Us and them

Title

Them and Us

Question

How artistically similar or different, do you think prehistoric people were compared to modern man and, what singular force or need continues to drive the artistic needs and human expressions of the 21^st century?

Part I

Summery

By researching this project I learned that there are differences between modern and prehistoric artists. But there are many similarities as well.

Reason

 The reason for this question is to show the various ways that the prehistoric and modern artists differed and to also point out the things they both have in common.  

Purpose

I picked this question because I knew there would be many more similarities between modern and pre historic people then the average person would expect.

Direction

This question will show the things that changed and the things that remained constant in art, from the very beginnings of human art work.

Impression

At first I thought that there would be allot more differences between prehistoric and modern art. But it turns out that there are many more similarities then I thought.

Part II

Answer

The differences between cave man art and modern art are the obvious ones. For instance, most modern painters use paints that are oil based. The artists of the prehistoric days used “charcoal and spit.” (Art History, 4^th addition Volume 1, Stokstad and Cothren, p 10). Another obvious difference is the tools the artists had at their disposal. The modern artists have a wide variety at their disposal. They can make art with the standard paintbrush and canvas or, can create something using a graphics program on a computer. While a cave dwelling artists might be limited to only sticks, bones and, his very own, hands and fingers. Cave people also had to create and make their own art supplies, while a modern artists could simple go to a store and buy the material he needed.

Has you can see, the differences between the two are only really skin deep. When you compare the works of art from both time periods more closely, you start to notice how art really hasn’t changed that much in the last 30,000 years.

Many pictures drawn by early man depicted herds of animals or people hunting animals. In 1994, hundreds of Cave paintings were discovered in the Chavet Cave located near Vallon-Pont-d’Arc in southern France. The paintings found on the cave were of animals such as, wild horses, mammoths, bison, bears, panthers, woolly rhinos, dear, and owls. (Art History, 4^th addition Volume 1, Stokstad and Cothren, p 9). Another painting found in Lascaux cave depicts a male, possible lying down, with an atlatl (a device used to through a spear farther) lying next to him. He is wearing what appears to be a bird head hat or mask, and there is a bison standing above the man. (Art History, 4^th addition Volume 1, Stokstad and Cothren, p 9). The former of these two paintings could describe what the artists hunted and killed. He could have created this as a sort of kill tally. Which to me, would be the same thing has a marine or soldier putting notches in his rifle, or a WW II pilot painting small silhouettes of the planes he has taken out. The former of these two could have been a picture of someone who witnessed one of their hunting mates killed in the line of duty. Such a thing can be compared to a war photographer taking pictures of the mortal dangers that surround the occupation of war. 

 

 Bird head man (possibly dead) with bison, Lascaux cave, France http://timothystephany.com/stone.html

Wall painting of various animals, Chauvet cave, Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, France. http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/origins.html

Even some of the technical aspects of the way art was created between then and now has not changed that greatly. One of the techniques archeologists Michel Lorblanchet demonstrated when recreating the caving painting located at Pech-Merle was very similar to the way a modern artist would use a cut out stencil to spray paint an image on an object. Lorblanchet painted the rump end of a horse by chewing on a piece of charcoal to dilute it with spit and water. He then put his hand on the cave wall and sprayed the solution below his thumb and hand using the natural curve it created as a stencil. (Art History, 4^th addition Volume 1, Stokstad and Cothren, p 10).

Above all I believe that the only difference between pre-historic artists and modern artists are the different tools and technology. The underlining theme of telling a story through the eyes of the artists has not changed since the first time an artist decided to vandalize or decorate his cave.