Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Cave Painting shopping experience:
1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Cave Painting offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Cave Painting at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Cave Painting? Wrong! If the Cave Painting is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Cave Painting then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Cave Painting? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Cave Painting and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Cave Painting wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Cave Painting then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Cave Painting site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Cave Painting, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Cave Painting, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
Cave or
Rock Paintings are paintings on
cave or rock (geology) walls and ceilings, usually dating to prehistoric times. The earliest known rock paintings are dated to the
Upper Paleolithic, 40,000 years ago, while the earliest European cave paintings date to 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the cave paintings is not known, and may never be. The evidence suggests that they weren't merely decorations of living areas, since the caves in which they've been found don't have signs of ongoing habitation. Also, they are often in areas of caves that aren't easily accessed. Some theories hold that they may have been a way of transmitting information, while other theories ascribe them a religious or ceremonial purpose.
Europe
|When Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola first encountered the
Magdalenian paintings of the
Altamira (cave),
Cantabria, Spain in 1879, the academics of the time considered them hoaxes. Recent reappraisals and increasing numbers of discoveries have illustrated their authenticity and have indicated high levels of artistry of
Upper Palaeolithic humans who used only basic tools. Cave paintings can also give valuable clues as to the
culture and beliefs of that era.
Locations
Well known cave paintings include those of:
- Lascaux, France
- La Marche (cave), near Lussac-les-Chateaux, France
- Chauvet Cave, near Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, France
- Altamira (cave), near Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, Spain
- Cosquer Cave, with an entrance below sea level near Marseille, France
- Font de Gaume, in the Dordogne Valley in France
Other sites include
Creswell Crags,
Nottinghamshire,
England. (Cave etchings and
bas-reliefs discovered in 2003), and Magura , Belogradchik,
Bulgaria.
Rock painting was also performed on cliff faces, but fewer of those have survived because of
erosion. One well-known example is the rock paintings of
Astuvansalmi in the
Saimaa area of Finland.
Age
Nearly 350 caves have now been discovered in France and Spain that contain art from prehistoric times. The age of the paintings in many sites has been a contentious issue, since methods like radiocarbon dating can be easily misled by contaminated samples of older or newer material, and caves and rocky overhangs (parietal art) are typically littered with debris from many time periods. Recent advances make it possible to date the paintings by sampling the pigment itself.
The choice of subject matter can also indicate date such as the reindeer at the Spanish cave of Cueva de las Monedas which imply the art is from the
Wisconsin glaciation. The oldest cave is that of
Chauvet Cave, and is 32,000 years old. Other examples may date as late as the Early Bronze Age, but the well known prolific and sophisticated style from Lascaux and Altamira died out about 10,000 years ago, coinciding with the advent of the neolithic period.
Themes and patterns
The most common themes in cave paintings are large wild animals, such as
bison, horses, aurochs, and
deer, and tracings of human
hands as well as abstract patterns, called
finger flutings. Drawings of humans are rare and are usually schematic rather than the more naturalistic animal subjects. Cave art may have begun in the
Aurignacian period (
Hohle Fels, Germany), but reached its apogee in the late
Magdalenian (Lascaux, France).
The paintings were drawn with red and yellow ochre,
hematite, manganese oxide and charcoal. Sometimes the silhouette of the animal was incised in the rock first.
Theories and interpretations
Henri Breuil interpreted the paintings as being hunting magic, meant to increase the number of animals. As there are some clay sculptures that seem to have been the targets of spears, this may partly be true, but does not explain the pictures of predators such as the lion or the bear.
An alternative theory, developed by David Lewis-Williams and broadly based on ethnographic studies of contemporary
hunter-gatherer societies, is that the paintings were made by
Cro-Magnon shamans. The Shamanism would retreat into the darkness of the caves, enter into a trance state and then paint images of their visions, perhaps with some notion of drawing power out of the cave walls themselves. This goes some way toward explaining the remoteness of some of the paintings (which often occur in deep or small caves) and the variety of subject matter (from prey animals to predators and human hand-prints).
