If we talk about painting, places and works such as the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo, The Last Supper by Leonard, Las Meninas of Velazquez, the Shootings of Goya… and a long etcetera. What we sometimes forget are the beginnings, it happens to us on many occasions. Today we want to go back in time, thousands of years ago when humans took their first steps through inhospitable places. We will once again dress in animal skins like our ancestors and imagine what they imagined. Today we will talk about the first known art, Paleolithic art.
Let’s take a look at the past, we have to turn back our clocks to almost 40,000 BC At this moment the human being populates almost the entire globe, we could place the beginning of our passage here.
Despite being the stage of history that lasts the longest, prehistory is unknown to many and its art even more so. We are not going to go into specific stages within it, but we must be aware of human development during all these millennia. Little by little this relatively new being in the world was forging its existence and perfecting its techniques. We know that prehistoric societies were made up of tribes, groups of no more than 20 or 30 people. Let us also think that they are still nomads, they go from here to there gathering and hunting, so feeding a large group would be difficult. This same reason is what makes them not create buildings, they take advantage of the caves and shelters. A curiosity is that they are usually located in very steep areas where it is very difficult to access, this gives us an idea of how agile our ancestors were. At this time they begin to create tools, knives, axes… that would help them hunt more easily. The work was shared between men and women. They were in charge of hunting large game while they were in charge of caring for the minors as well as gathering, fishing and hunting smaller animals such as rabbits or birds.
As far as the art in this time is reduced to the wall artthat is, the one that was done on the walls by painting or scratching with a punch until signs or figures were created and the furniture art which were small carvings of idols or deities associated above all with fertility. The best known piece is Venus of Willendorf. This work is a clear representation of fertility and motherhood. This woman of barely 11 cm is a masterful example of how the conception of beauty changes over time. For prehistoric man, a woman like this, with wide hips and large breasts, indicated that she was a healthy woman and with whom she could procreate easily.
During the Paleolithic period (13,000 – 6,000 BC), which is what we are going to discuss today, there must have been various types of artistic manifestations, but what has survived to this day has only been sculpture, painting and engravings, as we have already mentioned. Without a doubt, painting is the one that has transcended the most. Before analyzing two of the most important schools that existed in the Iberian Peninsula during this period, we must know how they were painted.
Cave paintings are usually found inside caves or mountain shelters. Surely Paleolithic artists would have a special place in the tribe, knowledge was needed that not everyone could achieve. These artists, artisans whatever we want to call them, used to use only one color, normally it was the black that they extracted from minerals or coal. Another color that is often used is red, which was extracted mainly from iron oxide. But how did they paint? They painted as we have all done at some point, with our hands. In other cases they used very rude brushes.
diments made from animal hair. Another technique is called ‘airbrushing’, consisted of expelling the paint with the mouth or with a kind of cane on the hands generally. By doing this you get a negative effect like the one in the images.
Another question arises when we study prehistoric art, what did our ancestors paint? Above all, animals were painted, reindeer, deer, mammoth, rhinoceros, bison… almost all of them in profile. Contrary to what many think, not only animal figures were painted; It is true that most of these figures have survived to this day, but the representation of signs is very common, as is the case with hands and feet. Human figures are less common and, as we will see below, are reduced above all to the Levantine school.
Since the first paintings were discovered, a series of questions have arisen for experts on the subject, the main one being knowing the meaning of the paintings. At this point, there are different theories, most of them point to rites and beliefs. Animals could be like gods to them as they provided sustenance. Another theory would be that depicting these figures on the walls and ceilings could encourage hunting. Certainly the animals represented in the caves were the largest and most difficult to hunt so this theory would make sense. Another function would be to favor reproduction, as was the case with the Venus of Willendorf.
During the period when human beings had not yet domesticated animals and their collecting function was difficult, the paintings enjoy a great naturalism but with the passage of time these figures became increasingly schematic. This is seen very clearly in the two schools that developed in the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe during the Palaeolithic: the Franco-Cantabrian School and the Levantine School.
Franco-Cantabrian School.
This school is the oldest, it spread throughout the north of the Iberian Peninsula and all of continental Europe, even reaching Asia approximately 13,000 years ago. The painting they develop enjoys a great naturalism. The artists of this time used the reliefs inside the caves to give greater movement and volume to the forms. For this same reason, if we entered the Altamira cave, we would be impressed to see its realistic bison. On the other hand, this school uses bichromy, that is, the use of two colors, red and black. This feature will be something differentiating. Not only this characteristic differentiates them, another characteristic feature of the Franco-Cantabrian school is that it is not very usual for them to use human figures in their compositions, nor is it usual for figures to appear in scenes.
The first of the deposits is in France, it is called Lascaux Cave. It was discovered in 1940 by four young people. Without a doubt, together with Altamira, it is one of the most important discoveries of rock art. The cave can be divided into different rooms or galleries, each of which houses a large number of works. In the first part is the Hall of the Bulls and the Axia Diverticuluml about 20 meters each. From that point you access the Feline Room a journey of about 80 meters. Also in this cave we find all kinds of animals, the most representative is the chinese horse perhaps the most famous of all.
The second site is undoubtedly the most important. We speak without a doubt of the Sistine Chapel of cave art: the Altamira Cave in Cantabria. This cave was the first discovered in Spain, it was by surprise in the middle of the 19th century. A great variety of animals were found here but as we all know the most important is the bison. This animal is masterfully represented, since they used the protuberances of the cave to give them volume. Entering there for a Paleolithic man would be like entering a movie theater today with 3D effects. Even Joan Miró said that after Altamira, art had done nothing but go into decline.
Other sites worth mentioning are those of the Cavern of Tito Bustillo in Asturias and the Castle Cave in Cantabria. Both have a large collection of animals such as deer or bison.
Levantine School
If we advance a little in time towards 10,000 BC we find that in the area of the Spanish Levant, in what today would be Catalonia, Valencia and Murcia, a new artistic trend is developing. It is a fairly homogeneous pictorial group with the well-differentiated characteristics of the Franco-Cantabrian school.
One of the differences in terms of lifestyle is that homes change. In this period, more easily accessible places such as mountain shelters begin to be used, and even outdoor works are carried out. The painting is radically different, here a single color is generally used, either red or black, the human figure appears more frequently and scenes are created that recreate actions of daily life. As we saw earlier, when improving their quality of life, they began to be more schematic since they were looking only for the essence of animals and objects. This happens because by taming animals they no longer see them as a deity as something very difficult to achieve.
The most important deposits of this period are mainly three: The Valltorta Shelter where is the hunting scene in it we see a series of figures armed with bows and arranged one on top of the other trying to hunt down a series of deer. Cogull’s Coat (Lérida) in this place we find one of the best works of cave art, The Cogull Dance; it represents a kind of initiation rite or a fertility cult. Lastly in the Gascon Ravine we found figures of archers
Cogul Dance
hunting scene
Painting has accompanied man since the beginning of time, it has been his faithful companion and the means by which to express his thoughts and feelings. Thanks to her we can somehow imagine what their life was like, what they ate, what they hunted and what their beliefs were. Here ends for today our passage through the history of painting.