The source of information is rock paintings. Primitive art, When did the first images created by man appear? Rock reliefs at Tanum

After visiting the caves of Altamira in northern Spain, Pablo Picasso exclaimed: "after the work in Altamira, all art began to decline." He wasn't kidding. The art in this cave and in many other caves that are found in France, in Spain and other countries, is one of the greatest assets in the field of art that has ever been created.

Magura Cave

Magura Cave is one of the largest caves in Bulgaria. It is located in the northwestern part of the country. The walls of the cave are adorned with prehistoric rock paintings dating from about 8,000 to 4,000 years ago. More than 700 drawings were discovered. The pictures show hunters dancing people and many animals.

Cueva de las Manos

Cueva de las Manos is located in Southern Argentina. The name can be literally translated as "Cave of Hands". Most of the images in the cave are left hands, but there are also hunting scenes and images of animals. The paintings are believed to have been created 13,000 and 9,500 years ago.

Bhimbetka

Located in central India, Bhimbetka contains over 600 prehistoric rock paintings. The drawings depict people who lived at that time in a cave. Animals were also given a lot of space. Images of bison, tigers, lions and crocodiles have been found. It is believed that the most old painting 12,000 years.

Serra da Capivara

Serra da Capivara is a national park in the northeast of Brazil. This place is the home of many stone shelters that are decorated with rock paintings that represent ritual scenes, hunting, trees, animals. Some scholars believe that the oldest cave drawings in this park created 25,000 years ago.

Laas Gaal

Laas Gaal is a complex of caves in northwestern Somalia that contain some of the earliest known art on African continent. The prehistoric rock paintings are estimated by scientists to be between 11,000 and 5,000 years old. They show cows, ceremonially dressed people, domestic dogs and even giraffes.

Tadrart Acacus

Tadrart Acacus forms a mountain range in the Sahara desert, in western Libya. The area has been known for its rock paintings since 12,000 BC. up to 100 years. The paintings reflect the changing conditions of the Sahara Desert. 9,000 years ago, the local area was full of greenery and lakes, forests and wild animals, as evidenced by rock paintings depicting giraffes, elephants and ostriches.

Chauvet cave

Chauvet Cave, in the south of France, contains some of the earliest known prehistoric rock art in the world. The images preserved in this cave may be around 32,000 years old. The cave was discovered in 1994 by Jean Marie Chauvet and his team of cavers. The paintings found in the cave represent images of animals: mountain goats, mammoths, horses, lions, bears, rhinos, lions.

rock painting cockatoo

located on northern territory australia, national park Kakadu contains one of the largest concentrations of Aboriginal art. The oldest works are believed to be 20,000 years old.

Cave of Altamira

Discovered in the late 19th century, the Altamira Cave is located in northern Spain. Surprisingly, the paintings found on the rocks were such High Quality that scientists have long doubted their authenticity and even accused the discoverer Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola of forging paintings. Many do not believe in the intellectual potential of primitive people. Unfortunately, the discoverer did not live to see 1902. In this uphill the paintings were found to be authentic. The images are made with charcoal and ocher.

Paintings by Lascaux

The Lascaux Caves, located in the southwest of France, are adorned with impressive and famous rock paintings. Some of the images are 17,000 years old. Most of the rock paintings are depicted far from the entrance. Most famous images this cave - images of bulls, horses and deer. The largest rock art in the world is the bull in Lascaux Cave, which is 5.2 meters long.

primitive art

Anyone endowed with a great gift - feel the beauty surrounding world, feel harmony lines, admire the variety of shades of colors.

Painting- this is the artist's attitude captured on canvas. If your perception of the surrounding world is reflected in the artist's painting, then you feel an affinity with the works of this master.

Pictures attract attention, fascinate, excite the imagination and dreams, evoke memories of pleasant moments, favorite places and landscapes.

When did they appear first images man-made?

Appeal primitive people to a new type of activity for them - art - one of the greatest events in human history. primitive art reflected the first ideas of a person about the world around him, thanks to him knowledge and skills were preserved and transferred, people communicated with each other. In spiritual culture primitive world art began to play the same universal role that a pointed stone played in labor activity.

