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, rock paintings, 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, writing papyri, as well as 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 interval 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 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. Alfrey 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. 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's 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.
Friends, to the articlenot lost among many other articles on the Internet,save it to your bookmarks.This way you can return to reading at any time.
Ask your questions below in the comments, I usually answer all questions quickly
13 October 2014, 13:31
Rock art of Horseshoe Canyon, Utah, USA.
Such ancient historical monuments are not concentrated somewhere in one place, but are scattered throughout the planet. The petroglyphs were not found at the same time; sometimes the discoveries of different drawings are separated by significant periods of time.
From time to time, on the same rocks, scientists find drawings from different millennia. There are similarities between a variety of rock paintings, so it seems as if in ancient times there was a single ancestral culture and universal knowledge associated with it. Thus, many of the figures in the drawings have the same features, although their authors knew nothing about each other - they were separated by an enormous distance and time. However, the similarity in the images is systematic: in particular, the heads of the gods always emit light. Despite the fact that cave paintings have been studied for about 200 years, they still remain a mystery.
It is believed that the first images of mysterious creatures were rock paintings on Mount Hunan, China (picture above). They are about 47,000 years old. These drawings allegedly depict early contacts with unknown beings, possibly visitors from extraterrestrial civilizations.
These drawings were found in the Sera Da Capivara National Park in Brazil. Experts claim that the paintings were created about twenty-nine thousand years ago:
Interesting cave paintings dating back over 10,000 years were recently discovered in the state of Chhattisgarh, India:
This cave painting dates back to approximately 10,000 BC and is located in Val Camonica, Italy. The drawn figures look like two creatures wearing protective suits, and their heads emit light. They hold strange devices in their hands:
The next example is the rock carving of a luminous man, which is located 18 km west of the city of Navoi (Uzbekistan). At the same time, a shining figure sits on a throne, and the figures standing near it wear something similar to protective masks on their faces. The kneeling man in the lower part of the picture does not have such a device - he is at a considerable distance from the luminous figure and, apparently, does not need such protection.
Tassilin Adjer (River Plateau) is the largest rock art site in the Sahara. The plateau is located in the southeastern part of Algeria. The oldest petroglyphs of Tassil-Adjer date back to the 7th millennium BC. And the latest - the 7th century AD. Drawings on the plateau were first noticed in 1909:
An image dating to approximately 600 BC, from Tassilin-Adjer. The drawing shows a creature with different eyes, a strange petal hairstyle and a shapeless figure. More than a hundred similar “gods” were found in caves:
These frescoes, found in the Sahara Desert, depict a humanoid creature in a spacesuit. Frescoes are 5 thousand years old:
Australia is isolated from other continents. However, on the Kimberley Plateau (northwest Australia) there are entire galleries of petroglyphs. And here all the same motifs are present: gods with similar faces and with a halo of rays around their heads. The drawings were first discovered in 1891:
These are images of Vandina, the goddess of the sky, in a halo of shining rays.
Rock art at Puerta del Canyon, Argentina:
Sego Canyon, Utah, USA. The most ancient petroglyphs appeared here more than 8,000 years ago:
"Skala-newspaper" there, in Utah:
"Alien", Arizona, USA:
California, USA:
Alien image. Kalbak-Tash, Altai, Russia:
"Sun Man" from the Karakol Valley, Altai:
Another of the many petroglyphs of the Italian Val Camonica valley in the Southern Alps:
Rock paintings of Gobustan, Azerbaijan. Scientists date the oldest drawings to the Mesolithic era (about 10 thousand years ago:
Ancient rock paintings in Niger:
Onega petroglyphs at Cape Besov Nos, Russia. The most famous of the Onega petroglyphs is Bes, its length is two and a half meters. The image is crossed by a deep crack, dividing it exactly into two halves. A “gap” into another, otherworldly world. Within a kilometer radius of Bes, satellite navigation often fails. The clock also behaves unpredictably: it can run forward, it can stop. Scientists can only guess what this anomaly is connected with. The ancient figure is cut by an Orthodox cross. Most likely, it was hollowed out on top of the demonic image by the monks of the Murom Monastery in the 15th–16th centuries. To neutralize the devil's power:
Petroglyphs of Tamgaly, Kazakhstan. Rock paintings abound in a variety of subjects, and the most common of them depict divine sun-headed creatures:
White Shaman Rock in the Lower Canyon, Texas. According to experts, the age of this seven-meter image is more than four thousand years. The White Shaman is believed to be hiding the secrets of an ancient vanished cult:
Rock paintings of giant people from South Africa:
Mexico. Veracruz, Las Palmas: cave paintings depicting creatures in spacesuits:
Rock paintings in the valley of the Pegtymel River, Chukotka, Russia:
The twin gods fight with battle axes. One of the petroglyphs found in Tanumschede, western Sweden (the drawings are painted red already in the modern period):
Among the petroglyphs on the Litsleby rock massif, a giant (2.3 m tall) image of a god with a spear (possibly Odin) dominates:
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Sarmysh-say gorge, Uzbekistan. Numerous ancient rock paintings of people in strange clothes were found in the gorge, some of which can be interpreted as images of “ancient astronauts”:
Rock paintings of the Hopi Indians in Arizona, USA, depicting certain creatures - kachina. The Hopi considered these mysterious kachinas to be their heavenly teachers:
In addition, there are many ancient rock carvings, either solar symbols or some objects resembling aircraft.
