Cave Paintings & Pottery

Cave Paintings
Art History

Please click on images to enlarge.

To view the details of each work, click on the corresponding link.

Cro-Magnon Artist
Charles R. Knight, 1920
Courtesy of: Wikimedia.org  

Like I've said before, I believe everyone can paint.
Our ancestors knew how to paint before we, as a species,  knew how to write.
As children, even today, we all know how to paint before we learn how to write.

One of my favorite quotes:

When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw.

She stared at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?" 

Howard Ikemoto - Art-Quotes


This post is to honor the first artists we know of and, as you can see, some of them were excellent!

Horses
Chauvet Cave
Courtesy of: Wikimedia.org

Bison
Cave of Altamira, Spain
Courtesy of: Wikipedia.org

Lascaux Caves
Courtesy of: Wikimedia.org 

Lascaux Caves
Courtesy of:  Wikimedia.org

Addaura Cave
Courtesy of:  Wikimedia.org

Squares
Lascaux Caves, Wikimedia.org

Lions
Chauvet Cave
Courtesy of:  Wikimedia.org

Bisons
Altamira Cave
Courtesy of: Wikimedia.org

Lascaux Caves
Courtesy of: Wikimedia.org

Cow
Laas Geel Cave
Courtesy of:  Wikimedia.org

Ice Age - Carved Bone
Courtesy of: Wikimedia.org

Here´s my version of how we discovered painting, stone carving, interior design & pottery:

A very restless child was playing with mud and making mud-cakes and throwing them into the fire when mom wasn´t looking.

Most likely, she was a little tomboy who would much rather be outside playing with the boys rather than sitting in the cave doing such boring things as cooking, cleaning and playing with straw dolls.

When mom came back to stir the fire and start dinner, she found the mud-cakes and, after giving the child a good scolding, she removed them.

To discipline her, she made her go sit in the corner.

Well, we all know how boring that can be !!!

 So, the child picked up a piece of charcoal that was laying nearby and started drawing on the wall.

When mom saw this, she was not very pleased !!!

She took away the coal and told her that now she would have to sit even longer until she learned to behave.

Now the child was REALLY upset !   So, she took a sharp stone that was laying close by and started angrily carving lines and circles and whatever she could imagine on the wall just to get even with mom.

Mom, was now getting really upset as well. There was no way to tame this little monster.

On the verge of a nervous breakdown, mom gave the child a bone and ordered her to go outside and play and hopefully get eaten by a dinosaur.

When mom calmed down, she realized that the clay had hardened and that it certainly would make a nice addition to the usual bamboo she had been using for containers.

She also saw that the drawing and the carving the child had done, actually made the cave look better.

Lo and behold...we had just discovered painting, carving, interior design and clay pottery!!


The oldest clay pottery known to man is from the Japanese early Jomon period.

Early Jomon Pottery
Courtesy of: Wikimedia.org

To learn more about the Jomon period, go to: Wikipedia.org


What did the first artists use for paint?
Berries, plants, animal blood, charcoal and minerals.

Here´s an interesting link: Pigments Through the Ages