What prompted a person to think of depicting certain objects? How do you know if body painting was the first step towards creating images, or if a person guessed the familiar silhouette of an animal in a random outline of a stone and, having cut it, gave it a greater resemblance? Or maybe the shadow of an animal or a person served as the basis for the drawing, and the imprint of a hand or a step precedes the sculpture? There is no definite answer to these questions. Ancient people could come up with the idea of ​​depicting objects not in one, but in many ways.
For example, to the number the most ancient images on the walls of caves of the Paleolithic era are also human handprints, and a disorderly weave of wavy lines, pressed into the damp clay with the fingers of the same hand.

The works of art of the early Stone Age, or Paleolithic, are characterized by simplicity of forms and colors. Rock paintings are, as a rule, the contours of the figures of animals., made with bright paint - red or yellow, and occasionally - filled with round spots or completely painted over. Such ""paintings"" were clearly visible in the twilight of the caves, illuminated only by torches or the fire of a smoky fire.

At the initial stage of development primitive fine arts didn't know laws of space and perspective, as well as composition, those. intentional distribution on the plane of individual figures, between which there is necessarily a semantic connection.

In living and expressive images rises before us life history of primitive man era of the Stone Age, told by him in the rock paintings.

Dance. Painting by Lleid. Spain. With various movements and gestures, a person conveyed his impressions of the world around him, reflecting in them his own feelings, mood and state of mind. crazy horse racing, imitation of the habits of an animal, stamping feet, expressive hand gesturescreated the prerequisites for the emergence of dance. There were also martial dances associated with magic rituals, with faith in victory over the enemy.

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Composition in the cave of Lascaux. France. On the walls of the caves you can see mammoths, wild horses, rhinos, bison. Drawing for primitive man was the same "witchcraft" as a spell and ritual dance. “Conjuring” the spirit of the drawn animal by singing and dancing, and then “killing” it, the person seemed to master the power of the animal and “defeat” it before the hunt.

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And these are petroglyphs. Hawaii

Paintings on the Tassili-Adjer mountain plateau. Algeria.

Primitive people practiced sympathetic magic - in the form of dancing, singing, or pictures of animals on the walls of caves - to attract herds of animals and ensure the continuation of the family and the safety of livestock. Hunters acted out successful hunting scenes to draw energy into real world. They turned to the Mistress of the Herds, and later to the Horned God, who was depicted with the horns of goats or deer to emphasize his leadership in the herds. The bones of animals were supposed to be buried in the ground so that animals, like people, would be reborn from the womb of Mother Earth.

This is a cave drawing in the Lascaux region of France from the Paleolithic era.

Large animals were the preferred food. And the Paleolithic people, skilled hunters, destroyed most of them. And not just large herbivores. During the Paleolithic, cave bears completely disappeared as a species.

There is another type of rock paintings, which is of a mystical, mysterious nature.

Rock paintings from Australia. Either people, or animals, or maybe not both...

Drawings from West Arnhem, Australia.

Huge figures and a number of little men. And in the lower left corner, something is generally incomprehensible.

And here is a masterpiece from Laskaux, France.

North Africa, Sahara. Tassili. 6 thousand years BC Flying saucers and someone in a space suit. Or maybe it's not a spacesuit.

Rock painting from Australia...

Val Camonica, Italy.

and the next photo is from Azerbaijan, Gobustan region

Gobustan is included in the UNESCO heritage list

Who were those "artists" who managed to convey to remote eras the message of their time? What prompted them to do this? What were the hidden springs and the driving motives that guided them?..Thousands of questions and very few answers...Many of our contemporaries are very fond of being offered to look at history through a magnifying glass.

But is it really all that small?

