Prehistoric cave-drawings

[Birdjaguar]

Art talent is genetic and there is no reason to think it is of recent origin. Those that have it will find a way to put it to use.

 

[sophie]

^Hm... If you mean this one:

That's definitely a sombrero:

 

[Borachio]

To ignore our history is like ignoring the contemporary world outside of your home town. You're missing out on more than you could imagine.

Yeah. I'm missing out alright.

I've been getting the feeling increasingly of late that the world outside my home town isn't actually real at all.

Are there such places as the US, and Australia (just for two random examples)? Or are they simply rumours put about by members of my home town, working covertly through the internet, tv, and radio channels, to mislead me for reasons unknown?

As for history, apart from the casual interest it might provide me, what use is it for me to know that Napoleon was 5 foot 3 inches tall and going bald?

 

[Cutlass]

I think the cave art is really cool. But I'm not sure that the people studying them aren't reading a lot more into them than is warranted by what we actually know.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think the cave art is really cool. But I'm not sure that the people studying them aren't reading a lot more into them than is warranted by what we actually know.

They may well do, but in my view it is even more probable that they also read a lot less than there is in those paintings

Today we sort of take for granted that anyone, even a small child, can paint an image of a form (eg a flower) and attribute to it a series of meanings, as an object (conscious) and symbol (not conscious for the very small child). But in the deep Prehistory it seems highly likely that the people had a different relation with objects and symbols. For a long time they did not even have a language, so that relation was even more in the dark.

I view those cave drawings as very impressive works, which may reveal more about the human psyche than we have guessed by now.

 

[Borachio]

It may even be that early humans didn't fully realize there was any difference between the image and the real object.

(I'm not sure I fully realize it myself. But this point might be an obscure one.)

 

[Kyriakos]

It may even be that early humans didn't fully realize there was any difference between the image and the real object.

(I'm not sure I fully realize it myself. But this point might be an obscure one.)

This is possible too, at least for some stages of prehistoric humans, and some humans who painted those images. The state where one loses control of the distinction between an object and a symbol for it is one which still can occur, in many mental illnesses, one more reason to think it was a real part of early human evolution.

 

[Borachio]

Ha! I wouldn't say it's a sign of mental illness at all!

What happens when you read a novel?

It's a fairly poor novel that doesn't let me forget that it's merely words on a page.

 

[Kyriakos]

Ha! I wouldn't say it's a sign of mental illness at all!

What happens when you read a novel?

It's a fairly poor novel that doesn't let me forget that it's merely words on a page.

Indeed, however you are talking about a variation of that ability (to blur the lines between object and allusion to objects/symbols) not the actual loss without the will to lose it, of that ability of our mind

Writing literature also involves being able to live in a fantasy world of the story in a real degree, but of course not be sunk inside it and lose contact with reality

 

[Borachio]

This is a deadly game: toying with our mental stability and our ability to distinguish fact from fiction.

 

[Kyriakos]

This is a deadly game: toying with our mental stability and our ability to distinguish fact from fiction.

I think it is there for a beneficial reason (although it can potentially lead to negative states). Maybe it exists so as to allow humans to think in more ways of what reality and symbol and theory is. Maybe in the future we will have reached collectively a far better level of understanding of such notions (if the world stops being about humans killing other humans and producing idiocy anyway)...

 

[bathsheba666]

Simply god's doodles, put there along with fossils to trick us.

 

[sophie]

I think the cave art is really cool. But I'm not sure that the people studying them aren't reading a lot more into them than is warranted by what we actually know.

I disagree. The basis for artistic expression is that the artist has a lot of control over what is shown. If the object is shown, what it is shown, how it is depicted, the material used, the subject, tone, and colors are all active and conscious decisions made by the artist. Why else go through the trouble to paint the thing in the first place?

 

[Chukchi Husky]

That's why I'll never be an artist.

 

[Kyriakos]

That's why I'll never be an artist.

Don't be deterred by platitudes

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I think the cave art is really cool. But I'm not sure that the people studying them aren't reading a lot more into them than is warranted by what we actually know.

I agree, it's fun to speculate but it's really hard to know exactly what many of their paintings were supposed to mean, not to mention what they actually depicted.

They may well do, but in my view it is even more probable that they also read a lot less than there is in those paintings

Today we sort of take for granted that anyone, even a small child, can paint an image of a form (eg a flower) and attribute to it a series of meanings, as an object (conscious) and symbol (not conscious for the very small child). But in the deep Prehistory it seems highly likely that the people had a different relation with objects and symbols. For a long time they did not even have a language, so that relation was even more in the dark.

I view those cave drawings as very impressive works, which may reveal more about the human psyche than we have guessed by now.

You're making the mistake in presuming (or at least appear to presume) that early humans were less smart, imaginative or developed than we are. They really weren't, they just had a much smaller bag of tricks and tools to employ. They were capable of the same kinds of relations with objects and symbols that we are, there is no reason to think otherwise. They just had less sophisticated methods of expressing their beliefs and their lore and rituals than we do.

I disagree. The basis for artistic expression is that the artist has a lot of control over what is shown. If the object is shown, what it is shown, how it is depicted, the material used, the subject, tone, and colors are all active and conscious decisions made by the artist. Why else go through the trouble to paint the thing in the first place?

I think Cutlass was talking about modern people interpreting the paintings incorrectly because of the tiny amount of information we have about the compositions and the composers and their beliefs and motives. In any case, I don't think it's necessarily the case that every cave painting had deep symbolism - though quite often I'm sure they did. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and a painted rain cloud is just a rain cloud and so on. Trouble is, we have no way of knowing in many cases when the rain cloud is just a rain cloud or whether it's really a symbol of god, or even aliens for that matter. There just isn't enough information. But I do take Cutlass's position that it's very easy and tempting to see elaborate motives and meanings behind these cave drawings.

Which again, isn't to say that there never was elaborate motives and meanings behind them; we just don't know.

 

[Cutlass]

I disagree. The basis for artistic expression is that the artist has a lot of control over what is shown. If the object is shown, what it is shown, how it is depicted, the material used, the subject, tone, and colors are all active and conscious decisions made by the artist. Why else go through the trouble to paint the thing in the first place?

I don't see how saying the artist had control over what he depicted translates into us knowing with any certainty what the artist was trying to depict, or why. Now granted I only read some of the stuff written for the popular audience, but there's a tendency to see anything not understood in terms of it must have been the religion of the creator. Seems a cop-out to me.

So we can look at these things, that's a mammoth, that's an antelope, those appear to be men hunting them, but if we think we know what the artist was really trying to say beyond that, it doesn't seem very credible to me.

 

[Kyriakos]

I don't see how saying the artist had control over what he depicted translates into us knowing with any certainty what the artist was trying to depict, or why. Now granted I only read some of the stuff written for the popular audience, but there's a tendency to see anything not understood in terms of it must have been the religion of the creator. Seems a cop-out to me.

So we can look at these things, that's a mammoth, that's an antelope, those appear to be men hunting them, but if we think we know what the artist was really trying to say beyond that, it doesn't seem very credible to me.

Indeed. Moreover there are other variables of note as well. The artist might mean something more or less specific in one case, but this may still be different from what the viewer would notice. For example medieval paintings often have religious symbolism which most modern viewers would not realise at first. Imagine- for a simpler example- that a religion had a mammoth as its symbol. Then the religion died. Millenia later some people discover art with that mammoth, but are not aware of its connotation. (the point being about special connotation, not particularly a religious one of course).

Let alone the fact that it is one thing for an artist to attribute meaning to an art he makes, and another to specifically identify that meaning with the way another person would understand it.