Rock paintings and Rock engravings are probably the world's oldest surviving art forms. The artistic impulses of the prehistoric man found realization on the most obvious canvas – the wall of the caves he lived in.
Rock Paintings over the world, mirrors the difficulties and triumphs of the native man. And even today indigenous tribes of Africa and Australia practice this Art. Sophisticated depictions of elegant human figures, richly hued animals, and figures combining human and animal features, called therianthropes continue to inspire admiration for their energy, and powerful confident lines.
Magdalenian Rock Paintings of Spain
Excavators discovered the Magdalenian Rock Paintings of Spain in 1879. Most academics dismissed these paintings as hoaxes. Recent evaluations have however, confirmed the authenticity of these paintings. These Rock Paintings are indeed more than 32,000 years old.
The recurrent theme in these Rock Paintings are large wild animals, such as bison, horses , aurochs, and deer, and tracings of human hands as well as abstract patterns.
These paintings were drawn with just a few basic colors, but that doesn't take away anything from their artistic value. The paintings were drawn with red and yellow ochre, hematite, manganese oxide and charcoal.
Modern theories claim that these paintings were made by the shamans of the tribe. The shaman or the witch doctor would achieve a trance state and then retreat into the darkness of the caves to paint these visions.
Page
1 | 2
|
