharp edges, which eventually became blunt and rounded. By determining the rate of such processes on nearby surfaces, the age of which is known, it is possible to calculate the age of petroglyphs.
Several archaeological methods can also help a little in the matter of dating. If, for example, a rock surface is covered with archaeological layers of mud whose age can be determined, they can be used to determine the minimum age of petroglyphs. Comparisons of stylistic manners are often resorted to in order to determine the chronological framework of rock art, though not very successfully.
Much more reliable methods of studying rock art, which often resemble the methods of forensic science. For example, the ingredients of a paint can tell how it was made, what tools and additives were used, where the dyes came from, and the like. Human blood, which was used as a binder during the Ice Age, has been found in Australian rock art. The Australian researchers also found up to forty layers of paint superimposed on each other in different places, indicating the constant redrawing of the same surface over a long time. Like the pages of a book, these layers tell us the history of the use of surfaces by artists over generations. The study of such layers is just beginning and can lead to a real revolution in views.
The pollen of plants found on the fibers of brushes in the paint of rock paintings indicates what crops were grown by contemporaries of ancient artists. In some French caves, characteristic paint recipes were found out by their chemical composition. By charcoal dyes, often used for drawings, even the type of wood burned to charcoal was determined.
Rock art research has evolved into a separate scientific discipline, and is already used by many other disciplines, from geology to semiotics, from ethnology to cybernetics. His methodology provides for expressiveness through the electronic display of colors of very spoiled, almost completely faded drawings; a wide range of specialized description methods; microscopic studies of traces left by tools and scanty sediments.
VULNERABLE MONUMENTS
Methods for the preservation of prehistoric monuments are also being developed and increasingly applied. Copies of rock art pieces (fragments of the object or even the entire object) have been made to prevent damage to the originals. Yet many of the world's prehistoric monuments are in constant danger. Acid rain dissolves the protective mineral layers that cover many petroglyphs. All the turbulent flows of tourists, urban sprawl, industrial and mountain development, even unqualified research contribute to the dirty work of shortening the age of inestimable artistic treasures.
For many years, modern civilization had no idea about any objects of ancient painting, but in 1879, the Spanish amateur archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, along with his 9-year-old daughter, accidentally stumbled upon the Altamira cave, the vaults of which were decorated with many drawings of ancient people - an unparalleled find shocked the researcher and encouraged him to study it closely.
1. Rock of the white shaman
This 4,000-year-old ancient rock art is located in the lower reaches of the Pecoe River in Texas. The giant image (3.5 m) shows the central figure surrounded by other people performing some rituals. It is assumed that the figure of a shaman is depicted in the center, and the picture itself depicts the cult of some forgotten ancient religion.
2. Kakadu Park
Kakadu National Park is one of the most beautiful places for tourists in Australia. It is especially valued for its rich cultural heritage - the park has an impressive collection of local Aboriginal art. Some of the rock paintings at Kakadu (which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site) are nearly 20,000 years old.
3. Chauvet Cave
Another UNESCO World Heritage Site is located in the south of France. More than 1000 different images can be found in Chauvet Cave, most of them animal and anthropomorphic figures. These are some of the oldest images known to man: their age dates back to 30,000 - 32,000 years. About 20,000 years ago, the cave was filled with stones and it has been preserved in excellent condition to this day.
4. Cueva de El Castillo
In Spain, the "Cave Cave" or Cueva de El Castillo was recently discovered, on the walls of which they found the oldest rock paintings in Europe, their age is 4,000 years older than all the rock paintings that were previously found in the Old World. Most images show handprints and simple geometric shapes, although there are also images of strange animals. One of the drawings, a simple red disk, was made 40,800 years ago. It is assumed that these paintings were made by Neanderthals.
5. Laas Gaal
Some of the most ancient and well-preserved rock paintings on the African continent can be found in Somalia, in the Laas Gaal (Camel Well) cave complex. Despite the fact that they are "only" 5,000 to 12,000 years old, these rock paintings are perfectly preserved. They depict mainly animals and people in ceremonial robes and various decorations. Unfortunately, this remarkable cultural site is not eligible for World Heritage status as it is located in an area where there is constant war.
6. Bhimbetka rock dwellings
The rock dwellings at Bhimbetka represent some of the earliest traces of human life on the Indian subcontinent. In natural rock shelters, there are paintings on the walls that are about 30,000 years old. These paintings represent the period of development of civilization from the Mesolithic to the end of prehistoric times. The drawings depict animals and people in daily activities such as hunting, religious ceremonies and, interestingly, dancing.