After all, there were images of the gods

In the north of Upper Egypt is ancient city temples of Abydos. Its origin dates back to prehistoric times. It is known that already in the era ancient kingdom(about 2500 BC) in Abydos enjoyed wide veneration of the universal deity Osiris. Osiris, on the other hand, was considered a divine teacher who gave the people of the Stone Age diverse knowledge and crafts, and, quite possibly, knowledge about the secrets of the sky. By the way, it was in Abydos that he was found ancient calendar dated to the 4th millennium BC. e.

Ancient Greece And Ancient Rome also left a lot of rock evidence that reminds us of their existence. They already had developed writing - their drawings are much more interesting, from the point of view of studying everyday life, than ancient graffiti.

Why is humanity trying to find out what happened millions of years ago, what knowledge ancient civilizations had? We seek the source because we think that by uncovering it, we will know why we exist. Humanity wants to find where is the starting point from which it all began, because it thinks that there, apparently, there is an answer, “what is all this for”, and what will happen in the end ...

After all, the world is so vast, and the human brain is narrow and limited. The most difficult crossword puzzle of history must be solved gradually, cell by cell...

These schemes step by step drawing will help to create paintings with children that imitate rock art. Painting of cave walls by ancient hunters - oldest works visual arts known to mankind. Primitive pictures are made so expressively, brightly and lively that they still do not leave the audience indifferent.
Usually, cave artists depicted animals - the object of their hunt, less often - hunters, and almost never plants. Therefore, we offer you four schemes for step-by-step drawing figures with children rock art: little man, elk, ram and wild prehistoric horse.
For their work, ancient artists used natural pigments. We will use more modern materials for drawing. Pastels or felt-tip pens are best, but you can also draw with colored pencils or paints. But we will try to keep the “ancient” colors: red, brown, black.

Preparing paper for step-by-step drawing with children "Rock Painting"

Of course, you can draw on ordinary landscape sheets, but it is much more interesting to make the basis for the drawing - “stones”. What's more, they're easy to make. And the drawings made on such “stones” are wonderful to assemble into a whole “rock”.
You can make the basis for a step-by-step drawing with the children or prepare the “stones” in advance. First, imitating a stone surface. Use all shades Brown. Then, with a wide brush, draw a dark brown uneven line - the outline of the "stone". When the drawing is dry, cut the paper along the outline.
Ready-made basis for step-by-step drawing with children "Rock Painting".

Step-by-step drawing with children "Rock painting" on natural stones.

As the basis for the drawing, you can also choose real stones found on a walk or brought from a summer vacation. You can draw with a thin brush and gouache paint, marker, felt-tip pen, even soft with a simple pencil. For durability, it would be good to cover the drawing with a colorless varnish. Read about the tricks of such painting in the article. Choose the color of paints based on the color of the stone. In this case, the more contrast, the better.
Natural stones with figures of "Rock Painting"

Hunter - a step-by-step drawing scheme with children "Rock Painting"

Baran - a step-by-step drawing scheme with children "Rock Painting"

Elk - a step-by-step drawing scheme with children "Rock Painting"

Horse - a step-by-step drawing scheme with children "Rock Painting"

Diagram drawings can be printed out and given to the guys for independent work. Children can decide for themselves what kind of drawing they want to do, choose a paper (or real) “stone” for it, the color of a chalk or felt-tip pen. In one lesson, children of 7-8 years old will have time to make one or two drawings, if you tint paper “stones” with them together. Or all four pictures, if you give them ready-made “stones”. Such an activity will perfectly complement the reading of "Little Tales" by R. Kipling. For example, about a cat that walked by itself, or about how the first letter was written. You can read a book while the tinted base dries or just after all the work is finished.

Man's desire to capture the world, events that inspire fear, the hope of being successful in hunting, life, fighting with other tribes, nature, is demonstrated in the drawings. Found them all over the world from South America to Siberia. The rock art of primitive people is also called cave painting, since mountain, underground shelters were often used by them as shelters, reliably sheltering from bad weather and predators. In Russia they are called "pisanitsy". The scientific name of the drawings is petroglyphs. Scientists after the discovery sometimes paint over them for better visibility, safety.

