Ancient people and their drawings. Types and features of art of primitive society

Rock paintings of ancient people

Ancient civilizations were not very developed in terms of their knowledge of chemistry and physics. Perhaps because of this, many mystical theories appeared, the deification of natural phenomena; great importance was attached to the death of a person, his departure to another world. Cave paintings of ancient people can tell us about much of what happened in their lives. On the walls they depicted agricultural activities, military rituals, gods, and priests. In a word, everything that their world consisted of and depended on.

In Ancient Egypt, tombs and pyramids are filled with rock paintings. In the tombs of the pharaohs, for example, it was customary to depict their entire life path from birth to death. With all the details, rock paintings describe funeral celebrations, etc.

The most primitive drawings show that man, from his very appearance, was drawn to art; he wanted to forever remember some moments of life. In hunting, primitive people saw a special beauty; they sought to depict the grace and strength of animals.

Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome also left a lot of rock evidence reminding us of their existence. The thing is that they already had a developed written language - their drawings are much more interesting, from the point of view of studying everyday life, than ancient graffiti.

The Greeks loved to write down wise sayings, or cases that seemed instructive or funny to them. The Romans noted in rock paintings the valor of soldiers and the beauty of women, despite the fact that Roman civilization was practically a copy of Greek, Roman graffiti is not distinguished by either the sharpness of thought or the dexterity of its transmission.

With the development of society, wall art also developed, moving from civilization to civilization, and giving it a unique flavor. Each society and civilization leaves its mark in history, similar to the one that leaves an inscription on a clean wall.

") drew pictures of the animals they hunted. They were the first people to paint using paints, although they probably painted their bodies long before that with a crushed type of red, the so-called ocher.

Apparently, the Cro-Magnons used these drawings for cult purposes. They believed that the drawings would protect against evil forces and help during the hunt, on the success of which their very existence depended. So far, no drawings made by more ancient people have been found. Perhaps they drew or scratched with something sharp on pieces of wood that had long since rotted away.

Cro-Magnons painted horses, bison and deer. Often in the drawings there are also images of copies, which, according to the artist’s plan, was supposed to bring good luck during a real hunt.

One of the Cro-Magnon artists placed his palm on the rock and then sprayed paint around it through a reed. Images of people or plants are extremely rare in early drawings.

In front of you is an image of a woolly mammoth carved on the cave wall, in which its long, shaggy fur is clearly visible. Rock art often shows us what prehistoric animals looked like.

Cro-Magnons carved figures of very fat or pregnant women into stone. They also sculpted figurines from clay, after which they burned them on fire. Probably, primitive people believed that such figurines would bring them good luck.

Cave drawings

Take up rock painting

You will need plaster of paris, a box like a large matchbox, twine, duct tape and paints.

Take a 6cm piece of twine and fold it in half to make a loop. Attach this loop with duct tape to the bottom of the box from the inside.

Mix the plaster with so that you get a thin solution, and pour it into the box, there should be a layer about 3 cm thick. Let the plaster harden, then tear the box away from it.

Copy one of the rock paintings on this page onto this piece of plaster. Then color it using the same colors as the caveman: red, yellow, brown and black.

You can also reproduce a carved image of an animal. Transfer the outline of the mammoth shown on this page onto a piece of plaster. Then use an old fork to press lines into the plaster along the entire contour.

Modern man is surrounded by an incredible number of artistic images. Wherever we turn our gaze, everything is replete with paintings, ornaments, photographs, from the simplest everyday life to works of art.

Throughout history, man has strived to convey the internal or external through the image. “Truly, art lies in nature; whoever knows how to discover it owns it.” Albrecht Durer

The artistic culture of mankind dates back to time immemorial - the Paleolithic itself. Everyone knows the oldest rock painting. It was in the Paleolithic (2.5 million-10,000 BC) that art as such arose.

A time when agriculture did not yet exist, and the Earth was inhabited by extinct species of animals, during the Stone Age, when primitive man was engaged in gathering and hunting with the help of primitive weapons.

Even then, people began to feel the need to express simple images artistically.

Rock art

Ancient rock carvings carved on stone are called petroglyphs.

These drawings, differing in the manner of execution, were located in caves where Paleolithic people lived, sometimes in inaccessible places.

Rock painting was performed on stone using a rough cutting tool, as evidenced by stone chisels found at the sites of primitive people.

Mineral dyes were often used, which were applied as a second layer; they were prepared from manganese oxide, coal, kaolite and gave color variations from ocher to black. “The authors of cave paintings had a better understanding of the anatomy of four-legged animals than most modern artists, and made fewer mistakes in drawings of walking mammoths and other mammals.” It is assumed that meaning of rock drawings was ritual, but debates on this topic continue to this day. Mostly animals were depicted, including those that had already become extinct. The image of a person is much less common and dates back to a later period.

For rock paintings characterized by a lack of proportions, a simple primitive depiction technique, sometimes a primitive hunting plot is visible, and often the drawings of primitive people conveyed movement.

