Topic Essay Question #2

ESSAY #1a
ESSAY TITLE: Them and Us

QUESTION: How artistically similar, or different, do you think prehistoric people were compared to modern man and, what singular force or need continues to drive the artistic needs and human expressions of the 21st century?


PART 1

SUMMARY: When I wrote the answer to this question I really got into how amazing the cave art was back then, I never thought that before I would find it to be just as beautiful as art from today.  For me this was a challenging question because its not like I could just go down the street and talk to the artist that made the cave paintings, I really had to think about why they would do this or rather why I would do this if I was living in this time.

REASON: I believe that you asked this question to show that the need for art has not changed over the past 100,000 years.

PURPOSE: The purpose was to see how different or not so different the people from the prehistoric times were compared to the people of today.

DIRECTION: At first I thought that all of the research was going to be boring but i was so very wrong, once I went online and started seeing how amazing the art was i was fascinated with how they made it and what made a person want to immortalize cows and lions on cave walls.

IMPRESSION: One thing that really got me was the "Lion Man" figure, it was just really interesting, and seemed to me to be made from someone that had a big imagination.

PART 2

Since the dawn of time people have been making art, even before people knew what art was.  It was a way of expression, and now for us a way of understanding, almost like a time capsule, to show how things were.  "Cave art probably meant different things to the different people who saw it, depending on their age, experience and specific needs and desires."(Art History, 4th Edition, M. Stokstad/M.W. Cothren, p. 1)

The movement of people took place100,000 to 35,000 years ago.(Art History, 4th Edition, M. Stokstad/M.W. Cothren, p. 2) There were no cars or planes to move them, and people were not exactally like you and me today.  There is however a thing that hasn't changed, the human need to make art.  "As early as 30,000 BCE small figures, or figurines, of people and animals made of bone, ivory, stone, and clay appeared in Europe and Asia."(Art History, 4th Edition, M. Stokstad/M.W. Cothren, p. 5)  this to me is a huge deal, its not even likely that the animals that people were carving or painting were just standing still making it easy for the artist, not at all.  if anything it was the opposite the artist would see the animal running by and have the urge to carve or paint it, which amazes me by the amount of detail that is given to such works.  what also amazes me is that people didn't only paint or carve from life but one piece of art shows that imagination was also being used.  The figure was of a part lion and part human male that was made from ivory off of a mammoths tusk.(Art History, 4th Edition, M. Stokstad/M.W. Cothren, p. 5)  One thought also is that people from this time saw things differently about humans and animals.  They might have thought that they can take the power of that animal into them by painting it or carving it, and that this would make them stronger.(http://www.students.sbc.edu/ogborn03/prehistoricart.htm) 

People back in the day and now make art for the fact of making something beautiful.(Art History, 4th Edition, M. Stokstad/M.W. Cothren, p. 8) As a artist of the 21st Century I can say that making art to me is a uncontrollable urge to make something.  Its not even the fact that this artwork might be world famous, although that is a big dream, its more along the lines of making something that you hope people will love as much as you do.  Its an indescribable feeling.  "...There has always been an agreement that decorated caves must have a special meaning because people returned to them time after time over many generations, in some cases over thousands of years."(Art History, 4th Edition, M. Stokstad/M.W. Cothren, p. 8)  The need to make art is amazing, its something that over time has become more and more popular, its a way to show feelings and emotions without words.  I'm sure that people in the age of making cave art were not looking for eternal glory as the artist of today. But  that one thing that they were thinking was to leave something behind to be remembered, and if people from that time continued to make art and not draw over the art that was already made must have been a sign of respect. For people to still be finding these paintings and carvings today amazes me.