The Artists Of Altamira


These are very old works painted by hunters who never went to art schools. Yet the basic elements of lines, shapes, colours, textures, form, space are combined with such exquisite delicacy and power. The scale of these works are large in comparision to the size of the human person.
Why did they draw? For recording? For instruction? For magic? For recreation? For commercial exchange?
Purpose aside, these works have a quality that engage the viewers. One can't look at these works and walk away unchanged. These works have an energy that only intelligence, passion and a desire to communicate can evoke a response like a baby's to the mother's presence. Yes. That intimate.
Here for some culled background info:
"Altamira’s Paleolithic art is between 14,000 and 20,000 years old, and represents the first set of prehistoric cave paintings ever discovered. Several famous painters, including Pablo Picasso, are said to have been inspired by its charcoal and ochre images, which include several iconic depictions of red and black bison".

"The paintings found in Altamira have been called, in a somewhat enthusiastic way, “the Sistine Chapel from the Palaeolithic”. The extraordinary realistic figures are painted with a black manganese contour and an ochre and red filling, in such way that the figures already have a remarkable volumetric quality.
Perhaps these paintings are a primitive “hunting guide” to teach other members of the tribe how to hunt the preys, and where to find them; or perhaps they are a kind of magical spell to attract the animals. Anyway, it's evident that the Palaeolithic Art is indissolubly linked to the hunting. And as soon as such activity was no longer the most important, the man left the caves, and these primitive drawings remained ignored by the men until, many thousands of years later, a small girl named Maria de Sautuola discovered, surprised and amazed, the first great masterpiece of the history of Art. Art of survival, perhaps, Art without intention of being Art, probably, but Art, after all."
Text by G. Fernández, www.theartwolf.com


c.13,000-11,000 b.c. 
Mural, Altamira Caves, Spain



















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seymour Chwast

Image
Seymour Chwast, a close associate of Milton Glaser, is another practioner that I admire for his thinking as well as for the imaginative range of his works. Jerome Snyder in an article in Graphis wrote: "Chwast is fundamentally a humorist. His humor is dry, ironic, only rarely sardonic. The play on images is witty, not flamboyant, taking off on human foibles or meanness in a seemingly deadpan banality that is, despite its first-glance ingenuousness, rich in veins of sophistication and subtlety." To disclaim the idea that humor is a serious business misses the fundamental fact that all comedy has its roots in basic incongruity. A deep awareness of life's anomalies detracts not a whit from the widely accepted belief that Chwast is one of the most influential artists of this century and that he has created a style that is synonymous with the most creative and progressive aspects of graphic art and design. Clearly, there is much more to the man than his some...
Read more

Picasso's Source Of Inspiration

Image
There is a simplicity in Picasso's drawings. The lines are basic: straight and curves. The shapes are also basic: straight and curves. What inspires Picasso to go back to basics when European art was so complex in form, structure and composition? The answer is in one great influence: African sculpture. Take a look at the infomation provided in Wikipedia: Picasso's African Period , which lasted from 1907 to 1909, was the period when Pablo Picasso painted in a style which was strongly influenced by African sculpture . In the early 20th century, African artifacts were being brought back to Paris museums in consequence of the expansion of the French empire into Africa. The press was abuzz with exaggerated stories of cannibalism and exotic tales about the African kingdom of Dahomey . The mistreatment of Africans in the Belgian Congo was exposed in Joseph Conrad 's popular book Heart of Darkness . It was natural in this climate of African interest that Picasso wou...
Read more