Sheila explores the sophistication of cave art and the prehistoric painters who created it. Learn about the techniques and pigments they used, and how much effort went into getting just the right colour!
The earliest examples of European rock art are dated to about 36,000 years ago, but it was not until around 18,000 years ago that European rock art actually flourished. This was the time following the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (22,000-19,000 years ago) when climatic conditions were beginning to improve after reaching their most critical point of the Ice Age.
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It is so hard to even conceive of history before the printed word, pre-history, literally.
So when we think about the Stone Age, most of what comes to mind are cavemen,
Neanderthals, just eking out survival covered in furs, maybe. At first, the Stone Age artisans
were taking pigments mixed in their mouth and spraying it on simple shapes like their hands
and other things to create images on the wall. But even before the end of the last Ice Age,
we start seeing gorgeous, sophisticated images like at Altamira, Spain, and Lascaux in France.
Now, some of these images have become so famous, so well known to us, that we actually fail to
consider their deeper cultural implications and how they actually challenge some of our notions
of the Stone Age. Let's take, for example, the Lascaux caves. In those caves, you see very common
pigments, chalk, red clay, yellow clay, even charcoal that has been used from burned wood.
But we have now taken chemical analysis of some of those paintings, and we know that some of that
black is actually a very rare form of manganese called housemanite. Even more interesting,
the nearest place where you can find that housemanite, the manganese, is 150 miles away,
in the Pyrenees, in the mountains. Furthermore, in order to derive manganese from the stones that
contain it, you have to burn it in a fire that it measures at least 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit
in order to get that color. Think about that. A Stone Age artist was so careful about choosing
his blacks that he decided he needed manganese from 150 miles away, wrought in a 1,650 degree
temperature, just to have something different than charcoal. There are other considerations
to be made. Height, for example. Many of these caves have pictures so high that some sort of
scaffolding would have had to have been used. It would have had to have been engineered to hoist
the artisan up high enough so that they could have painted something in a steady enough fashion to
create such sophisticated images. Also, light source. Caves? Notoriously dark, right? So,
was there some sort of apprentice 17,000 years ago that had to hold aloft a torch just so an
artist could paint sun-dabbled creatures? At minimum, this should change our perspective
of cavemen. But maybe it also should change our opinion of the importance of art.
There you go. That's your art prehistory lesson for today. I hope you enjoyed it.
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