Why did ancient people draw animals? Causes of magic
As a result, it seemed that the ancients looked at images of animals in the same way as modern man admiring the Louvre artistic canvases. The art of cave dwellers was proposed to be perceived for the most part as a purely artistic phenomenon, naturalistic in nature. It was argued that it was intended to decorate and ennoble the life of savages, who were most excited by the images of animals. Of course, it was the animals that provided them with the bulk of their food. It is useless to look for any “hidden ideas” behind these images. True, timid voices were heard that noted some strange features in the art of “antediluvian” artists and called for finding some extraordinary meaning in these ancient zoomorphic images. However, most archaeologists were not yet ready to solve the complex problem. Mysterious world ideas primitive man I have not yet succumbed to their understanding.
But there were also those who, pondering the meaning of the artistic creativity of the troglodytes, began to guess that perhaps something very significant was hidden behind its images. Edouard Piette, perhaps more prepared than anyone else to discuss this subject, drew attention first of all to the fact that not every camp kept objects of art in the ground. He regarded this as a sign that even in Ice Age, along with artistically gifted people, there were those “who had no other desires other than satisfying animal needs.” Other “tribes rose above the needs of material existence and devoted their leisure time to the pursuit of art...” As for the latter, the appearance, for example, sculptural images Piette explained women this way: “Love prompted the first sculptor to reproduce the woman he loved.”
Another important motive of creativity is the reproduction in images of art of what gave a person food: “Glyptic artists often painted what was well known to them - animals and fish that were eaten. They did not look for other motives. Most often they depicted horses, which by that time had been half-domesticated in order to have a constant source of meat. Dreaded rhinoceroses were prey and were rarely engraved. Large cats posed a serious danger to humans at that time. He was not able to fight them, and therefore there are no images of them. Fox, wolf and hyena meat had a disgusting taste and was not valued in the diet. Therefore, they were rarely painted. People of that time were not vegetarians, preferring to eat meat. Therefore, plants were rarely depicted.” In these cursory remarks one can see the beginnings of a future concept about the reflection of the Ice Age in art magic shows: An image of those animals that were desired by people in real life.
Of no less interest are brief remarks Pietta on the possibility of reflection of Cro-Magnons in objects of art religious ideas, the appearance of which in such distant times was far from an indisputable fact for leading archaeologists of the “prehistory” of Europe. So, in the sculptures of women he saw amulets or some sacred objects. In the same vein, Piette assessed 37 engraved and sculptural images of snakes that he found during excavations: “It seems that they were then objects of superstitious fear, these amulets in the form of snakes discovered in Gurdan, Mas d'Azil and Lorte. They were symbols of the cult , As in ancient times. This is the only way to explain the presence of spirals in their images.” The characteristic drawings with diverging rays allowed him to suggest that they reflected the image of the solar deity, the possibility of whose existence in the ideas of “Man of Nature” was hinted at in his time by Boucher de Pert. In connection with the likelihood of religious ideas being reflected in the images of troglodyte art, Piette’s thought about two directions in their art is of exceptional interest. artistic creativity: “During almost the entire glyptic era, two movements can be traced in art, according to which artists belong to – realism and fantasy.” He considered all kinds of ornaments to be the fruits of the “art of imagination,” including the same spirals that became especially popular during the period of the appearance of bas-reliefs.
1. How the cave painting was found.
In the past, scientists were unaware that among prehistoric people there were real artists who knew how to create colorful drawings. More than 130 years ago such paintings were discovered modern society one archaeologist from Spain. In northern Spain, he excavated a cave called Alypamiira. One day he took his little daughter to the excavations. While the father was digging in the ground, his daughter fell into the recess of a low cave and suddenly shouted “Dad, look, painted bulls!” When the father entered the cave, on its ceiling he saw images of bison, as if frozen in bizarre poses while running. Unknown prehistoric artists used red, black and brown paint, and were able to achieve a surprisingly vibrant and three-dimensional picture. Following Altamira, came the discovery of other ancient caves with works primitive art.
Ancient artists learned to convey not only the appearance, but also the character of the animals they hunted. Deer were depicted as sensitive and alert, horses as swift and fast running, mammoths as slow and heavy.
