ASSIGNMENT (GEC-2)

HISTORY OF ART

TOPIC-A

Prehistoric Art:
▫ The Old Stone Age

Every history of art must begin with these questions, 1. When did human

beings start creating works of art? 2. What prompted them to do so? and

3. What did these earliest works of art looks like? These questions also

come with the admission that we cannot answer them.

About four million years ago, our earliest ancestors began to walk the

earth on two feet. But how they were using their hands remains

unknown to us. More than two million years later we meet the earliest

evidence of toolmaking. The making of tools is a complex matter which

demands first of all the ability to think of sticks or stones as “fruit

knockers” or “bone crackers”.

After generating the ability to do that, people discovered that some stick

or stones had handier shape than others, & they put them aside for

future use. For realizing the connection between form & function they

selected & “appointed” certain sticks & stones as tools.

The next step was to try chipping away at these tools by appointment so
as to improve their shape. This is the first craft of which we have

evidence, and with it we enter a phase of human development known as

the Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age.

1. Cave Art - About 35,000 years ago, during the last stage of

Paleolithic, we meet the earliest works of art known to us.

1. WOUNDED BISON. Cave paintings, c. 15,000-10,000 B.C.

But these already show an assurance and refinement far removed from

any humble beginnings, unless we are to believe that they came into

Being in a single, sudden burst. They were preceded by thousands of

years of siow growth about which we know nothing at all.

The striking works of Paleolithic art are the images of animals, incised, painted or
sculptured