Essay 1a: Them and Us
Question: How artistically similar, or different, do you think prehistoric people were compared to modern man and, what singular force or need continues to drive the artistic needs and human expressions of the 21st century?
Part One
Summary: I felt as though the answer to this question was slightly obvious, but maybe it's not and I just thought it was. I like how close people used to be to animals and how they were so precise when drawing them on cave walls.
Reason: The reason this question was created was to get the writer to search for the right information to answer the question to the fullest extent.
Purpose: The purpose of this question is to get the writer to have a different perspective when viewing prehistoric art work and the reasons why they created it.
Direction: Doing this research hasn't really made me think differently because I already thought this way, but maybe the next essays will.
Impressions: I leave this essay wondering how people could think that prehistoric people are different than us in the first place? How could we be unlike something that we originated from?
Part Two
Prehistoric people are very artistically similar to modern man, or not at all, depending on your view point. I would say, in the sense that we still have the same basic needs as prehistoric people, then we are very artistically similar. Many people wouldn't view it this way. But at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is surviving. What a basic human being needs to survives is food, water, shelter, thought, and a proper habitat where we can receive these things. The way the world is today, people may not see it this way because they are blinded by their differing viewpoints, but that is why this class and these questions were created, to help people build their outlooks and viewpoints. The singular force that drives humans to create art is the need to know the meaning of life and to know why we're here. This is something humans have never stopped wondering.
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| Spotted horses and human hands. Pech-Merle Cave. Dordogne, France. Horses 25,000-24,000 BCE. Hands c. 15,000. (http://donsmaps.com/images20/pechmerlecopy.jpg) |
In the above photo, it shows a cave painting from the Pech-Merle Cave in Dordogne, France. “Yet the painters left more than images of animals, fish, and geometric shapes; they left their own handprints in various places around the animals. These images, and many others hidden in chambers at the ends of long, narrow passages within the cave, connect us to an almost unimaginably ancient world of 25,000 BCE” (Art History, Marilyn Stokstad, Michael W. Cothren, Pg.1). In the photo, the handprints are from around 15,000 BCE while the horses are from between 25,000 and 24,000 BCE. The fact that they left their handprints tells me that they wanted people to know that what they put their handprint on was important information. Although modern people may view this art work and think how simple and boring it may look, it was what was important to people at that time. They spent so much time working to get food and simply survive, why would they waste time on entertainment?
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Recontruction drawing of mammoth bone houses. c. 16,000-10,000. (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCBuMjxUHpIjITzWPO_0sTf2CLxopLValpIvUA-gzrfgJq1YFt7IDrhSgMLWotgp6uMLKwCL67O0s79ngNO8jipa2KFPJZ1LrJIWGy17Cn1eTnFIs__IJ-qCHSxUy4QRiP3yrameMzFDyB/) |
Prehistoric people obviously thought in a different way than we do as modern people. There isn't any way we can find out how they viewed the world and thought about their existence here on the earth. The only thing we can do is realize we are not much different, but our main goals in life are clouded by distractions. At the end of the day, our main purpose is simply to survive, reproduce, and maintain the earth, which is how prehistoric people also lived, therefore nothing much has changed. “The bone framework was probably covered with animal hides and turf. Most activities centered around the inside fire pit, or hearth, where food was prepared and tools were fashioned. Larger houses might have had more than one hearth and spaces were set aside for specific uses- working stone, making clothing, sleeping and dumping refuse” (Art History, Marilyn Stokstad, Michael W. Cothren, Pg.4-5). Back then, they still focused their living arrangements on sleeping, eating and working. Really, what much else do we need? The only difference between “them and us” are that we are slightly more advanced in our methods of doing the same exact things. Instead of surviving off the land, we milk it for all it's worth, instead of eating from the earth, we process food until it turns different colors, instead of working outside, we work inside at desks. Which is nowadays considered advanced. I think the boundaries that have been created by the modern world deeply effect the way people express themselves.
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“Archaeologists now think that the people who lived at this time held very different ideas (from our twenty-first-century ones) about what it meant to be a human and how humans were distinct from animals; it is quite possible that they thought of animals and humans as parts of one common group of beings who shared the world” (Art History, Marilyn Stokstad, Michael W. Cothren, Pg.6). When I see this quote in a textbook I think- is it necessary to even say this? Of course that's what they thought, because there is not one reason why they wouldn't think this. What would have ever made them think they were superior beings to a lion, for example? Lions might have even been considered by prehistoric man to be superior animal, or at least an equal. I am sure there are people on the planet nowadays that see things in a similar light. People who live and depend on the planet earth for survival. The fact that the above statue was created shows that these people viewed themselves as part of the “outside” world. In modern time, people look at animals and nature as part of some foreign land that they're not a part of. Which explains why they find it difficult to see things from an “outside” perspective, because they don't see themselves as part of it.
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Chauvet Cave. Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, Ardeche Gorge, France. c. 32,000-30,000 BCE.(http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/september-2011/article/prehistoric-cave-paintings-of-horses-were-spot-on-say-scientists) |
“Long thought by many as possible abstract or symbolic expressions as opposed to representations of real animals, the famous paleolithic horse paintings found in caves such as Lascaux and Chauvet in France likely reflect what the prehistoric humans actually saw in their natural environment”(http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/september-2011/article/prehistoric-cave-paintings-of-horses-were-spot-on-say-scientists). In other words, prehistoric people obviously cared about what they were drawing, it had some sort of purpose. They wanted to leave it behind for other people to see, they weren't just doing it to pass the time. They painted these animals to be accurate to what they experienced in real life, because many people naturally strived for this. As many people still do today.
"Many believed that people create art for the sheer love of beauty. Scientists now agree that human beings have an aesthetic impulse, but the effort required to accomplish the great cave paintings suggests their creators were motivated by more than just simple pleasure"(Art History, Marilyn Stokstad, Michael W. Cothren, Pg.8). People make art to understand what the meaning of life is and to search for some sort of truth. They most likely did art for the same reasons. At the end of the day we are not much different than them, but modern people cannot see these, because of the society we live in.
