Light rock paintings. Rock painting - the progenitor of artistic art ▲

Friends, where and how did it all start?

Maybe when ancient man Did you see your footprint in the sand?
Or, when you ran your finger along the ground, you realized that it was a fingerprint?
Or maybe when our ancestors learned to control the “fiery beast” (fire) by running the burnt end of a stick over a stone?

In any case, it is clear that a person has always been curious and even our ancestors, leaving primitive drawings on rocks and stones, wanted to convey their feelings to each other.

Exploring drawings of ancient people, it is obvious that in the process of evolution, their drawings also improved, moving from primitiveness to more complex images of people and animals.

It is known that archaeologists found in Africa, in the Sibudu cave, cave drawings, made by ancient people 49 thousand years ago! The drawings were drawn with ocher mixed with milk. Primitive people Ocher was used even earlier, about 250 thousand years ago, but the presence of milk in the paint was not found.

This find was strange in that the ancient people who lived 49 thousand years ago did not yet have livestock, which means they obtained milk by hunting animals. In addition to ocher, our ancestors used charcoal or burnt roots, crushed into powder, limestone.

Everyone knows Ancient Egypt paintings most popular. The history of Ancient Egyptian civilization goes back about 40 centuries! This civilization reached great heights in architecture, papyrus writing, and graphic drawings and other images.

Existence Ancient Egypt began 3000 BC. e. and ended in the 4th–7th centuries. ad.

The Egyptians loved to decorate almost everything with painting: tombs, temples, sarcophagi, various household items and dishes, statues. For paints they used: limestone (white), soot (black), iron ore (yellow and red), copper ore (blue and green).

Painting ancient egypt was meaningful, depicting people, for example, dead, providing them with services in the afterlife.

They believed in an afterlife and believed that life was just an interim to another, more interesting life. Therefore, after death, the deceased was glorified in images.

No less fascinating ancient drawings and frescoes of other civilizations - Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece.

Greco-Roman antiquity began in the 7th century BC and ended in the 6th century AD. The Romans learned from the ancient Greeks how to paint walls on wet plaster.

So, for example, for paints, colored minerals mixed with egg white and animal glue. And after drying, such a fresco was covered melted wax.

But here ancient Greeks knew where The best way conservation bright colors. The plaster they used contained lime and dried to form a clear, thin film of calcium. It was this film that made the fresco durable!

Wall frescoes ancient Greece have reached our days, thousands of years later, perfectly preserved in the same bright and rich color as when they were created.

Previously called fresco paintings on wet plaster. But in our time, any wall painting can be called a fresco, regardless of the technique of its execution.

In general, wall paintings or frescoes belong to monumental painting. And this has a direct bearing on me. Alfraine painting, that is, wall painting, is my main specialization, which I studied at a private school in the south of France.

You can see my works in the section >>> <<<

In the Middle Ages in Kievan Rus the walls of the cathedrals were painted with beautiful frescoes. For example, in 2016 I visited the Sofia Kyiv nature reserve in Kyiv. And in the most beautiful cathedral, founded in 1037 by the Grand Duke of Kyiv Yaroslav the Wise, wall frescoes have been preserved on the walls (the total area of ​​the frescoes is 3000 sq. m.)

The main composition in the cathedral is portrait of the family of Yaroslav the Wise on three walls. But only portraits of the prince’s sons and daughters have survived and are well preserved. The huge frescoes, painted in the 11th century, certainly made a strong impression on me.

Also already in Middle Ages (period V – XV centuries) They used not only walls, but also wooden surfaces (for painting) for painting. For such works tempera paints were used. This paint, of course, is considered one of the oldest types of paint and was used to paint pictures until the 15th century.

Until one day Dutch painter Van Eyck did not introduce widespread use oil based paints in Europe

Tempera- These are water-based paints. Coloring powder diluted with water and chicken yolk. The history of this type of paint goes back more than 3000 years.

Sandro Botticelli/Sandro Botticelli. Left Portrait of a young woman 1480-1485, 82 x 54 cm, Frankfurt. On right Annunciation 1489-1490, tempera on wood, 150 x 156 cm, Florence

For example, in ancient Egypt sarcophagi of the pharaohs They painted it with tempera.