R. Dale GuthrieR. Dale Guthrie,
The Nature of Paleolithic Art. University Of Chicago Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-226-31126-5. Preface. has studied not only the most artistic and publicized paintings but also a variety of lower quality art and figurines, and he identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists.He also points that the main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the over-sexual representation of women in the Venus figurines) are to be expected in the fantasies of adolescent males, who made a big part of the prehistoric demography.According to Merlin Stone in her book
When God Was a Woman, many scholars and archaeologists impose modern sexist views on ancient findings. Considering the prevalence of Goddess worship (beginning between 7,000 and 25,000 B.C.E), it is much more probable that art depicting the fullness of a woman's body was not a teenage male's fantasy but reproductions done in praise of women by artists of either sex. As with all prehistory, it is impossible to be certain because of the relative lack of material evidence and the many pitfalls associated with trying to understand the prehistoric mindset.
Graham Hancock's
Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind explores the various theories on the interpretation of rock art, and provides extensive references. He concludes that recent theory linking shamanic and religious practices with cave painting throughout the world appear the most credible.
Africa
At Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg, South Africa, now thought to be some 3,000 years old, the paintings by the Bushmen people who settled in the area some 8,000 years ago depict animals and humans, and are thought to represent religious beliefs.
Recently, an archeological team discovered the Laas Gaa'l cave paintings outside Hargeisa in Somaliland. They show the ancient inhabitants of the area worshipping cattle and performing religious ceremonies.
Cave paintings are found in the
Tassili n'Ajjer mountains in southeast
Algeria also in the
Akakus,
Messak Settafet and
Tadrart in Libya and other Sahara regions including: Ayr mountains, Niger and Tibesti, Chad.
Mexico
,
MexicoThe
Rock Paintings of Sierra de San Francisco is the name given to prehistoric rock art found in the Sierra de San francisco region of Baja California, Mexico, created by a people referred to as Cochimi or Guachimis. There are some 250 sites which are located in the municipality of Mulege within the El Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve in the state of Baja California Sur in Northern Mexico. Motifs include human figures, weapons, and animal species such as rabbit, puma, lynx, deer, wild goat/sheep, whale, turtle, tuna, sardine, octopus, eagle, and pelican; there are also abstract elements of various forms. The paintings vary in age from 1100 BC to AD 1300.
The paintings are noted for their high quality, extent, the variety and originality of human and animal representations, remarkable colors, and excellent state of preservation. The rock paintings of Sierra de San Francisco were nominated in 1989 and became a World Heritage Site in 1993.
Australia
Significant early cave paintings have also been found in Kakadu National Park in
Australia.
The Kakadu has a large collection of
ochre paintings. Ochre is a not an organic material, so
carbon dating of these pictures is impossible. Sometimes the approximate date, or at least, an
epoch, can be guessed from the content.
Image:Kakadu-painting-hero.jpg] (and some other things).Image:Rock-painting-turtle.jpg|An elaborate turtle.Image:Rock_painting_fishes.jpg|Fishes -- an
X-ray style painting -- with some internal organs shown in detail.Image:Rock_painting_kangaroo_skeleton.jpg]'s (probably kangaroo's) skeleton (?)
Southeast Asia
rock painting,
World Heritage SiteThere are rock paintings in caves in India,{{cite web] National Park are 1200 years old. See prehistoric Malaysia.In Indonesia the caves at Maros in Sulawesi are famous for their hand prints, also found in caves in the Sangkulirang area of Kalimantan.
See also
References
Further reading
- Thomas Heyd and John Clegg, eds. Aesthetics and Rock Art. Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, England and Burlington, VT, USA. 2005. ISBN 0-7546-3924-X
- Gregory Curtis, The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists, Knopf, New York, NY, USA, 2006. 1-4000-4348-4
External links
- Bradshaw Foundation The recording of cave paintings around the world
- EuroPreArt database of European Prehistoric Art
- Malaysian Caves
- Cave paintings in Castell de Castells Spain
- American Rock Art Research Association
Cave or
Rock Paintings are
paintings on cave or rock (geology) walls and ceilings, usually dating to prehistoric times. The earliest known rock paintings are dated to the
Upper Paleolithic, 40,000 years ago, while the earliest European cave paintings date to 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the cave paintings is not known, and may never be. The evidence suggests that they weren't merely decorations of living areas, since the caves in which they've been found don't have signs of ongoing habitation. Also, they are often in areas of caves that aren't easily accessed. Some theories hold that they may have been a way of transmitting information, while other theories ascribe them a religious or ceremonial purpose.