Rock painting distributed throughout the world. Its most striking examples are in Kazakhstan (Tamgaly), Karelia, Spain (Altamira cave), France (Fond-de-Gaume, Montespan caves, etc.), Siberia, on the Don (Kostenki), Italy, England , Germany, Algeria.

The history of the first rock art found

“After the work in Altamira, all art began to decline.” Pablo Picasso

Cave drawings were carefully hidden in numerous caves not in one place, but all over the world. They first attracted public attention only 120 years ago.

Why did this happen relatively recently, despite the fact that they were probably found several times before? Apparently, their ease of execution, often similar to children's drawings, was simply unremarkable.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the entire artistic heritage of our planet was systematized and comprehended. In the middle of the 19th century, no art older than Egyptian or Celtic was known.

The existence of some ancient rudimentary forms of art was assumed, but it was believed that they would have to be extremely primitive. This is probably why it took half a century to recognize and comprehend the already found, very meaningful and multifaceted cave drawings.

Marcelino de Sautuola is considered the discoverer of rock art. He explored the caves that were located in the area where he lived since 1875. In 1879, while exploring the Altamira Cave, his nine-year-old daughter discovered amazing drawings, which were later called the “Sistine Chapel of Primitive Art” of the Altamira Cave.

It took Marcelino de Sautuola a whole year to dare to make a public statement. He was right to worry, since his statement caused an incredible storm of unrest in scientific circles.

It took a lot of time and discovery to recognize the authenticity rock paintings Altamira. With the passage of time and numerous similar discoveries, experts were forced to admit that Marcelio was right; unfortunately, he did not live to see these days.

Older than the most ancient - the creations of the Neanderthals

Spanish cave of Nerja with finds found in it rock paintings may revolutionize ideas about Neanderthals. These caves were discovered in 1959 by boys hunting bats. Excavations in these caves continue to this day.

It was in Nerja that they were discovered cave drawings strange spiral shape, reminiscent of the structure of DNA. Scientists claim that pinnipeds, which the inhabitants of that time ate, had a similar appearance.
“Art must first of all be clear and simple; its meaning is too great and important.” M. Gorky The coal found in the images was studied by radiocarbon dating, which determined the approximate age of the drawings. Their age stunned everyone - it turned out that the drawings were about 43 thousand years old. This is 13 thousand years older than the drawings of the Chauvey Cave, France, which were still considered the most ancient.

At the moment, there have been no official statements about the Nerja Cave, since they could have a great influence on ideas about human development, cave drawings need numerous studies and confirmation.

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Which drawing is the oldest? Probably it should be drawn on an old, worn-out piece of papyrus, which is now kept in some museum under certain temperature conditions. But time will not be kind to such a drawing even under the most optimal storage conditions - after several thousand years it will inevitably turn into dust. But destroying rock, even over several tens of thousands of years, is a difficult task even for all-consuming time. Perhaps, in those distant times, when man had just begun to live on Earth and huddled not in houses built with his own hands, but in caves and grottoes created by nature, he found time not only to get food for himself and keep the fire going, but also to create?

Indeed, cave paintings dating back to several tens of thousands of years BC can be found in some caves scattered across different parts of the planet. There, in a dark and cold confined space, the paint retains its properties for a long time. Interestingly, the first cave paintings were found in 1879 - relatively recently by historical standards - when archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, walking with his daughter, wandered into the cave and saw numerous drawings decorating its roof. Scientists around the world at first did not believe in the amazing discovery, but studies of other caves around confirmed that some of them really served as a refuge for ancient man and contain traces of his stay, including drawings.

To determine their age, archaeologists radiocarbon date the particles of paint that were used to paint the images. After analyzing hundreds of drawings, experts saw that rock art existed ten, twenty, and thirty thousand years ago.

This is interesting: By “arranging” the found drawings in chronological order, experts saw how rock art changed over time. Starting with simple two-dimensional images, artists of the distant past improved their skills, first adding more detail to their creations, and then shadows and volume.

But the most interesting thing, of course, is the age of the rock paintings. The use of modern scanners when exploring caves reveals to us even those rock paintings that are already indistinguishable to the human eye. The record of the antiquity of the found image is constantly updated. How deeply were we able to penetrate into the past by exploring the cold stone walls of caves and grottoes? To date, the cave boasts the oldest rock paintings El Castillo, located in Spain. It is believed that the most ancient rock paintings were discovered in this cave. One of them - the depiction 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. El Castillo Cave, Spain.

Since traditional radiocarbon dating would give too wide a scatter 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 the stalactites formed over thousands of years on top of the picture. It turned out that the age of the rock paintings is about 40,800 years, making them the most ancient on Earth among those discovered so far. It is quite possible that they were not even drawn by homo sapience, but by a Neanderthal.