But they began to use canvas instead of a wooden board for painting in Western European countries only at the beginning of the 16th century. Florentine and Venetian painters painted on canvas in significant quantities.

In Russia, canvases began to be used as a basis for painting even later, only from the second half of the 17th century. But that is another story…. Or rather

So, by showing curiosity and doing a little analysis, you can trace the ways of human self-expression from primitive drawing to the true creations of the Middle Ages!!! Of course, this is not a scientific article, but only the opinion of one curious artist who likes to drip and drip into the labyrinths of the human mind.

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Vintage cave paintings of primitive people were very amazing images, mostly they were all drawn on stone walls.

There is an opinion that the cave paintings of ancient people are various animals that were hunted at that time. Then these drawings played a major role in magical rituals; hunters wanted to attract real animals during their hunt.

Pictures and cave paintings of primitive people very often resemble a two-dimensional image. Rock art is very rich in drawings of bison, rhinoceroses, deer, and mammoths. Also in many pictures you can see hunting scenes or men with spears and arrows.

What did the first people draw?

Rock paintings of ancient people- this is one of the manifestations of their emotional state and imaginative thinking. Not everyone was able to create a vivid image of an animal or a hunt; only those people who could create such an image in their subconscious could do this.

There is also an assumption that ancient people transmitted their visions and life experiences, that’s how they expressed themselves.

Where did primitive people draw?

Sections of caves that were hard to find - this is one of the best places for drawing. This explains the significance of rock paintings. Drawing was a certain ritual; artists worked in the light of stone lamps.

") drew pictures of the animals they hunted. They were the first people to paint using paints, although they probably painted their bodies long before that with a crushed type of red, the so-called ocher.

Apparently, the Cro-Magnons used these drawings for cult purposes. They believed that the drawings would protect against evil forces and help during the hunt, on the success of which their very existence depended. So far, no drawings made by more ancient people have been found. Perhaps they drew or scratched with something sharp on pieces of wood that had long since rotted away.

Cro-Magnons painted horses, bison and deer. Often in the drawings there are also images of copies, which, according to the artist’s plan, was supposed to bring good luck during a real hunt.

One of the Cro-Magnon artists placed his palm on the rock and then sprayed paint around it through a reed. Images of people or plants are extremely rare in early drawings.

Before you is an image of a woolly mammoth carved on the cave wall, in which its long, shaggy fur is clearly visible. Rock art often shows us what prehistoric animals looked like.

Cro-Magnons carved figures of very fat or pregnant women into stone. They also sculpted figurines from clay, after which they burned them on fire. Probably, primitive people believed that such figurines would bring them good luck.

Cave drawings

Take up rock painting

You will need plaster of paris, a box like a large matchbox, twine, duct tape and paints.

Take a 6cm piece of twine and fold it in half to make a loop. Attach this loop with duct tape to the bottom of the box from the inside.

Mix the plaster with so that you get a thin solution, and pour it into the box, there should be a layer about 3 cm thick. Let the plaster harden, then tear the box away from it.

Copy one of the rock paintings on this page onto this piece of plaster. Then color it using the same colors as the caveman: red, yellow, brown and black.

You can also reproduce a carved image of an animal. Transfer the outline of the mammoth shown on this page onto a piece of plaster. Then use an old fork to press lines into the plaster along the entire contour.

Modern man is surrounded by an incredible number of artistic images. Wherever we turn our gaze, everything is replete with paintings, ornaments, photographs, from the simplest everyday life to works of art.

Throughout history, man has strived to convey the internal or external through the image. “Truly, art lies in nature; whoever knows how to discover it owns it.” Albrecht Durer

The artistic culture of mankind dates back to time immemorial - the Paleolithic itself. Everyone knows the oldest rock painting. It was in the Paleolithic (2.5 million-10,000 BC) that art as such arose.

A time when agriculture did not yet exist, and the Earth was inhabited by extinct species of animals, during the Stone Age, when primitive man was engaged in gathering and hunting with the help of primitive weapons.

Even then, people began to feel the need to express simple images artistically.

Rock art

These drawings, differing in the manner of execution, were located in caves where Paleolithic people lived, sometimes in inaccessible places.