Europe
|When
Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola first encountered the
Magdalenian paintings of the Altamira (cave),
Cantabria,
Spain in
1879, the academics of the time considered them hoaxes. Recent reappraisals and increasing numbers of discoveries have illustrated their authenticity and have indicated high levels of
artistry of Upper Palaeolithic humans who used only basic tools. Cave paintings can also give valuable clues as to the
culture and beliefs of that era.
Locations
Well known cave paintings include those of:
- Lascaux, France
- La Marche (cave), near Lussac-les-Chateaux, France
- Chauvet Cave, near Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, France
- Altamira (cave), near Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, Spain
- Cosquer Cave, with an entrance below sea level near Marseille, France
- Font de Gaume, in the Dordogne Valley in France
Other sites include
Creswell Crags,
Nottinghamshire, England. (Cave etchings and
bas-reliefs discovered in 2003), and Magura , Belogradchik,
Bulgaria.
Rock painting was also performed on cliff faces, but fewer of those have survived because of
erosion. One well-known example is the rock paintings of
Astuvansalmi in the Saimaa area of Finland.
Age
Nearly 350 caves have now been discovered in France and Spain that contain art from prehistoric times. The age of the paintings in many sites has been a contentious issue, since methods like radiocarbon dating can be easily misled by contaminated samples of older or newer material, and caves and rocky overhangs (parietal art) are typically littered with debris from many time periods. Recent advances make it possible to date the paintings by sampling the pigment itself.
The choice of subject matter can also indicate date such as the reindeer at the Spanish cave of
Cueva de las Monedas which imply the art is from the
Wisconsin glaciation. The oldest cave is that of
Chauvet Cave, and is 32,000 years old. Other examples may date as late as the Early Bronze Age, but the well known prolific and sophisticated style from Lascaux and Altamira died out about 10,000 years ago, coinciding with the advent of the neolithic period.
Themes and patterns
The most common themes in cave paintings are large wild animals, such as bison, horses, aurochs, and
deer, and tracings of human hands as well as abstract patterns, called
finger flutings. Drawings of humans are rare and are usually schematic rather than the more naturalistic animal subjects. Cave art may have begun in the
Aurignacian period (
Hohle Fels, Germany), but reached its apogee in the late
Magdalenian (Lascaux, France).
The paintings were drawn with red and yellow
ochre,
hematite,
manganese oxide and charcoal. Sometimes the silhouette of the animal was incised in the rock first.
Theories and interpretations
Henri Breuil interpreted the paintings as being hunting magic, meant to increase the number of animals. As there are some clay sculptures that seem to have been the targets of spears, this may partly be true, but does not explain the pictures of predators such as the
lion or the bear.
An alternative theory, developed by David Lewis-Williams and broadly based on ethnographic studies of contemporary
hunter-gatherer societies, is that the paintings were made by Cro-Magnon shamans. The Shamanism would retreat into the darkness of the caves, enter into a trance state and then paint images of their visions, perhaps with some notion of drawing power out of the cave walls themselves. This goes some way toward explaining the remoteness of some of the paintings (which often occur in deep or small caves) and the variety of subject matter (from prey animals to
predators and human hand-prints).
R. Dale GuthrieR. Dale Guthrie,
The Nature of Paleolithic Art. University Of Chicago Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-226-31126-5. Preface. has studied not only the most artistic and publicized paintings but also a variety of lower quality art and figurines, and he identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists.He also points that the main themes in the paintings and other artifacts (powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the over-sexual representation of women in the
Venus figurines) are to be expected in the fantasies of adolescent males, who made a big part of the prehistoric demography.According to Merlin Stone in her book
When God Was a Woman, many scholars and archaeologists impose modern sexist views on ancient findings. Considering the prevalence of Goddess worship (beginning between 7,000 and 25,000 B.C.E), it is much more probable that art depicting the fullness of a woman's body was not a teenage male's fantasy but reproductions done in praise of women by artists of either sex. As with all prehistory, it is impossible to be certain because of the relative lack of material evidence and the many pitfalls associated with trying to understand the prehistoric mindset.
Graham Hancock's
Supernatural: Meetings with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind explores the various theories on the interpretation of rock art, and provides extensive references. He concludes that recent theory linking shamanic and religious practices with cave painting throughout the world appear the most credible.
Africa
At
Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg,
South Africa, now thought to be some 3,000 years old, the paintings by the Bushmen people who settled in the area some 8,000 years ago depict animals and humans, and are thought to represent religious beliefs.
