Cave Art - Introduction

In the book, The Beginnings of Art, by Philip Van Dorenstern, the author says this of ancient art: “The more one studies Paleolithic Art, the more fascinating it becomes. All other arts are derivative from earlier work, and no matter how independent an artist may try to be, he cannot completely escape the influence of those who have gone before him. But in Paleolithic Art, one can see man’s first encounters with creativity and trace the evolution of styles. Here is where the study of art history must begin, for this is the very foundation of all the art that mankind has ever created.” Even what we see today, in this unit, is so evolved, I can’t help but wonder how long it took people to advance from circles and lines to these beautiful and accurate representations of animals.

The pictures we view this month are beautiful, accurate silkscreen copies of cave art. They were made by Douglas Mazonowicz. He spent most of his life visiting, photographing, sketching, studying and writing about cave art. Mr. Mazonowicz had this encouraging advise for those viewing cave art, “No true artist ever leaves a mark without trying to communicate something. So do not simply look at the paintings, observe them, too. No matter who you are or what you do, it matters little. Your personal theories and opinions are of value.” He is in complete agreement with the message we try to pass along to the children with the Docent Art Program! What wonderful validation for us!

He also encourages everyone to seize any opportunity to view and discover the secrets of the past. We can’t enter the caves he studied anymore, though. The caves with art in France and Spain are usually closed to the public. People’s presence brought in new elements that were damaging to the art. Their feet brought in bacteria. Their breath raised the temperature, causing molds to grow on the walls. Sometime people knowingly damaged these sights with graffiti or by taking samples as souvenirs. Sometimes people unknowingly damage ancient sites with bulldozers during development. We can encourage the children to have mini-archeological digs right around here. They could look for campsites, pottery fragments and arrowheads.
The prints we see this month are from the Paleolithic time or “Stone Age”, about 15,000 to 35,000 years ago. During this time the Cro-Magnon people lived, invented, hunted, observed animals and plants and changes in the moon and in the seasons. They survived floods and glaciers. Despite enormous hardship, art was an integral part of their daily life. It wasn’t something that was just for entertainment. It was a necessity. What is represented in their art was of life saving importance. They drew such things as food to eat, plants growing and babies being born.

The places chosen for the artwork is of interest, also. Some of these caves were very difficult to reach. Some were dangerous to enter. They were not places of comfort. Sometimes there wasn’t even enough room for the artist to view the artwork. Yet, when the photos are pieced together, we see that they are in correct perspective and expressed with exquisite detail and lifelike form. Some people compare the caves with their art to churches and temples with innermost, holy chambers. Even if only certain privileged and talented people drew the pictures, perhaps all knew of them and were comforted by them. Did the artists tell of the paintings and others told stories and others sang and danced stories about them? We don’t know the answers but the class can ponder some of these mysteries and we can all think about the role that art plays (or doesn’t play) in our own lives.

It is very important that at some point in your visit, you communicate to the class that these people were very much like we are today in terms of intelligence and a desire for quality. They constantly improved the design of their tools and utensils. They also created beautiful utilitarian objects. We might think that they didn’t “have” to. Then why did they? There is even evidence of methods of counting and keeping track of time periods with calendar-like charts that date back to 15, 000 years ago. Ask the children (before showing them any pictures.) what cave people or stone age people were like. In addition to the stereotypes of inability to communicate, you will most likely also hear the long lasting image of women being dragged back to a cave. You can promise the class that the pictures will prove that these people could not have been like that at all.

Children make important discoveries.

Many of the most important discoveries of cave art were made by children. Aren’t they always exploring, discovering, even seeing things unseen by adults? Sometimes these children were outplaying with friends or walking their dog. After discovery, sometimes the cave was used for a while as a secret “hideout” before they told others about it. Sometimes these caves were named for the young explorers. In 1879, a nine year old Spanish girl and her father were out walking when she discovered the cave of Altimira. That was the first discovery of prehistoric art and it was so beautiful that people thought that it was hoax. They had not believed cave or stone-age people to be capable of such intelligence and sensitivity. In 1968, again in Spain, a teacher and his young students were accustomed to hiking in the hillsides where they carefully looked for examples of signs of early humans. Their eyes had been trained to know what to look for, such as scratches on the rocks or rocks that had been chipped into scraping and cutting tools. They wrote a report about their discoveries and sent it to the Spanish government, bringing national attention to their little village.

Consider an introduction:
Consider speaking with the class before showing them any pictures. You can ask them, as I suggested earlier, about cave people and stone-age people. To assist in unraveling those stereotypes you could then suggest that they imagine being left out in the woods with nothing, not even clothes. (They’ll only be silly for a second.) What will they eat? How will they protect themselves from the cold? What will they do for shelter? How will they make a fire? In order to solve these problems, will it take intelligence? Could a stupid person survive? Could a stupid person invent and make tools? They will soon see that the people who survived glacier times with tools made from only stone, wood, rope and bone were just like us, only stronger.

Questions that apply to all of the prints:

• Why did the people make these paintings? (After hearing their ideas you can tell the children that some of the paintings were difficult to make and the caves were dangerous to crawl into.)
• Why do people draw and paint and sculpt at all?
• For fun?
• To communicate? To communicate what?
• For telling stories?
• For religious reasons?
• For magic?
• To sell for money?
• For fame?
• Any other reasons?
• Are the reasons for making art different for us than they were for the Cro-Magnon people? Why do you think so?
• How do you think the color was made? Did they go to an art store? Were there chemists to mix things for them?
• What would you use for these colors? (The youngest children usually say berries and water.)
• They used basically three colors – red iron oxide, black from carbon and yellow ochre from clay. All three colors were made from minerals from the earth. I wonder if they knew that these elements would last thousands and thousands of years. Imagine that! And we can’t get house paint to stay on for ten years.
• Did they sign their work? Do you sign your artwork? Why do you? (Individual names were not signed, that we know of, even though individual styles are evident. However, all over the world, in the U.S., in Spain, France and Africa, there is the hand symbol, which seems to say, “I was here. I did this.” The image was formed by blowing ground-up pigment (color) from the earth’s rocks, through a hollow bone over the hand, placed against the wall. When they lifted their hand a negative stencil was formed, leaving the outline of the hand.