Themes of rock art

Drawings carved on the walls of caves, open, vertical surfaces of rocks, free-standing stones, drawn with charcoal from a fire, chalk, mineral or plant substances, in fact, represent objects of art - engravings, paintings of ancient people. They usually show:

1. Figures of large animals (mammoths, elephants, bulls, deer, bison), birds, fish, which were coveted prey, as well as dangerous predators - bears, lions, wolves, crocodiles.
2. Scenes of hunting, dancing, sacrifices, war, boating, fishing.
3. Images of pregnant women, leaders, shamans in ritual robes, spirits, deities, and other mythical creatures, sometimes attributed by sensationalists to aliens.

These paintings gave scientists a lot to understand the history of the development of society, the animal world, and the Earth's climate change over thousands of years, because the early petroglyphs belong to the eras of the late Paleolithic, Neolithic, and the later ones to the Bronze Age. For example, the periods of domestication of the buffalo, wild bull, horse, and camel were determined in this way in the history of the use of animals by humans. Unexpected discoveries were the confirmation of the facts of the existence of bison in Spain, woolly rhinos in Siberia, prehistoric animals in great plain, representing today a huge desert - the Central Sahara.

Discovery history

Often this discovery is attributed to the Spanish amateur archaeologist Marcelino de Sautuola, who found in late XIX centuries, magnificent drawings in the cave of Altamira in his homeland. There, rock art, applied with charcoal and ocher, which primitive people have, was so good that it was long considered a fake and a hoax.

In fact, such drawings by that time had long been known throughout the world, with the exception of Antarctica. So, rock paintings along the banks of the rivers of Siberia, Far East known since the 17th century and described by famous travelers: scientists Spafariy, Stallenberg, Miller. Therefore, the discovery in the Altamira cave and the hype that followed is just an example of successful, albeit unintentional, propaganda in the scientific world.

famous drawings

Picture galleries, "photo exhibitions" of ancient people, striking the imagination with the plot, variety, quality of details:

1. Magura Cave (Bulgaria). Animals, hunters, ritual dances are depicted.
2. Cueva de las Manos (Argentina). The "Cave of Hands" depicts the left hands of the ancient inhabitants of this place, hunting scenes, painted in red-white-black colors.
3. Bhimbetka (India). People, horses, crocodiles, tigers and lions "mixed" here.
4. Serra da Capivara (Brazil). Hunting, scenes of rituals are depicted in many caves. The oldest drawings are at least 25 thousand years old.
5. Laas-Gaal (Somalia) - cows, dogs, giraffes, people in ceremonial clothes.
6. Chauvet cave (France). Opened in 1994. The age of some drawings, including mammoths, lions, rhinos, is about 32 thousand years.
7. Kakadu National Park (Australia) with images made by the ancient natives of the mainland.
8. Newspaper Rock (USA, Utah). Native American heritage, with an unusually high concentration of designs on a flat rocky cliff.

Rock art in Russia has a geography from the White Sea to the banks of the Amur, Ussuri. Here are a few of them:

1. White Sea petroglyphs (Karelia). More than 2 thousand drawings - hunting, battles, ritual processions, people on skis.
2. Shishkinsky pisanitsy on the rocks in the upper reaches of the Lena River (Irkutsk region). More than 3 thousand various drawings described in the middle of the 20th century by Academician Okladnikov. A convenient path leads to them. Although it is forbidden to climb there, this does not stop those who want to see the drawings up close.
3. Petroglyphs of Sikachi-Alyan (Khabarovsk Territory). This place was an ancient Nanai camp. The drawings show scenes of fishing, hunting, shaman masks.

It must be said that the rock art of primitive people in different places differs significantly in terms of preservation, plot scenes, and the quality of execution by ancient authors. But to see them at least, and if you're lucky in reality, it's like looking into the distant past.

More than three million years ago, the formation process began modern look of people. The sites of primitive man have been found in the most different countries peace. Our ancient ancestors, exploring new territories, encountered unfamiliar natural phenomena and formed the first centers of primitive culture.

Among the ancient hunters, people with extraordinary artistic talents stood out, who left many expressive works. In the drawings made on the walls of the caves, no corrections can be found, since unique masters was a very firm hand.

