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