But El Castillo Cave has a worthy competitor: caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. To determine the age of the local drawings, scientists examined the age of the calcium deposits that formed on top of them. It turned out that calcium deposits appeared no less 40,000 years ago, which means that the rock paintings cannot be younger. Unfortunately, it is not possible to more accurately determine the age of the ancient artist’s creations. But we know one thing for sure: in the future, humanity will face even more ancient and amazing discoveries.

Illustration: Image of a bison in a cave in Altamira, Spain. About 20,000 years old

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There is something magically attractive and at the same time sad about petroglyphs. We will never know the names of talented artists of antiquity and their stories. All that remains for us are rock paintings, from which we can try to imagine the life of our distant ancestors. Let's take a look at 9 famous caves with rock paintings.

Altamira Cave

Opened in 1879 by Marcelino de Sautola in Spain, it is not without reason called the Sistine Chapel of primitive art. The impressionists began to use techniques that were in service with ancient artists in their work only in the 19th century.

The painting, discovered by the daughter of an amateur archaeologist, caused a lot of noise in the scientific community. The researcher was even accused of falsification - no one could believe that such talented drawings were created thousands of years ago.

The paintings are made realistically, some of them are three-dimensional - a special effect was achieved using the natural relief of the walls.

After the opening, everyone could visit the cave. Due to the constant visits of tourists, the temperature inside has changed, and mold has appeared on the drawings. Today the cave is closed to visitors, but not far from it is the Museum of Ancient History and Archeology. Just 30 km from the Altamira cave you can see copies of rock paintings and interesting finds of archaeologists.

Lascaux Cave

In 1940, a group of teenagers accidentally discovered a cave near Montillac in France, the entrance to which was opened by a tree that fell during a thunderstorm. It is small, but under the arches there are thousands of drawings. Ancient artists began painting some of them on walls back in the 18th century BC.

It depicts people, symbols and in motion. The researchers divided the cave into thematic zones for convenience. Far beyond the borders of France, drawings of the Hall of the Bulls are known; its other name is the Rotunda. Here is the largest rock painting ever discovered - a 5-meter bull.

Under the vaults there are more than 300 drawings, including animals from the Ice Age. It is believed that the age of some paintings is about 30 thousand years.

Nio Cave

In the southeast of France is located, the painting inside of which was known to local residents back in the 17th century. However, they did not attach due importance to the drawings, leaving numerous inscriptions nearby.

In 1906, Captain Molyar discovered a hall with images of animals inside, which later became known as the Black Salon.

Inside you can see bison, deer and goats. Scientists believe that in ancient times rituals were performed here to attract good luck in hunting. The Pyrenees Park of Prehistoric Art is open to tourists near Nio, where you can learn more about archaeology.

Koske Cave

It is located not far from Marseille, and can only be accessed by those who can swim well. To see the ancient images, you need to swim through a 137-meter tunnel located deep underwater. The unusual place was discovered in 1985 by diver Henri Cosquet. Scientists believe that some of the images of animals and birds found inside were made 29 thousand years ago.

Kapova Cave (Shulgan-Tash)

Cueva de las Manos cave

An ancient painting was also discovered in the south of Argentina in 1941. There is not just one cave, but a whole series, the total length of which is 160 km. The most famous of them is Cueva de las Manos. Its name is translated into Russian as "".

Inside there are many images of human palms - our ancestors made prints on the walls with their left hands. In addition, here you can see hunting scenes and ancient inscriptions. The images were taken between 9 and 13 thousand years ago.

Caves of Nerja

The Nerja Caves are located 5 km from the city of the same name in Spain. The cave paintings were discovered by accident by teenagers, as happened earlier in the Lascaux cave. Five guys went to catch bats, but accidentally saw a hole in the rock, looked inside and discovered a corridor with stalagmites and stalactites. The find interested scientists.

The cave turned out to be of impressive size - 35,484 square meters, which is equivalent to five football fields. The fact that people lived in it is evidenced by many finds: tools, traces of a hearth, ceramics. There are three halls downstairs. The hall of ghosts scares guests with unusual sounds and strange shapes. The waterfall hall was equipped as a concert hall; it can accommodate 100 spectators at the same time.

Montserrat Caballe, Maya Plisetskaya and other famous artists performed here. The Bethlehem Hall amazes with its bizarre columns with stalactites and stalagmites. Rock paintings can be seen in the Hall of Spears and the Hall of Mountains.

Before the discovery of this cave, scientists assumed that the most ancient drawings were in the Chauvet Cave. According to recent research, our distant ancestors began to engage in creativity even earlier than modern science believed. The results of radiocarbon dating showed that six images of seals and fur seals were made presumably 43 thousand years ago - accordingly, they are even older than the cave paintings discovered at Chauvet. However, it is too early to draw conclusions.

Magura Cave

The images in all these caves and the methods of drawing are completely different. However, there are some common features. Artists of antiquity conveyed their perception of the world through creativity and shared their outlook on life, but they did it not with words, but with drawings.