7. Magura
In Bolgari, the rock paintings found in the Magura cave are not very old - they are between 4,000 and 8,000 years old. They are interesting with the material that was used for drawing images - guano (litter) of a bat. In addition, the cave itself was formed millions of years ago and other archaeological artifacts have been found in it, such as the bones of extinct animals (for example, a cave bear).
8. Cueva de las Manos
The "Cave of Hands" in Argentina is famous for its extensive collection of prints and images of human hands. This rock painting dates back to 9,000 - 13,000 years. The cave itself (more precisely, the cave system) was used by ancient people as early as 1,500 years ago. Also in Cueva de las Manos you can find various geometric figures and images of hunting.
9. Altamira Cave
The paintings found in the cave of Altamira in Spain are considered a masterpiece of ancient culture. The stone painting of the Upper Paleolithic (14,000 - 20,000 years old) is in exceptional condition. As in the Chauvet cave, a collapse sealed the entrance to this cave about 13,000 years ago, so the images remained in their original form. In fact, these drawings are so well preserved that when they were first discovered in the 19th century, scientists thought they were fake. It took a long time until technology made it possible to confirm the authenticity of the rock art. Since then, the cave has proved so popular with tourists that it had to be closed in the late 1970s as large amounts of carbon dioxide from the breath of visitors began to destroy the painting.
10. Lascaux Cave
This is by far the most famous and most significant collection of rock art in the world. Some of the most beautiful 17,000 year old paintings in the world can be found in this cave system in France. They are very complex, very carefully made and at the same time perfectly preserved. Unfortunately, the cave was closed over 50 years ago due to the fact that under the influence of carbon dioxide exhaled by visitors, the unique images began to collapse. In 1983, a reproduction of a part of the cave called Lasko 2 was discovered.
Cro-Magnons, who lived on earth 30 thousand years ago, used simple drawings to express their feelings and emotions. But the cave paintings of primitive people cannot be called primitive, since they were created by people with extraordinary artistic talents. Drawings of primitive people in caves are graphic and three-dimensional images, bas-reliefs on the walls. Many such drawings are known today: in France (southwestern part), Spain (its northwestern part), Italy, even in Russia, Serbia and England, there are single copies.
Rock paintings and pictures of primitive people are unique and most often resemble a two-dimensional image. At the same time, techniques that help convey volume began to be used only during the Renaissance. Rock art is replete with images of rhinos, bison, mammoths, deer. Also in the drawings there are hunting scenes, people with arrows and spears are depicted. Occasionally there are drawings of fish, plants, insects. The paints with which the drawings are made do not fade and fully convey the original brightness. It is difficult to imagine a person who has no idea what rock paintings are (photos will help you figure this out).
Where did the first people paint?
The hard-to-reach areas of the caves, located a hundred meters from the surface, were a great place for drawing. This is due primarily to the cult significance of rock paintings, requiring the performance of a certain rite. Such a rite was drawing. Melted and still hot fat of wild animals, bunches of moss or wool were poured into bowls. Then the artist began to work in the light of stone lamps.
What are the cave paintings called?
The rock carvings of the ancients are called petroglyphs (Greek - to cut a stone). There are drawings made in the form of symbols or symbols. The drawings contain a huge amount of valuable information about the life of the representatives of the most ancient population, reveal the traditions and historical events that influenced the ancient man.
Later drawings were made in the form of symbols or symbols. Man initially sought to express thoughts with the help of signs, writing. Painting brought this moment closer, becoming a transitional period between graphic drawings and writing. The images are called pictograms. For example, on the territory of Armenia, archaeologists have discovered inscriptions resembling all known ancient alphabets. The oldest images found here are over 9,000 years old. The cave paintings of primitive people are pictures created by the first people.
Technique and materials
What motivated people to draw? Just the desire to create beauty or the need to perform and capture a special ritual? It was not so easy to make a rock engraving, especially if the paint was applied into deep cuts that the ancient painter carved with a rough cutting tool. It could be a large stone cutter. Such a tool was discovered at the site of the ancient people of Le Roque de Ser. During the period of the Middle and Late Paleolithic, the technique of performing rock art of primitive people is more subtle. The contours of the engravings were carved several times with shallow lines. Even then, hatching and combined painting were used. There are similar images on the tusks and bones of animals that belong to the same period.
Rock paintings, photo in Altamira Cave
The paint of primitive man is all shades of ocher, which were used as a red dye, charcoal and manganese ore. Chalk and bat guano were also used. Future paint was rubbed with bone or stone. The resulting powder was mixed with animal fat. Ancient people even had prototypes of modern tubes. They kept the paints in the hollow parts of animal bones, both sides of which were sealed with a hardened lump of the same animal fat. There were no other colors, such as green or blue.