2. Mysteries of ancient drawings.
The following drawing was found on the wall of one of the caves. The hunter with the head of a bird falls backward. The bison, pierced by a sharp spear, puts out its horns, the huge rhinoceros walks away. But we don’t yet know what these drawings mean.
Scientists also know other mysteries; they are trying to figure out why prehistoric artists painted in the depths of dark caves, where they could not reach sunlight and why did they draw bleeding animals?
This is the conclusion that scientists come to.
3. The man tried to “bewitch” the beast.
Primitive people were afraid that the animals they hunted might disappear in the forests and plains, and that fish would disappear in reservoirs. How to prevent this? Is it possible to influence animals? Most likely, one of them came up with the idea that there might be a connection between the animal and its image. If you depict these animals in the depths of a cave, they will be enchanted and will not be able to leave its edges. And if you draw an animal, for example a bear or a rhinoceros, wounded, then it will be easier to kill it during the hunt.
To try to unravel the purpose of ancient cave paintings, scientists decided to study tribes that to this day are engaged in gathering and primitive hunting. One of these tribes in Australia performed a magical ritual before a hunt, hitting an animal drawn in the sand with spears. So in primitive society belief in witchcraft, the soul and magical connections with the outside world. 
The palette of primitive man was poor: it had four main colors - black, white, red and yellow. To obtain white images, chalk and chalk-like limestones were used; black - charcoal and manganese oxides; red and yellow - minerals hematite (Fe2O3), pyrolusite (MnO2) and natural dyes - ocher, which is a mixture of iron hydroxides (limonite, Fe2O3.H2O), manganese (psilomelane, m.MnO.MnO2.nH2O) and clay particles. In caves and grottoes of France, stone slabs were found on which ocher was ground, as well as pieces of dark red manganese dioxide. Judging by the painting technique, pieces of paint were ground and mixed with bone marrow, animal fat or blood. Chemical and X-ray diffraction analysis of paints from the Lascaux cave showed that not only natural dyes were used, mixtures of which give different shades primary colors, but also rather complex compounds obtained by firing them and adding other components (kaolinite and aluminum oxides).
Serious study of cave dyes is just beginning. And questions immediately arise: why were only inorganic paints used? The primitive man-gatherer distinguished more than 200 different plants, among which were dyeing ones. Why are the drawings in some caves made in different tones of the same color, and in others - in two colors of the same tone? Why does it take so long to enter early painting colors of the green-blue-blue part of the spectrum? In the Paleolithic they are almost absent; in Egypt they appear 3.5 thousand years ago, and in Greece only in the 4th century. BC e. Archaeologist A. Formozov believes that our distant ancestors did not immediately understand the bright plumage " magic bird" - Earth. The most ancient colors, red and black, reflect the harsh coloring of the life of that time: the sun's disk on the horizon and the flame of a fire, the darkness of the night full of dangers and the darkness of the caves bringing relative peace. Red and black were associated with opposites ancient world: red - warmth, light, life with hot scarlet blood; black - cold, darkness, death... This symbolism is universal. It was a long way from the cave artist, who had only 4 colors in his palette, to the Egyptians and Sumerians, who added two more (blue and green) to them. But even further from them is the 20th century cosmonaut who took a set of 120 colored pencils on his first flights around the Earth.
The second group of questions that arise when studying cave painting concerns the technology of drawing. The problem can be formulated as follows: did the animals depicted in the drawings of Paleolithic man “come out” of the wall or “go into” it?
In 1923, N. Casteret discovered a Late Paleolithic clay figure of a bear lying on the ground in the Montespan cave. It was covered with indentations - traces of dart strikes, and numerous prints were found on the floor bare feet. A thought arose: this is a “model” that incorporates hunting pantomimes around the carcass of a dead bear, established over tens of thousands of years. Then the following series can be traced, confirmed by finds in other caves: a life-size model of a bear, dressed in its skin and decorated with a real skull, is replaced by its clay likeness; the animal gradually “gets to its feet” - it is leaned against the wall for stability (this is already a step towards creating a bas-relief); then the animal gradually “retracts” into it, leaving a drawn and then a pictorial outline... This is how archaeologist A. Solar imagines the emergence of Paleolithic painting.