Recently, an archeological team discovered the
Laas Gaa'l cave paintings outside
Hargeisa in
Somaliland. They show the ancient inhabitants of the area worshipping cattle and performing religious ceremonies.
Cave paintings are found in the
Tassili n'Ajjer mountains in southeast
Algeria also in the
Akakus,
Messak Settafet and Tadrart in Libya and other Sahara regions including: Ayr mountains, Niger and Tibesti, Chad.
Mexico
,
MexicoThe
Rock Paintings of Sierra de San Francisco is the name given to prehistoric rock art found in the Sierra de San francisco region of Baja California, Mexico, created by a people referred to as Cochimi or Guachimis. There are some 250 sites which are located in the municipality of Mulege within the El Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve in the state of Baja California Sur in Northern Mexico. Motifs include human figures, weapons, and animal species such as rabbit, puma, lynx, deer, wild goat/sheep, whale, turtle, tuna, sardine, octopus, eagle, and pelican; there are also abstract elements of various forms. The paintings vary in age from 1100 BC to AD 1300.
The paintings are noted for their high quality, extent, the variety and originality of human and animal representations, remarkable colors, and excellent state of preservation. The rock paintings of Sierra de San Francisco were nominated in 1989 and became a World Heritage Site in 1993.
Australia
Significant early cave paintings have also been found in Kakadu National Park in
Australia.
The Kakadu has a large collection of
ochre paintings. Ochre is a not an
organic material, so
carbon dating of these pictures is impossible. Sometimes the approximate date, or at least, an
epoch, can be guessed from the content.
Image:Kakadu-painting-hero.jpg] (and some other things).Image:Rock-painting-turtle.jpg|An elaborate turtle.Image:Rock_painting_fishes.jpg|Fishes -- an
X-ray style painting -- with some internal organs shown in detail.Image:Rock_painting_kangaroo_skeleton.jpg]'s (probably kangaroo's) skeleton (?)
Southeast Asia
rock painting, World Heritage SiteThere are rock paintings in caves in India,{{cite web] National Park are 1200 years old. See
prehistoric Malaysia.In Indonesia the caves at Maros in Sulawesi are famous for their hand prints, also found in caves in the Sangkulirang area of Kalimantan.
See also
References
Further reading
- Thomas Heyd and John Clegg, eds. Aesthetics and Rock Art. Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, England and Burlington, VT, USA. 2005. ISBN 0-7546-3924-X
- Gregory Curtis, The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists, Knopf, New York, NY, USA, 2006. 1-4000-4348-4
External links
- Bradshaw Foundation The recording of cave paintings around the world
- EuroPreArt database of European Prehistoric Art
- Malaysian Caves
- Cave paintings in Castell de Castells Spain
- American Rock Art Research Association
Cave painting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cave Paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest known European cave paintings date to ...
Cave Paintings
The Artchive needs EVERYONE to help! If you enjoy this site, please click here to find out how YOU can help to keep it online.
Neopets - Tyrannian Cave Painting
Neopets.Com - Virtual Pet Community! Join up for free games, shops, auctions, chat and more! ... Tyrannian Cave Painting These are pictures that you can print out with your printer ...
Lascaux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the Dordogne ...
Neopets - Tyrannia - Cave Painting
Neopets.Com - Virtual Pet Community! Join up for free games, shops, auctions, chat and more! ... Cave Paintings (Printer needed) These are pictures that you can print out and ...
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Tour of Afghan cave paintings
Cave paintings in Afghanistan have been declared to be the first oil paintings in the world, by Japanese experts.
Cave Paintings
Photography by John Tunley. 6 September 2008 - 26 October 2008. Linking to the museums’ natural history collection, this photographic exhibition looks at the inherent parallels ...
Cave Painting
Cave painting ... Cave Painting Make your own. Cave paintings have been discovered that are over 30 000 years old.
White Cube — Cave Paintings
26 May—1 Jul 2006 Hoxton Square ‘When you create a picture you are finding something. You work with a fluid material which then sets, capturing the very memory of that ...
Cave Painting Prints by AllPosters.co.uk
Cave Painting Prints by AllPosters.co.uk. Choose from over 500,000 Posters, Prints & Art. Fast UK Delivery, Value Framing, 100% Satisfaction Guarantee.
