I. “Prehistoric” Art
Art: the first mode of expression?
DU1701 Periods of Art History I
Prehistory History
3 millions years to
c. 3’300 BCE
c. 3’300 BCE to nowadays
AntiquityNeolithicPaleolithic Middle Ages Modern Age Contemporary
3 millions to
10’000 BCE
10’000 to
3’300 BCE
3’300 BCE
to 476 CE
476 to 1453
or 1492
1453–1789 1789–2020 etc….
Blombos cave, South Africa, deposits with
artifacts (engraved and cross-hatched ochre),
dated between 103,000–73,000 BCE
Cuevas de la Manos, two different
periods: 13,000–9,000 BCE and
7,000–3,300 BCE, Argentina,
province of Santa Cruz, Patagonia
Altamira cave, 20,000–16,590 BCE,
Santillana del Mar, Cantabria, Spain
Discovery of Lascaux, 1940
“Hall of the Bulls”,
or “Rotunda”,
Lascaux, 18,000–
17,000 BCE,
Montignac, France
Lamp, found in the Lascaux grotto, 11 x 22,5 x 3 cm, 17,000 BCE /
Musée national de préhistoire, Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil
Scene from the
shaft Lascaux
Functions?
“I am struck by the fact that new light is shed on our birth
at the very moment when the perspective of death is
appearing”
Georges Bataille, Lascaux ou la naissance de l’art, 1955
Grotto of Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc (Ardèche, France), 38,000–32,000 BCE
Apotropaic
function?
Gravettian Solutrean Magdalenian
Löwenmensch figurine, discovered in 1939 HohlensteinStadel
(Germany), mammoth ivory, 31,1 x 5,6 x 5,9 cm, c.
35,000 – 40’000 BCE / Museum Ulm
Restoration of the Löwenmensch in 2013
© State Office for Cultural Heritage Baden-Württemberg
and Ulmer Museum; Drawing by Christina von Elm.
Venus of Dolní Věstonice, ceramic,
c. 29,000–25,000 BCE / Moravské
zemské muzeum, Brno
Venus of Willendorf, limestone, c. 28,000–
25,000 BCE / Naturhistorisches Museum,
Vienna
Venus of Lespugue, ivory, c.
26,000–24,000 BCE / Musée
de l’Homme, Paris
Venus of Willendorf, limestone, c. 28,000–25,000
BCE / Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna
11,1 cm
Dame de Brassempouy (France) 3,6 x 1,9 x 2,2
cm, mammoth ivory, c. 26,000 – 24,000 BCE
/ Musée d’archéologie nationale, SaintGermain-en-Laye,
discovered in 1894
Nude figure, Egypt (?), 11 x 4,8 cm,
5th century CE / Walters Art
Museum, Baltimore
Fragment of a female
figure (with a belt?), from
the site of Brassempouy,
c. 26,000 – 24,000 BCE
/ Musée d’archéologie
nationale, Saint-
Germain-en-Laye
Swimming reindeer, carving from mammoth tusk,
Montastruc (France), c. 11,000–12,000 BCE /
British Museum, London
Venus of Lespugue,
ivory, c. 26,000–24,000
BCE / Musée de
l’Homme, Paris
Louise Bourgeois.
Harmless Woman, 1969
(private collection)
Yves Klein, Anthropométrie de l’époque Bleue (ANT 82), 1960
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Bull, Lascaux cave paintings, 18,000–
17,000 BCE, Montignac, France
Pablo Picasso, Le taureau (The
Bull), state VII, 1945 Museum
of Modern Art, New York
Bull, Lascaux cave paintings, 18,000–
17,000 BCE, Montignac, France
“This borderland between the desert and the
mountains is a kind of cultivable fringe of the
desert, – a Fertile Crescent […]. It forms
roughly a semicircle with the open side toward
the south. Its western end is at the southeastern
corner of the Mediterranean, the center lies
directly north of Arabia, and the eastern end is at
the northern end of the Persian Gulf”.
James Henry Breasted, Ancient Times: A History of the Early
World. An Introduction to the Study and the Career of Early Man,
Boston 1916.
Çatalhöyük, c. 7,100 BCE
Göbekli Tepe, c. 9,900 BCE
Jericho, c. 9,600 BCE
G̈öbekli Tepe, overhead view and groundplan of the main
excavation area / Deutsches Archäologisches Institut
Göbekli Tepe, pillar D43
Çatalhöyük
archeological
site, c. 7,100
BCE
Seated woman of Çatalhöyük, clay and
ceramic, c. 6,000 BCE / Museum of
Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey
Woman figure from Çatalhöyük,
clay and ceramic, c. 6,000 BCE /
Museum of Anatolian
Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey
Deer hunt, detail of a
wall painting from
level III, Çatalhöyük,
Turkey, c. 5750 BCE
Tell es-Sultan,
archeological site
of ancient Jericho
Plastered Skull, Tell es-Sultan,
Jericho, c. 9000 BCE / Israel
Museum, Jerusalem
Jericho skulls, human skulls decorated with plaster and shells, found near Jericho (Palestine), c.
8,200–7,500 BCE / British Museum, London, and National Museum, Damascus
Stone mask, from Hebron (Israel), c. 7000 BCE
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Jericho skull, human skull decorated with plaster
and shells, found near Jericho (Palestine), c. 8,200–
7,500 BCE / British Museum, London
Stone mask, from Hebron (Israel), c. 7000 BCE /
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Plumbed cover of human skull,
5th - 6th dynasty, ca. 2514–
2191 BCE, Giza, Egypt
Mummy with an Inserted Panel
Portrait of a Youth, 80–100 CE,
Fayum, Egypt
Metropolitan Museum, New York
Statuette of human shape, Ain Ghazal
(Jordan), gypsum plaster, bitumen
eyelids and pupils, c. 7,000 BCE /
Musée du Louvre, Paris