Another way is no less likely. According to Leonardo da Vinci, the first drawing is the shadow of an object illuminated by a fire. Primitive begins to draw, mastering the “outlining” technique. The caves have preserved dozens of such examples. On the walls of the Gargas cave (France) 130 “ghost hands” are visible - human handprints on the wall. It is interesting that in some cases they are depicted with a line, in others - by filling in the external or internal contours (positive or negative stencil), then drawings appear, “torn off” from the object, which is no longer depicted in life-size, in profile or frontally. Sometimes objects are drawn as if in different projections (face and legs - profile, chest and shoulders - frontally). Skill gradually increases. The drawing acquires clarity and confidence of the stroke. By best drawings biologists confidently determine not only the genus, but also the species, and sometimes the subspecies of an animal.
The Magdalenian artists take the next step: through painting they convey dynamics and perspective. Color helps a lot with this. Full of life the horses of the Grand Ben cave seem to be running in front of us, gradually decreasing in size... Later this technique was forgotten, and similar drawings are not found in rock paintings either in the Mesolithic or Neolithic. The last step is the transition from a perspective image to a three-dimensional one. This is how sculptures appear, “emerging” from the walls of the cave.
Which of the above points of view is correct? A comparison of the absolute dating of figurines made of bones and stone indicates that they are approximately the same age: 30-15 thousand years BC. e. Maybe in different places did the cave artist take different paths?
Another of the mysteries of cave painting is the lack of background and frame. Figures of horses, bulls, and mammoths are scattered freely along the rock wall. The drawings seem to hang in the air; not even a symbolic line of ground is drawn under them. On the uneven vaults of caves, animals are placed in the most unexpected positions: upside down or sideways. No in drawings of primitive man and a hint of the landscape background. Only in the 17th century. n. e. in Holland the landscape is designed into a special genre.
The study of Paleolithic painting provides specialists with abundant material for searching for the origins various styles and trends in contemporary art. For example, a prehistoric master, 12 thousand years before the advent of pointillist artists, depicted animals on the wall of the Marsoula cave (France) using tiny colored dots. The number of similar examples can be multiplied, but something else is more important: the images on the walls of caves are a fusion of the reality of existence and its reflection in the brain of Paleolithic man. Thus, Paleolithic painting carries information about the level of thinking of a person of that time, about the problems that he lived with and that worried him. Primitive art, discovered more than 100 years ago, remains a real Eldorado for all kinds of hypotheses on this matter.
Dublyansky V.N., popular science book
Human civilization has passed long haul development and achieved impressive results. Modern Art- one of them. But everything has its beginning. How did painting arise and who were they - the first artists of the world?
The beginning of prehistoric art - types and forms
In the Paleolithic, primitive art first appeared. It had different shapes. These included rituals, music, dances and songs, as well as painting images on various surfaces - rock paintings primitive people. The creation of the first man-made structures - megaliths, dolmens and menhirs, the purpose of which is still unknown, dates back to this period. The most famous of them is Stonehenge in Salisbury, consisting of cromlechs (vertical stones).
Household items, such as jewelry, children's toys, also belong to the art of primitive people.
Periodization
Scientists have no doubts about the time of the birth of primitive art. It began to form in the middle of the Paleolithic era, during the period of existence late Neanderthals. The culture of that time is called Mousterian.
Neanderthals knew how to process stone, creating tools. On some objects, scientists found indentations and notches in the form of crosses, forming a primitive ornament. In that era they could not yet paint, but ocher was already in use. Pieces of it were found ground down, like a pencil that had been used.
Primitive rock art - definition
This is one of the types. It is an image painted on the surface of a cave wall by an ancient man. Most of such objects were found in Europe, but drawings of ancient people are also found in Asia. The main area of distribution of rock art is the territory of modern Spain and France.
Doubts of scientists
For a long time modern science it was not known that the art of primitive man had reached such high level. Drawings were not found in caves until the 19th century. Therefore, when they were first discovered, they were mistaken for fraud.
