Other Art Forms
Visual arts of indigenous cultures took other forms throughout history, often related to the environment and materials found naturally nearby. Carvings have been found on deer bones in South Korean caves dating back 40,000 years, and artifacts dating back even as far as 100,000 years, during the Middle Paleolithic era, show signs of being expressive art rather than just useful tools. During the Lithic period, also defined as the Paleo-Indian period in North America from 18,000 BC to 8000 BC cave and rock paintings were not the only means of expression for those who wished to leave their mark via a visual medium. Bone carvings and beadwork, basketry, pottery and ceramics, crude jewelry and sculpture, even totem poles and woodcarvings allowed for a more multi-dimensional form of communication.
Earliest bone carvings in America date back more than 10,000 years in the Vero Beach area of Florida, where the bones of humans were found along with those of extinct animals of the Pleistocene period. The bones were of mammoths or mastodons and featured etchings of anatomically correct mammoths. Bones and even skulls were used for painting as well, progressing into the more sophisticated use of baskets, stone tools and arrowheads, banner stones, wood, and ceramic pottery of the Archaic period, from 8000 BC to 800 BC. Mask carvings and the use of walrus and sperm whale ivory appeared in the Alaskan and Canadian arctic and Greenlandic Inuit cultures more than a thousand years ago; they were used for both ritualistic and decorative means. Every culture has its progressive history of visual expression, and soon even items such as tools, baskets, pots, and clothing items were proving to be modes of such expression even as they were useful and functional. Masks and beadwork often held supernatural or shamanistic symbolism and were widely used in hunting and other rituals, sometimes to honor a deity and sometimes to ward off an evil one.
Totem poles are an intriguing form of art native to the Pacific Northwest indigenous cultures, carved from the trunks of nearby red cedar trees. The word totem is from the Ojibwe odoodem, which means “kinship group” and totem poles were symbols of a family clan, usually one of wealth and privilege, almost like a wooden coat of arms or family crest.
Totem carving may have originated in the islands of Haida Gwaii, where pole carving soon spread to neighboring islands before reaching the coastal tribes living along British Columbia into Northern Washington State. Because the poles were carved intricately, they suggested the use of more sophisticated iron and steel tools, which eventually led to even more complex carved items.
Often, a totem would describe a complete lineage, or a family history in visual images, but many are mainly done for artistic means. There are poles that even incorporate specific historical events and cultural beliefs that may only be identifiable to the family clan that “owns” the pole, and poles that have the specific goal of shaming a clan or family, as in a giant scarlet letter. Today, we would put a big sign on someone’s front yard, but before writing developed, people were celebrated, and humiliated, with art objects.
House-front totem poles were objects that described the success of the family for all to see, and totems appeared to be less objects of worship (if ever at all) and more of a way to brag to the locals of your clans achievements and lineage, done in a vertical order of importance, which may have led to the popular saying “low man on the totem pole.” Nowadays, we have McMansions and expensive cars parked in the driveway to display our status, but the totem pole served to let the natives know who was top dog in the hood.
Ochre—Primitive Paint
Primitive artists had dirt, rock, bone, caves, trees, and other natural canvases upon which to paint and carve and draw and etch. Ancient artists had the pleasure of using more developed means, such as papyrus and cloth. Some of the earliest painted rock and cave art was done with ochre, a natural iron oxide used as a pigment, which leaves a reddish or yellowish or brownish stain that was even used on pottery and human tattoo work. Ochre was said to ward off insects and mosquitoes as well, and was often mixed with crushed bone, charcoal, and shells to give it more texture. Ochre was used in the some of the earliest known cave art sites at Blombos, South Africa, where pieces of ochre incised with an abstract design have been dated as far back as 70,000 years ago. Scientists have found earlier signs of ochre use at Blombos and other sites as old as 165,000 years.
Scooped abalone shells and other such objects have been discovered that indicate that ochre was stirred and mixed like we do with modern paint to find the right color before painting. According to Science Now’s report titled “Prehistoric Painters Planned Ahead” (October 13, 2011), Christopher Henshilwood of the University of Bergen in Norway and his colleagues discovered two ochre-processing “toolkits” at Blombos that date back 100,000 years ago with “a technique called optically stimulated luminescence, which measures how long grains of sand in archaeological layers have been hidden from sunlight. The toolkits, found only 16 centimeters apart in the same layer, were very similar: Both consisted of abalone shells filled with a mixture of ochre, crushed bone, and charcoal.” The group told Science Now: “Inside both shells were chunks of ochre-stained quartzite rock apparently used to grind the mixture. One of the shells also had part of the forearm bone of a canid, possibly a wolf or fox, which the team thinks might have been used to stir the paint or transfer it out of the shell.”
Dating Art From the Past
Dating prehistoric and even ancient art is difficult, but in general we can answer a few questions about the age of art created by humans.
