Similarities of cave painting
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In prehistoric art, the term "cave painting" encompasses any parietal art which involves the application of colour pigments on the walls, floors or ceilings of ancient rock shelters. A monochrome cave painting is a picture made with only one colour (usually black) - see, for instance, the monochrome images at Chauvet. A polychrome cave painting consists of two or more colours, as exemplified by the glorious multi-coloured images of bison on the ceiling at Altamira, or the magnificent aurochs in the Chamber of the Bulls at Lascaux. In contrast, the term "cave drawing" refers (strictly speaking) only to an engraved drawing - that is, one made by cutting lines in the rock surface with a flint or stone tool, rather than one made by drawing lines with charcoal or manganese.
Origins and History
At present we have no firm idea when cave painting first began. One theory links the evolution of Stone Age art to the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe during the period of the Upper Paleolithic. According to this theory, the development of cave art coincided with the displacement of Neanderthal man by anatomically modern man, starting around 40,000 BCE. Indeed, it was from about this date that the earliest rock art began to emerge in caves and rock shelters around the world, but especially throughout the Franco-Cantabrian region. Painting comes first, followed by mobiliary art, as exemplified by the portable Venus figurines like the Venus of Hohle Fels (38-33,000 BCE). Broadly speaking, cave painting techniques and materials improved across the board, century by century. Thus we see the monochrome paintings of Aurignacian culture (40-25,000 BCE) give way to the polychrome art of the Gravettian (25-20,000 BCE), leading to the apogee of cave painting which is traditionally acknowledged to occur during the Magdalenian era (c.15-10,000 BCE) at Lascaux, Altamira, Font de Gaume and Les Combarelles. During the Late Magdalenian, the Ice Age ended and a period of global warming led to the destruction of the Magdalenian reindeer habitat, along with its culture and its cave art.
Types
The majority of prehistoric cave paintings were figurative and 99 percent of these were of animals. At first, Stone Age artists painted predator animals (lions, rhinoceroses, sabre-toothed felines, bears) almost as often as game animals like bison and reindeer, but from the Solutrean era onwards imagery was dominated by game animals. Pictures of humans were an exceptionally rare occurrence, and were usually highly stylized and far less naturalistic than the animal figures. Abstract imagery (signs, symbols and other geometric markings) was also common, and actually comprises the oldest type of Paleolithic art found in caves of the Late Stone Age, as shown by recent dating results on paintings at El Castillo and Altamira. In addition to figure painting and abstract imagery, prehistoric caves are also heavily decorated with painted hand stencils rock art, most of which - according to recent research by Dean Snow of Pennsylvania State University - were made by females, but men and children were also involved. Some of the best examples of this form of painting are the Gargas Cave Hand Stencils (Haute-Garonne), the Panel of Hand Stencils at Chauvet (Ardeche), and the prints throughout the Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Hands) in Argentina.
Cave Painting in Three Stages
Typically a polychrome cave painting was created in three basic stages, which might vary significantly according to the experience and cultural maturity of the artist, the nature and contours of the rock surface, the strength and type of light, and the raw materials available. Take a picture of a bison, for instance. First, the outline and basic features of the animal are drawn on the cave wall, either by scoring the surface of the rock with a sharpened stone, or by applying a black outline using charcoal or manganese. Second, the completed drawing of the animal would be coloured or filled in with red ochre or other pigments. Third, the edges of the animal's body would be shaded with black or another pigment to increase its three-dimensionality. Alternatively, depending on whether or not the contour of the cave wall made it necessary, additional engraving or even sculpting would be applied to boost volume and relief.
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