The story of one discovery
The ancient cave painting was discovered by an amateur archaeologist, Spanish lawyer Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola.
This discovery is associated with dramatic events. In the Spanish province of Cantabria in 1868, a hunter discovered a cave. The entrance to it was littered with fragments of crumbled rock. In 1875 she was examined by de Sautuola. That time he found only tools. The find was the most ordinary. Four years later, the amateur archaeologist again visited the Altamira cave. He was accompanied on the trip by his 9-year-old daughter, who discovered the drawings. Together with his friend, archaeologist Juan Vilanova y Piera, de Sautuola began excavating the cave. Shortly before this, at an exhibition of Stone Age objects, he saw images of bison, surprisingly reminiscent of that rock art an ancient man who was seen by his daughter Maria. Sautuola suggested that the animal images found in the Altamira cave belong to the Paleolithic. Vilanov-i-Pierre supported him in this.
Scientists have published the shocking results of their excavations. And they were immediately accused scientific world in falsification. Leading experts in the field of archeology categorically rejected the possibility of finding paintings from Paleolithic times. Marcelino de Sautuola was accused that the drawings of ancient people, allegedly found by him, were drawn by a friend of the archaeologist, who was visiting him in those days.
Only 15 years later, after the death of the man who had revealed to the world beautiful examples of painting by ancient people, his opponents admitted that Marcelino de Sautuola was right. By that time, similar drawings in the caves of ancient people had been found in Fonts-de-Gaume, Trois-Freres, Combarel and Rouffignac in France, Tuc d'Auduber in the Pyrenees and other regions. All of them were attributed to the Paleolithic era. Thus, the honest name of the Spanish scientist, who made one of the notable discoveries in archeology, was restored.
The skill of ancient artists
Rock painting, the photo of which is presented below, consists of many images of different animals. Among them, bison figurines predominate. Those who first saw the drawings of ancient people found in are amazed at how professionally they were made. This magnificent skill of ancient artists made scientists at one time doubt their authenticity.
Ancient people did not immediately learn to create accurate images of animals. Drawings have been found in which the outlines are barely outlined, so it is almost impossible to find out who the artist wanted to depict. Gradually, the drawing skill became better and better, and it was already possible to quite accurately convey the appearance of the animal.
The first drawings of ancient people can also include handprints found in many caves.
A hand smeared with paint was applied to the wall, the resulting print was outlined in a different color and enclosed in a circle. According to researchers, this action had important ritual significance for ancient man.
Themes of painting by the first artists
The rock painting of an ancient man reflected the reality that surrounded him. It reflected what worried him most. In the Paleolithic, the main occupation and method of obtaining food was hunting. Therefore animals main motive drawings of that period. As already mentioned, numerous images of bison, deer, horses, goats, and bears were discovered in Europe. They are conveyed not statically, but in motion. Animals run, jump, frolic and die, pierced by a hunter's spear.
Located in France, there is the largest ancient image bull Its size is more than five meters. In other countries, ancient artists also painted those animals that lived next to them. In Somalia, images of giraffes were found, in India - tigers and crocodiles, in the caves of the Sahara there are drawings of ostriches and elephants. In addition to animals, the first artists painted scenes of hunting and people, but extremely rarely.
Purpose of rock paintings
It is not known exactly why ancient man depicted animals and people on the walls of caves and other objects. Since by that time a religion had already begun to take shape, they most likely had deep ritual significance. The “Hunting” drawing of ancient people, according to some researchers, symbolized the successful outcome of the fight against the beast. Others believe that they were created by tribal shamans who went into a trance and tried to gain special power through the image. Ancient artists lived a very long time ago, and therefore the motives for creating their drawings are unknown to modern scientists.
Paints and tools
To create drawings, primitive artists used special technique. First, they scratched an image of an animal on the surface of a rock or stone with a chisel, and then applied paint to it. It was made from natural materials- ocher different colors and black pigment, which was extracted from charcoal. Animal organic matter (blood, fat, brain matter) and water were used to fix the paint. Ancient artists had few colors at their disposal: yellow, red, black, brown.
