PALEOLITHIC (OLD STONE AGE) ART, ca. 30,000–9000 BCE
❚The first sculptures and paintings antedate the invention of writing by tens of thousands of years.
Paleolithic humans’ decision to represent the world around them initiated an intellectual revolution
of enormous consequences.
❚No one knows why humans began to paint and carve images or what role those images played in
the lives of Paleolithic hunters. Women were far more common subjects than men, but animals, not
humans, dominate Paleolithic art.
❚The works created range in size from tiny figurines like the so-called Venus of Willendorfto painted
walls and ceilings covered with over-life-size animals, as in the cave at Lascaux.
❚Artists always depicted animals in profile so that the image was complete, including the head, body,
tail, and all four legs. This format persisted for millennia.
NEOLITHIC (NEW STONE AGE) ART, ca. 8000–2300 BCE
❚Around 9000 BCE, the ice that had covered much of northern Europe for millennia receded. After a
transitional period, the Neolithic Age began, but at different times in different places. It also continued
longer in remote places like Stonehenge in England and Hagar Qim on Malta.
❚The Neolithic Age revolutionized human life with the beginning of agriculture and the formation
of the first settled communities, like that at Çatal Höyük in Anatolia.
❚In art, the Neolithic period saw the birth of monumental sculpture, notably the painted plaster
figurines from Ain Ghazal, and of monumental stone architecture in the walls and tower(s) of
Jericho.
❚In painting, coherent narratives became common and artists began to represent human figures
as composites of frontal and profile views—another formula that would remain universal for a very
long time.
THE BIG PICTURE
ART BEFORE HISTORY
Nude woman (Venus of Willendorf),
ca. 28,000–25,000 BCEHall of the Bulls, Lascaux,
ca. 15,000–13,000 BCEPlaster figurine, Ain Ghazal,
ca. 6750–6250 BCEStonehenge, Salisbury Plain,
ca. 2550–1600 BCE