The earliest art came during the Stone Age, between 300,000 and 700,000 years ago. The Stone Age was divided into three main eras:
Paleolithic
(2,500,000 BC–10,000 BC)
Hunter-gatherers
Mesolithic
(10,000 BC–4000 BC)
Beginnings of fishing and farming
Neolithic
(4000 BC–2000 BC)
Farming
The earliest art was petroglyph and rock art, which then led to engraving, sculpture in bone, wood, and stone, cave painting, relief sculpture, and ceramic pottery, followed by architecture. The first artists lived during the Lower Paleolithic Era, approximately 1,000,000 BC–300,000 BC and were descendants of Homo erectus. When language and art began to appear in the European region during the Upper Paleolithic, between 40,000 BC and 10,000 BC, scholars believe primitive art took on an aesthetic quality as opposed to strictly a functional one.
Figurines and sculptures were other early forms of artistic expression, as was ceramic art and pottery, which was often as decorative as it was useful. Carvings and images of humans were popular motifs, along with animals, rituals, and nature, much of which conveyed a distinct emphasis on fecundity, especially with the female form. Many of the earliest known sculptures of female figures are the European “Venus” figurines, which exaggerated female breasts and genitalia, belly and hips and thighs, and were meant to portray a fertile woman. Other such imagery was clear Goddess worship, but always the images focused on the reproductive and seductive qualities of the female body.
One of the oldest Stone Age figurines is the Venus of Berekhet Ram, thought to date from 500,00 BC to 230,000 BC. This figurine, although crudely formed and almost hard to distinguish, was discovered by archeologist N. Goren-Inbar during an excavation on the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel in 1981. The figurine shows groove-like incisions that were made by some sharp-edged stone and appear to be a female body. A sister figurine, called the Venus of Tan-Tan, was discovered in Morocco and is said to be so similar it could have been carved by the same person.
Later Venus figurines became much more sophisticated and detailed, and during the Bronze Age, obviously the use of bronze overtook the crude nature of working with rock and stone. The Bronze Age (3000 BC–1200 BC) was the age of metallurgy and the use of bronze, gold, and silver metalwork, and ceramics prevailed.
Piercing the Past of Pottery
China not only gave the world the first use of porcelain, but may have b
een the first to introduce pottery as well. Bits of ceramic pottery have been discovered in the Xianrendong Cave in Jiangxi, China, dating back 20,000 years. Many scholars had believed that the first pottery originated in Japan, but this new discovery suggests that it may have started in China and spread quickly to Japan, where pottery around the same age has been discovered, rather than the other way around.
Pottery and earthenware are made with various forms of clay, and can either be considered “greenware,” which means they are not fired to solid form in a kiln and remain rather soft and shapeable, or “fired,” which uses the heat of a kiln to set the clay. Pottery is mainly functional, but has a history of being equally decorative, utilizing a number of incisions on the surface or underglaze decorations, as well as in-glaze or on-glaze decorations of more modern times.
Ancient kilns used for firing might have used a mound, a trench pit, or a bonfire pit before the progression to brick or stone kilns that burned wood or coal. In order for a culture to use pottery, it must first have access to usable clay; large deposits existed in China, where pottery may have originated. Earliest forms of pottery were shaped by hand using a process called “pinch and coil” to produce the vessel-like effect. The first potter’s wheel appeared in Mesopotamia between 6000 BC and 4000 BC. Porcelain first appeared on the scene during the Tang Dynasty in China (618–906 CE). Pottery use would spread and become prevalent in Japan, India, Europe, and the Islamic world, and was independently developed in Sub-Saharan Africa as far back as 11,000 BC and South America around the same time, as more and more ways of finding, processing, and firing clay became available. Each culture had a style of its own, often reflecting the character of the culture itself, while other pottery appeared to be purely decorative. Who wants to look at a boring pot?
By the way, pieces of pottery are called “sherds.” Remember that the next time you drop a ceramic flowerpot on the kitchen floor!
Later Art Forms
The art of the later Iron Age (1500 BC–200 BC) introduced the great era of Classical Antiquity and the flourishing of Greek sculpture and pottery, Roman art, Indian art, and early Chinese pottery. With the spread of ancient civilizations throughout the Mesopotamian region between 3,500 BC and 331 BC, the Sumerians began to build temples, ziggurats, and sculptures of the gods, while the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians developed more sophisticated forms of artistic and architectural expression, including the stele, used to engrave the first uniform code of laws in 2,000 BC (the written Code of Hammurabi of the Babylonian Empire).
Egyptian art began to flourish between 3200 BC and 1340 BC with tombs, pyramids, and afterlife. Egyptian art and sculpture centers on powerful authority figures, Gods and Goddesses. and dynastic art, as well as painted relief sculptures. Egyptians created the first seated and freestanding statues around 2,800 BC and designed elaborate megalithic tombs and massive temples, as well as sculptures made of gold leaf, copper, and lapis lazuli.
