Artifying You: Ch. 1 - The Cave Paintings

The cave paintings of the prehistoric man are very interesting to study as they are the first paintings ever done and have not lost their influence. In fact, today’s contemporary art seems to drift in that direction with a similar style.

Shaded Bison

Paintings of that era from the Neolithic age onwards are full of animals which look powerful and life like. They have a strong line and outline and are filled in with either a block colour or are sometimes shaded. The lines are done in strong charcoal that was the leftover burnt stick from the fire and the fill in colour was dull and natural, made of mud and natural pigments.

Strong, bold line

They painted their pictures in the interiors of the cave which were dark and difficult to get into. This suggests that they did not have them for decorative purposes or paint for pleasure otherwise they would have painted near the entrance where the paintings could be seen.

We think the pictures were for a hunting magic because some animals have sticks or spears in them. There are also many paintings of hunting scenes and generally, human figures appear only in hunting positions. They probably believed that if they painted an animal and ‘killed’ it by jabbing spears and knives into them they would be more successful in hunting.

Strong line; Movement; One on top of the other

They therefore painted only for a one time purpose, therefore one on top of the other, to save space. It is remarkable that they would take so much paint it only for a one time use but they probably believed that the more real it looked, the more successful they’d be.

These paintings have much variety probably because they depended on what the artist saw, knew and felt and how much the artist saw, knew and felt.

TODAY…

Animals like horses, bulls and cows seem to have taken the art world by storm and one distinct feature of most of the animal works of prominent artists is, they have a strong definite line. This gives depth and strength to their animals.

Also, in the animal paintings of today’s masters, there is movement like we see in the hunting or migrating scenes of the cave paintings.