Bones or sharp sticks, the ends of which were split, served as a brush for primitive artists. Pieces of wool were also used, which were tied to the bone. They first drew the outline, and then painted over. But there are other pictures as well. For example, a handprint that was splattered with paint through a reed.
Ancient people had no idea about the composition or proportions of the body. They drew large predators and tiny mountain goats in their background. But this did not prevent them from creating masterpieces comparable to the modern idea of painting. The accuracy of the transfer of objects and animals is amazing, and the drawings of ancient people in the caves imprinted in stone ancient animals that have long died out. The visual effect was enhanced by the fact that the image was applied to the ledge of the rock.
What did primitive people draw?
Rock paintings of ancient people are a manifestation of emotional and vivid figurative thinking. Not everyone could create such masterpieces, but only those in whose subconscious mind visual images arose. Those who were overwhelmed with bright images transferred them to the plane of the rocks.
There is an assumption that with the help of rock art, visions were transmitted, a person expressed himself and conveyed his life experience. But most scientists adhere to the version of the cult significance of the drawings: they were probably created before the hunt. Thus, a person tried to influence the result, to attract the preferred animal during the hunt.
The disappearance of some animals, climate change led to a serious change in human activity. Now he spent more time raising animals and working the land. There was less time for hunting. This was also reflected in rock art. The drawings were no longer made deep in the cave, but outside. Images of a person were now more and more common. Animals that were domesticated were also depicted in cave engravings (scenes of fox hunting). Schematic drawings spread: triangles, straight or winding lines, a heap of colored spots.
If earlier hunting scenes were most often depicted, now they were also ritual dances, battles, and grazing. There are many such drawings in Spain.
Where can you see rock art?
In France, in the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet, drawings were found that date back to about the 18th-15th millennium BC. e. They depict horses, cows, bulls, bears. In Spain, in the cave of Altamira, hunting scenes are depicted by ancient artists so skillfully that if you look at them with a blazing fire, you get the impression of movement of objects. In Africa, there is a whole complex of caves with rock art. This is Laas-Gaal in Somaliland, and Tassilin-Adjer in Algeria. Rock paintings have also been discovered in Egypt (Plovtsov cave), Bulgaria, Bashkiria, Argentina (Cueva de las Manos cave) and many others.
Objects of art or a primitive reflection of reality?
Between primitive "art" and modern it is impossible to put an equal sign. But, considering ancient images, modern art historians rely on the usual formulations, going far beyond the specifics of primitive art. Today in the world of art there is an author of a work, and there is a consumer. Ancient artists created their creations only because they had the ability to draw and felt the need to display the reality around them or significant events. They had no ideas about art or were blurry, but the images that overwhelmed their consciousness found a way out into the world through their creator, who, most likely, the tribesmen considered endowed with supernatural power.
So what is the difference between rock art and ordinary modern art? The only difference is that the first drawings were made by artists of the Paleolithic era, and a rock was used as a canvas. Of course, the phenomenon of creativity is associated with the interaction of all spiritual forces and the release of emotions in a special way. A person could create something new and important for himself, but the realization of this phenomenon occurred gradually. Cro-Magnon lived in a cultural environment in which there was no division into separate areas of activity. And the ancient people did not have leisure in our understanding, since their life was not divided into strict work and rest. The time when a person did not fight for existence, he devoted to the performance of rituals and other actions important for the well-being of the tribe.
The discovery of cave art galleries raised a number of questions for archaeologists: what did the primitive artist draw with, how did he draw, where did he place his drawings, what did he draw, and, finally, why did he do it? The study of caves allows us to answer them with varying degrees of certainty.The palette of primitive man was poor: it had four basic colors - black, white, red and yellow. Chalk and chalk-like limestones were used to produce white images; black - charcoal and manganese oxides; red and yellow - minerals hematite (Fe2O3), pyrolusite (MnO2) and natural dyes - ocher, which is a mixture of iron hydroxides (limonite, Fe2O3.H2O), manganese (psilomelane, m.MnO.MnO2.nH2O) and clay particles. In the caves and grottoes of France, stone slabs were found on which ocher was rubbed, as well as pieces of dark red manganese dioxide. Judging by the painting technique, pieces of paint were rubbed, bred on bone marrow, animal fat or blood. Chemical and X-ray diffraction analysis of paints from the Lascaux Cave showed that not only natural dyes were used, mixtures of which give different shades of primary colors, but also rather complex compounds obtained by firing them and adding other components (kaolinite and aluminum oxides).
