Early Humans:Culture

Cave Artc. 15,000 BCE

Chauvet & Lascaux Caves (France)

Artist’s “Canvas”

• People of prehistoric times were excellent big-game hunters consistently brought home food.

• Did not need to work very hard and had plenty of leisure time Art = FUN!

• Art during this time may have been a teaching tool for kids to learn lessons about the hunt.

Sympathetic Magic

• Sympathetic Magic making an image of something gives the artist power over whatever the image represents

• Drawing wounded/incomplete animals could create real wounded, dead, or weakened animals = EASY to hunt

Vision Quest

• Walls & floors of caves = boundaries between this world and the spirit-world

• Shaman communicates with and interprets the supernatural:– Dark, silence, isolation)– Hallucinogenic drugs– Pain (handprints on cave walls sometimes show

mutilated hand prints)

• Cave art = PORTAL to the supernatural world