Primitive thinking

The problem of the origin of primitive art, reflecting the lifestyle of ancient hunters, has been worrying the minds of scientists for several centuries. Despite its simplicity, it is of great importance in the history of mankind. It reflects religious and social sphere the life of that society. The consciousness of primitive people is a very complex interweaving of two principles - illusory and realistic. It is believed that such a combination just had a character creative activity the first artists had a decisive impact.

Unlike modern art, the art of past eras is always connected with the everyday aspects of human life and seems more earthly. It fully reflects primitive thinking, which does not always have a realistic coloring. And the point here is not the low level of skill of the artists, but the special purposes of their creativity.

The emergence of art

IN mid-nineteenth century, archaeologist E. Larte discovered an image of a mammoth in the cave of La Madeleine. So, for the first time, the involvement of hunters in painting was proved. As a result of the discoveries, it was established that art monuments appeared much later than tools.

Representatives homo sapiens made stone knives, spearheads, and this technique was passed down from generation to generation. Later, people used bones, wood, stone and clay to create their first works. It turns out that primitive art arose when a person had free time. When the problem of survival was solved, people began to leave a huge number of monuments of the same type.

Kinds of art

Primitive art, which appeared in the late Paleolithic era (more than 33 thousand years ago), developed in several directions. The first is represented by rock paintings and megaliths, and the second - by small sculptures and carvings on bone, stone and wood. Unfortunately, wooden artifacts are extremely rare in archaeological sites. However, the objects created by man that have come down to us are very expressive and silently tell about the skill of ancient hunters.

It must be admitted that in the minds of the ancestors, art did not stand out as a separate field of activity, and not all people had the ability to create images. The artists of that era possessed such a powerful talent that he himself burst out, splashing bright and expressive images on the walls and vault of the cave, which overwhelmed the human mind.

The Old Stone Age (Paleolithic) is the earliest, but extended period, at the end of which all types of art appeared, which are characterized by external simplicity and realism. People did not connect the events with nature or themselves, they did not feel the space.

The most outstanding monuments of the Paleolithic are the drawings on the walls of the caves, which are recognized as the first type of primitive art. They are very primitive and represent wavy lines, prints of human hands, images of animal heads. These are clear attempts to feel part of the world and the first glimpses of consciousness among our ancestors.

The paintings on the rocks were made with a stone chisel or paint (red ocher, black charcoal, white lime). Scientists argue that along with the emerging art, the first rudiments of a primitive society (society) arose.

In the Paleolithic era, carving on stone, wood and bone develops. The figurines of animals and birds found by archaeologists are distinguished by the exact reproduction of all volumes. The researchers claim that they were created as amulets-amulets that protected the inhabitants of the caves from evil spirits. The oldest masterpieces had magical meaning and guided man in nature.

Different tasks facing the artists

Main feature primitive art in the Paleolithic era - its primitivism. Ancient people did not know how to convey space and endow natural phenomena human qualities. The visual image of animals was originally represented by a schematic, almost conditional, image. And only after a few centuries, colorful images appear that reliably show all the details. appearance wild animals. Scientists believe that this is not due to the level of skill of the first artists, but to the various tasks that were set before them.

Contour primitive drawings were used in rituals, created for magical purposes. But detailed, very accurate images appear at a time when animals turn into an object of veneration, and ancient people thus emphasize their mystical connection with them.

The heyday of art

According to archaeologists, the highest flowering of the art of primitive society falls on the Madeleine period (25-12 thousand years BC). At this time, animals are depicted in motion, and a simple contour drawing takes on three-dimensional forms.

The spiritual forces of hunters, who have studied the habits of predators to the smallest detail, are aimed at comprehending the laws of nature. Ancient artists convincingly draw images of animals, but the man himself does not receive special attention in art. In addition, not a single image of the landscape has ever been found. It is believed that ancient hunters simply admired nature, and feared predators and worshiped them.