Rock painting was performed on stone using a rough cutting tool, as evidenced by stone chisels found at the sites of primitive people.

Mineral dyes were often used, which were applied as a second layer; they were prepared from manganese oxide, coal, kaolite and gave color variations from ocher to black. “The authors of cave paintings had a better understanding of the anatomy of four-legged animals than most modern artists, and made fewer mistakes in drawings of walking mammoths and other mammals.” It is assumed that meaning of rock drawings was ritual, but debates on this topic continue to this day. Mostly animals were depicted, including those that had already become extinct. The image of a person is much less common and dates back to a later period.

For rock paintings characterized by a lack of proportions, a simple primitive depiction technique, sometimes a primitive hunting plot is visible, and often the drawings of primitive people conveyed movement.

Rock painting distributed throughout the world. Its most striking examples are in Kazakhstan (Tamgaly), Karelia, Spain (Altamira cave), France (Fond-de-Gaume, Montespan caves, etc.), Siberia, on the Don (Kostenki), Italy, England , Germany, Algeria.

The history of the first rock art found

Cave drawings were carefully hidden in numerous caves not in one place, but all over the world. They first attracted public attention only 120 years ago.

Why did this happen relatively recently, despite the fact that they were probably found several times before? Apparently, their ease of execution, often similar to children's drawings, was simply unremarkable.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the entire artistic heritage of our planet was systematized and comprehended. In the middle of the 19th century, no art older than Egyptian or Celtic was known.

The existence of some ancient rudimentary forms of art was assumed, but it was believed that they would have to be extremely primitive. This is probably why it took half a century to recognize and comprehend the already found, very meaningful and multifaceted cave drawings.

Marcelino de Sautuola is considered the discoverer of rock art. He explored the caves that were located in the area where he lived since 1875. In 1879, while exploring the Altamira Cave, his nine-year-old daughter discovered amazing drawings, which were later called the “Sistine Chapel of Primitive Art” of the Altamira Cave.

It took Marcelino de Sautuola a whole year to dare to make a public statement. He was right to worry, since his statement caused an incredible storm of unrest in scientific circles.

It took a lot of time and discovery to recognize the authenticity rock paintings Altamira. With the passage of time and numerous similar discoveries, experts were forced to admit that Marcelio was right; unfortunately, he did not live to see these days.

Older than the most ancient - the creations of the Neanderthals

Spanish cave of Nerja with finds found in it rock paintings may revolutionize ideas about Neanderthals. These caves were discovered in 1959 by boys hunting bats. Excavations in these caves continue to this day.

It was in Nerja that they were discovered cave drawings strange spiral shape, reminiscent of the structure of DNA. Scientists claim that pinnipeds, which the inhabitants of that time ate, had a similar appearance.
“Art must first of all be clear and simple; its meaning is too great and important.” M. Gorky The coal found in the images was studied by radiocarbon dating, which determined the approximate age of the drawings. Their age stunned everyone - it turned out that the drawings were about 43 thousand years old. This is 13 thousand years older than the drawings of the Chauvey cave, France, which were still considered the most ancient.

At the moment, there have been no official statements about the Nerja Cave, since they could have a great influence on ideas about human development, cave drawings need numerous studies and confirmation.

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All over the world, speleologists in deep caves are finding confirmation of the existence of ancient people. Rock paintings have been perfectly preserved for many millennia. There are several types of masterpieces - pictograms, petroglyphs, geoglyphs. Important monuments of human history are regularly included in the World Heritage Register.

Usually on the walls of caves there are common subjects, such as hunting, battle, images of the sun, animals, human hands. People in ancient times attached sacred meaning to paintings; they believed that they were helping themselves in the future.

Images were applied using various methods and materials. Animal blood, ocher, chalk and even bat guano were used for artistic creation. A special type of painting is ashlar painting; they were carved into stone using a special chisel.

Many caves have not been sufficiently studied and are limited in visiting, while others, on the contrary, are open to tourists. However, most of the precious cultural heritage disappears unattended, without finding its researchers.

Below is a short excursion into the world of the most interesting caves with prehistoric rock paintings.

Ancient rock paintings.

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