The serious study of cave dyes is just beginning. And questions immediately arise: why were only inorganic paints used? The primitive man-collector distinguished more than 200 different plants, among which were dyeing ones. Why are the drawings in some caves made in different tones of the same color, and in others - in two colors of the same tone? Why did the colors of the green-blue-blue part of the spectrum enter early painting for so long? In the Paleolithic, they are almost absent, in Egypt they appear 3.5 thousand years ago, and in Greece - only in the 4th century. BC e. Archaeologist A. Formozov believes that our distant ancestors did not immediately understand the bright plumage of the "magic bird" - the Earth. The most ancient colors, red and black, reflect the harsh color of the life of that time: the sun disk at the horizon and the flame of a fire, the darkness of the night full of dangers and the darkness of the caves bringing relative calm. Red and black were associated with the opposites of the ancient world: red - warmth, light, life with hot scarlet blood; black - cold, darkness, death... This symbolism is universal. It was a long way from the cave artist, who had only 4 colors in his palette, to the Egyptians and Sumerians, who added two more (blue and green) to them. But even further from them is the cosmonaut of the 20th century, who took a set of 120 colored pencils on his first flights around the Earth.
The second group of questions that arise in the study of cave painting concerns the technology of drawing. The problem can be formulated as follows: did the animals depicted in the drawings of the Paleolithic man "leave" the wall or "gone" into it?
In 1923, N. Castere discovered a Late Paleolithic clay figure of a bear lying on the ground in the Montespan cave. It was covered with indentations - traces of javelin blows, and numerous prints of bare feet were found on the floor. The thought arose: this is a “model”, which has absorbed hunting pantomimes fixed for tens of millennia at the carcass of a dead bear. Further, the following row can be traced, confirmed by finds in other caves: a life-size model of a bear, dressed in its skin and decorated with a real skull, is replaced by its clay likeness; the beast gradually "gets on its feet" - it is leaned against the wall for stability (this is already a step towards creating a bas-relief); then the beast gradually “leaves” into it, leaving a traced, and then a picturesque outline ... This is how the archaeologist A. Solyar imagines the emergence of Paleolithic painting.
No less likely is another way. According to Leonardo da Vinci, the first drawing is the shadow of an object lit by a fire. Primitive begins to draw, mastering the technique of "bypass". The caves have preserved dozens of such examples. On the walls of the Gargas Cave (France), 130 "ghostly hands" are visible - imprints of human hands on the wall. It is interesting that in some cases they are depicted as a line, in others - by shading the outer or inner contours (positive or negative stencil), then drawings appear, "torn off" from the object, which is no longer depicted in full size, in profile or frontally. Sometimes objects are drawn as if in different projections (face and legs - profile, chest and shoulders - frontally). Skill grows gradually. The drawing acquires clarity, confidence of the stroke. According to the best drawings, biologists confidently determine not only the genus, but also the species, and sometimes the subspecies of the animal.
The next step is taken by Madeleine artists: by means of painting they convey dynamics and perspective. Color helps a lot with this. The full of life horses of the Grand Ben Cave seem to run in front of us, gradually decreasing in size ... Later this technique was forgotten, and similar drawings are not found in rock art either in the Mesolithic or in the Neolithic. The last step is the transition from a perspective image to a three-dimensional one. This is how the sculptures "coming out" from the walls of the cave appear.
Which of the following points of view is correct? A comparison of the absolute dates of the figurines made of bones and stone shows that they are approximately the same age: 30-15 thousand years BC. e. Maybe in different places the cave artist followed different paths?
Another of the mysteries of cave painting is the lack of background and framing. Figures of horses, bulls, mammoths are freely scattered along the rock wall. The drawings seem to be hanging in the air, not even a symbolic line of the earth is drawn under them. On the uneven vaults of caves, animals are placed in the most unexpected positions: upside down or sideways. No in drawings of primitive man and a hint of landscape background. Only in the 17th century n. e. in Holland the landscape takes shape in a special genre.
The study of Paleolithic painting provides specialists with abundant material to search for the origins of various styles and trends in contemporary art. So, for example, a prehistoric master, 12 thousand years before the appearance of pointillist artists, depicted animals on the wall of the Marsula cave (France) using tiny colored dots. The number of such examples can be multiplied, but something else is more important: the images on the walls of the caves are a fusion of the reality of existence and its reflection in the brain of a Paleolithic person. Thus, Paleolithic painting carries information about the level of thinking of a person of that time, about the problems that he lived with and that worried him. Primitive art, discovered more than 100 years ago, remains a real El Dorado for all kinds of hypotheses about this.
Dublyansky V.N., popular science book