The most famous samples of rock art of this period were found in the caves of Lascaux (France), Altamira (Spain), Shulgan-Tash (Urals).

"Sistine Chapel of the Stone Age"

Curious what's still in the middle 19th century cave painting was not known to scientists. And only in 1877, a famous archaeologist, who got into the Almamir cave, discovered rock paintings, which were later included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. It is no coincidence that the underground grotto was called the Sistine Chapel of the Stone Age. In rock art, one can see the confident hand of ancient artists who made the outlines of animals without any corrections, in single lines. By the light of the torch, which gives rise to an amazing play of shadows, it seems that volumetric images are moving.

Later, more than a hundred underground grottoes with traces of primitive people were found in France.

In the Kapova cave (Shulgan-Tash), located on Southern Urals, images of animals were found relatively recently - in 1959. 14 silhouette and contour drawings animals are made with red ocher. In addition, various geometric signs were also found.

The first humanoid images

One of the main themes of primitive art is the image of a woman. It was caused by the special specifics of the thinking of ancient people. The drawings were attributed Magic force. Found figures of naked and dressed women testify to a very high level skills of ancient hunters and transmit main idea image - the keeper of the hearth.

These figures are very obese women, the so-called venus. Such sculptures are the first humanoid images symbolizing fertility and motherhood.

Changes that took place during the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras

In the Mesolithic era, primitive art undergoes changes. Rock paintings are multi-figure compositions, on which you can trace various episodes from people's lives. Most often scenes of battles and hunting are depicted.

But the main changes in primitive society occur during the Neolithic period. A person learns to build new types of dwellings and builds structures on piles of brick. main theme art becomes the activity of the collective, and fine art is represented by rock paintings, stone, ceramic and wooden sculpture, clay plastics.

Ancient petroglyphs

It is impossible not to mention the multi-plot and multi-figure compositions, in which the main attention is paid to the animal and man. Petroglyphs (rock carvings that are carved or painted), painted in secluded places, attract the attention of scientists from all over the world. Some experts believe that they are ordinary sketches of everyday scenes. And others see in them some kind of writing, which is based on symbols and signs, and testifies to spiritual heritage our ancestors.

In Russia, petroglyphs are called "petroglyphs", and most often they are found not in caves, but in open areas. Made in ocher, they are perfectly preserved, because the paint is perfectly absorbed into the rocks. The subjects of the drawings are very wide and varied: the heroes are animals, symbols, signs and people. Even found schematic drawings stars solar system. Despite their very respectable age, petroglyphs made in realistic manner, speak of the great skill of the people who applied them.

And now research is ongoing to get closer to deciphering the unique messages left by our distant ancestors.

Bronze Age

In the Bronze Age, which is associated with the main milestones in the history of primitive art and humanity as a whole, new technical inventions appear, metal is mastered, people are engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding.

The themes of art are enriched with new plots, the role of figurative symbolism is increasing, geometric ornament. You can see scenes that are associated with mythology, and images become a special sign system that is understandable to some groups of the population. Appears zoomorphic and anthropomorphic sculpture, as well as mysterious structures - megaliths.

Symbols, through which a variety of concepts and feelings are conveyed, carry a great aesthetic load.

Conclusion

At the earliest stages of its development, art does not stand out as an independent sphere of human spiritual life. In primitive society, there is only nameless creativity, closely intertwined with ancient beliefs. It reflected the ideas of the ancient "artists" about nature, the surrounding world, and thanks to it, people communicated with each other.

If we talk about the features of primitive art, then we cannot fail to mention that it has always been associated with the labor activity of people. Only labor allowed the ancient masters to create real works that excite descendants with their vivid expressiveness. artistic images. Primitive expanded his understanding of the world around him, enriching his spiritual world. In the course of labor activity, people developed aesthetic feelings and an understanding of beauty took place. From the very moment of its inception, art had a magical meaning, and later existed with other forms of not only spiritual, but also material activity.

When man learned to create images, he gained power over time. Therefore, without exaggeration, we can say that the appeal of ancient people to art is one of the most important events in the history of mankind.