The ancient art of the advanced cultures of China, India, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and other regions was the final progression toward a form or system of writing (which the next chapter will cover). Much of this art was religious in nature, as the art of Ancient Egypt, because, quite simply, the cultures had developed a large focus on their own religious beliefs and growing traditions. Egyptian art, which was proportional and orderly, and featured clean lines and simple shapes, depicted the deities and the Pharaohs, whom many considered divine and were presented as God-Kings, of their time. Power and order was highly symbolized, as were the symbols of each God or Goddess, and the colors associated with them and the region itself. Yellow obviously was used to represent the sun god, and red represented power, vitality, and even control in war. Animals were featured just as often as humans and deities.
The great monumental tombs and edifices like the Sphinx and the Pyramids were art and architecture in action, and tombs, mastabas, and pyramids of the Old Kingdom led to the more sophisticated sculptures of the Middle Kingdom and then to the royal tombs and temple complexes of the New Kingdom period, which was the time of Tutankhamen and Ramses II and the funerary text, the Book of the Dead.
According to the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, art was used in ancient Egypt as a form of communication for those who could not yet read. It was also used to document daily life for future generations, as well as to decorate and create objects for funerary and religious rituals. Art wasn’t just to look at. It meant something, including the wall murals common in ancient Egyptian buildings no doubt created by teams of artists with a common purpose and message. Because of Egypt’s importance for almost 30 centuries as the preeminent civilization of the Western world, there is a huge field of study called Egyptology that focuses on the art, architecture, and archeology of this hugely influential cultural powerhouse.
Greek Influence
Greek art of the Iron Age began in Europe around 1500 BC around the same time China was creating their first bronze sculptures. Egyptian, Greek, and Etruscan art would then influence Roman art. Greek art was divided into three distinct eras:
1. The Archaic (600 BC–500 BC).
2. The Classical (500 BC–323 BC).
3. The Hellenistic (323 BC–27 BC).
The evolution of Greek art corresponded with their emphasis on humanistic education, much of which is mirrored in their sculptures, ceramics, and architecture, which glorifies the human being. The Etruscans lived in Italy during the sixth and fifth centuries BC and introduced more stylized Bronze sculpture as well as tombs and sarcophagi. Romans would, of course, attempt to wipe out both Greek and Etruscan art and culture, but fail, before going on to create their own signature style that introduced more monumental architecture, giant fresco paintings, and sculpture and figures of the Gods and Goddesses they pilfered from the Greek and Etruscan cultures and renamed in Roman language.
Greek art went through four distinct periods:
1. The Geometric Period (also known as the Mycenaean Period of between 1600 BC and 800 BC)—Imagery often used on pottery, ceramic vessels, cups, and grave markers featured geometric angular patterns and sometimes stick people engaged in battle.
2. The Archaic Period (700 BC–500 BC)—There was a flourish of narrative iconography on vases and sculptures, in paintings, and bronze sculptures that have since been melted down and recycled.
3. The Classical Period (500 BC–323 BC)—The high point or golden age of ancient Greece. Vase painting grew more sophisticated, and bronze statues and sculptures flourished. Major architecture of this period were temples dedicated to Gods and Goddesses of Greek mythology, such as the Parthenon of Athens, a temple dedicated to the Goddess Athena.
4. The Hellenistic Period (323 BC–146 BC)—Preceded the incorporation of the Greek empire within the Roman Empire, and this period ended when Greece actually became a part of the Roman Empire. During this period, Greek art and culture spread, and influenced many regions throughout the world. Art and sculpture became more action-oriented, often depicting violence and warlike, and again featured a variety of mythological deities and creatures.
Hellenistic Greek art highly influenced Romans, who had by then taken over all things Greek, and became obvious in the Roman copies of actual Greek works. One of Rome’s greatest artistic offerings was found in or near the famed city of Pompeii, buried under the ashes of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. Painted walls with scenes taken from Roman mythology were found alongside mosaics, minute pieces of colored stones that made up pictorial scenes, something the Roman artists were noted for. Again, mythology was a major theme in Roman art, sculpture, statuary, architecture, and pottery. (In the next chapter, we’ll find out why.)
This crash course in art history is necessary because each era could take up 10 books of its own. The idea, though, is an obvious progression of sophisticated means of artistic expression, using the means each culture had, along with new discoveries and developments, to tell others about the human experience. Whether we are talki
ng ancient Japanese ceramic pottery, or a spout vessel from Peru that is shaped like a crab, or a figurine of a Goddess, or a tomb shaped like a Sphinx, the art of primitive and ancient times was meant to tell us something, to convey information about the particular environment, culture, or historical times the creators lived in. From the ancient tomb murals of Korea and the kiln-fired pottery of ancient Japan, to the megalithic engravings and elaborate drawings on Neolithic pottery in central Europe, or the first-century-BC engraved mirrors with music motifs found in Celtic regions, and the ceremonial bronze axes and ornamental helmets of western and central Europe, and the expressive and distinctive gold Moche headdresses of Peru, art has been a visual means of saying something, of telling our place in the world and our status in our own homes, neighborhoods, and villages, as well as how we, throughout the course of history, have seen the world around us—how we’ve understood it and then tried to pass on that understanding to others.
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