Neolithic art – 8000-3000 AC
Although it depends of the zones.
The art of the Neolithic shows a new way of capturing the need of humans to tell through a more effective graphic expression aspects that are for them perennially important such as; concerning their environment, events of daily life, propitiatory desires that help improve their lives, what they felt and what they saw. Thus, they introduce the symbols that represented what they wanted to express about all this, as a concept of their ideas synthetically.
In the period that is called as the Neolithic the glaciers of the northern hemisphere concluded their long and slow withdrawal, providing appropriate land and stabilizing the climate, one of the factors that allowed many tribes to abandon their wandering forms and begin to build more or less villages and permanent settlements.
The impact that this climate change had on humans was of maximum importance and were establishing in a bit more complex agrarian societies, this allowed them to have enough free time to explore the realization of some of the key aspects that make up a civilization, including religion; as a means of taking refuge in what they considered could grant them protection against the adversities of life in a hostile environment.
Other of these aspects were the measurement, the rudiments of architecture and writing and also the artistic representation of the elements of their environment through different media such as cave painting, the decoration of clay vessels or the elaboration of bulk statuettes, many with character propitiatory; as maternity and religious content, but further elaborated than those made during the Mesolithic.
The Neolithic peoples perfected agricultural and herd techniques domesticating their animals. With a growing and stable supply of grains and meats, human beings now had free time to reflect on their environment and develop new ideas as well as some quite radical technological advances.
Type of art that developed during this period:
- The fabric
- Architecture
- The construction of megaliths.
- Stylized pictographs.
- Statuary, painting and ceramics had in this era major refinement.
- The statuettes had a great boom after having been almost absent at the time of the Mesolithic.
- The issue of female fertility takes leading role as well as representation of the mother goddess very much in relation to agriculture.
There were statuettes that represented animals, however, these were not endowed with the detail enjoyed by the goddesses. They are often broken or in pieces; perhaps indicating that they were used symbolically in the hunting rituals.
In the Near East, in particular, the figurines were now clay and baked. And not only carved in stones. The use of this new technique allowed the increase in their production and more varied shapes and sizes.
The painting
They are observed in Western Europe and the Near East that these are removed from the caves and cliffs and focus on the purely decorative expression. Catal’s bronze findings; An old village in modern Turkey show
Rock paint in the Neolithic
- Has cave paint presenting vAriety in issues such as hunts and dances.
- The human figure appears. Silueted and stylized figures.
- Provision of scenes is shown.
- The images are presented as schematized; They do not tend to be realistic as in the Paleolithic period. This schematization has almost geometric characteristics that accentuate expressiveness.
Ceramics in the Neolithic
It begins to be more decorated with some and others animals with bands or both combined.
Dark and spiral lines are also among the designs. Towards the finals of the mid -time of the Neolithic for non -clear reasons, an abandonment of the naturalistic and figurative tendency towards symbolic and abstract tendencies occurs where the detail of the figures is not taken into account.
Main characteristics of Neolithic art
- It was still, almost without exception, created for functional purposes.
- The representation of images of human beings that are represented in more detail compared to that of animals is increased.
- The art to be used for ornamentation began adding this function to the functional nature.
- In the cases of architecture and megalithic constructions, art is now created in fixed locations.
- Temples, sanctuaries and stone rings were built, the gods and goddesses were provided with known destinations.
- The appearance of tombs provided rest places of the deceased.
Constructions in the period of Neolithic
- Menhir
- Dolmen.
- CROMLECH
- Burial caves.
These megaliths had a constructive complexity that can surprise us today considering that they were made so remotely in time by men in the Neolithic period. These sets show that these men had knowledge related to the stations and stars such as the sun, the moon and the stars since those megaliths are oriented so that the sunlight passes through them on certain dates coinciding with the solstices and the equinoxes.
The type of art of “Neolithic” continued flourishing in the Americas, Africa, Australia and in particular, Oceania.