The drawings of ancient people had several features. Sometimes they overlapped each other. Artists often depicted a large number of animals. In this case, the figures on foreground were depicted carefully, and the rest - schematically. Primitive people did not create compositions; the vast majority of their drawings were a chaotic jumble of images. To date, only a few “paintings” have been found that have a single composition.
During the Paleolithic period, the first painting tools were already created. These were sticks and primitive brushes made from animal fur. Ancient artists also took care of lighting their “canvases.” Lamps were discovered that were made in the form of stone bowls. Fat was poured into them and a wick was placed.
Chauvet Cave
She was found in 1994 in France, and her collection of paintings is recognized as the oldest. Laboratory studies helped determine the age of the drawings - the very first of them were made 36 thousand years ago. Here were found images of animals that lived in glacial period. These are the woolly rhinoceros, bison, panther, tarpan (ancestor of the modern horse). The drawings are perfectly preserved due to the fact that thousands of years ago the entrance to the cave was blocked.
It is now closed to the public. The microclimate in which the images are located may disturb human presence. Only its researchers can spend several hours in it. It was decided to open a replica of the cave nearby for visiting spectators.
Lascaux Cave
This is another one famous place, where drawings of ancient people were found. The cave was discovered by four teenagers in 1940. Now her collection of paintings by ancient Paleolithic artists includes 1,900 images.
The place has become very popular with visitors. The huge influx of tourists led to damage to the drawings. This happened due to an excess of carbon dioxide exhaled by people. In 1963, it was decided to close the cave to visitors. But problems with the preservation of ancient images still exist today. The microclimate of Lascaux has been irreversibly disrupted, and the drawings are now under constant control.
Conclusion
The drawings of ancient people delight us with their realism and skillful execution. Artists of that time were able to convey not only the authentic appearance of the animal, but also its movement and habits. In addition to aesthetic and artistic value, the paintings of primitive artists are important material for studying the animal world of that period. Thanks to the drawings found in the Chauvet Grotto, scientists made an astonishing discovery: it turned out that lions and rhinoceroses, the original inhabitants of hot southern countries, lived in Europe during the Stone Age.
“Primitive history” is the history of modern times. The history of the emergence of man is complex and contradictory. What era in history was the longest? history of the Middle Ages. Why did primitive artists paint animals? Hunting and fishing. History of mankind. Why the most ancient era history of mankind is called primitive?
"The First Ancient People" - Many Tribes. Austalopithecines were vertically challenged. Mastery of fire. Hunting of ancient people. If the fire went out, the culprits were expelled. Lesson assignment. Pithecanthropus. Flakes. Tools. Australopithecus lived in trees. Use of fire. The first people appeared in east africa. The earliest people. The oldest weapons labor.
“The History of Ancient Man” - History in symbols and signs. Inventions and discoveries (50). Archaeologists have discovered a site of primitive people. How did the stone chopper come about? Inventions and discoveries (10). Inventions and discoveries (60). History in architectural monuments(50). Religion. What does the word history mean? 40 BC for 80 years.
“The Emergence of Art and Religious Beliefs” - Religion. Determine the main occupation of the inhabitants of the Teshik-Tash grotto. Art is a creative reflection of reality. The emergence of art and religious beliefs. Life of primitive people. Drawings on the walls of caves. Why do archaeologists dig up people's graves? Petroglyphs. What word can be used to replace it? Algorithm independent work with an electronic textbook.
“Lesson Ancient People” - Draw a conclusion. Task No. 2. Terminal. Task No. 3. Traveling through stations. Grading. Task No. 4. Life of primitive people. Card No. 2 Prepare a detailed answer to the question “Why did inequality appear?” Zadachkino. Crossword. The purpose of the lesson. Systematization and quality control of knowledge on the topic “Life of primitive people.”
“Agriculture and cattle breeding” - Hoe farming. Sheep. Fishing. A group of relatives running a common household. Agriculture originated more than 10 thousand years ago in Western Asia. Agriculture. Clay dishes. Gathering. The most powerful spirits were called gods. Grain grater. From gathering to farming. Cattle breeding. ...Housekeeping.
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