Rock paintings from San Antonio Cave, Texas, USA.
This ancient cave painting, discovered in Australia, depicts something very similar to a space alien ship. At the same time, the image may well mean something quite understandable.
Something resembling a rocket taking off. Kalbysh Tash, Altai.
Petroglyph depicting a UFO. Bolivia.
UFO from a cave in Chhattisgarh, India
Petroglyphs of Lake Onega depict cosmic, solar and lunar signs: circles and semicircles with outgoing lines-rays, in which a modern person can clearly see both a radar and a spacesuit. Moreover - TV.
Rock art, Arizona, USA
Petroglyphs of Panama
California, USA
Guanche rock paintings, Canary Islands
Ancient images of the mystical symbol of the spiral are found throughout the world. These cave paintings were once created by Indians in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA.
Rock art, Nevada, USA
One of the drawings discovered in a cave on the island of Youth, off the coast of Cuba. In it one can find a great similarity with the structure of the Solar System, where there is an image of eight planets with their largest satellites.
These petroglyphs are located in Pakistan, in the Indus River Valley:
Once upon a time, a highly developed Indian civilization existed in these places. It was from her that these ancient images carved on stones remained. Take a closer look - don't you think these are mysterious vimanas - flying chariots from ancient Indian myths?
primitive artAny person endowed with a great gift - feel the beauty the surrounding world, feel harmony lines, admire the variety of shades of colors.
Painting- this is the artist’s perception of the world captured on canvas. If your perception of the world around you is reflected in the artist’s paintings, then you feel a kinship with the works of this master.
The paintings attract attention, fascinate, excite imagination and dreams, evoke memories of pleasant moments, favorite places and landscapes.
When did they appear first images created by man?
Appeal primitive people to a new type of activity for them - art - one of the greatest events in human history. Primitive art reflected man’s first ideas about the world around him; thanks to it, knowledge and skills were preserved and passed on, and people communicated with each other. In the spiritual culture of the primitive world, art began to play the same universal role that a pointed stone played in labor activity.
What gave a person the idea to depict certain objects? Who knows whether body painting was the first step towards creating images, or whether a person guessed the familiar silhouette of an animal in a random outline of a stone and, by cutting it, gave it a greater resemblance? Or maybe the shadow of an animal or a person served as the basis for the drawing, and the imprint of a hand or a step precedes the sculpture? There is no definite answer to these questions. Ancient people could come up with the idea of depicting objects not in one, but in many ways.
For example, to the number the most ancient images on the walls of Paleolithic caves include human hand prints, and a random interweaving of wavy lines pressed into the damp clay by the fingers of the same hand.
Works of art from the Early Stone Age, or Paleolithic, are characterized by simplicity of shapes and colors. Rock paintings are usually the outlines of animal figures, made with bright paint - red or yellow, and occasionally - filled with round spots or completely painted over. Such ""paintings"" were clearly visible in the twilight of the caves, illuminated only by torches or the fire of a smoky fire.
In the initial stage of development primitive art didn't know laws of space and perspective, as well as composition, those. intentional distribution of individual figures on a plane, between which there is necessarily a semantic connection.
In living and expressive images stands before us history of the life of primitive man the Stone Age era, told by himself in rock paintings.
Dance. Lleid painting. Spain. With a variety of movements and gestures, a person conveyed his impressions of the world around him, reflecting in them his own feelings, mood and state of mind. Crazy jumping, imitation of animal habits, stamping feet, expressive hand gesturescreated the preconditions for the emergence of dance. There were also war dances associated with magical rituals and the belief in victory over the enemy.
<<Каменная газета>> Arizona
Composition in the Lascaux cave. France. On the walls of the caves you can see mammoths, wild horses, rhinoceroses, and bison. For primitive man, drawing was the same “witchcraft” as spells and ritual dances. By “conjuring” the spirit of a drawn animal by singing and dancing, and then “killing” it, a person seemed to master the power of the animal and “defeat” it before hunting.
<<Сражающиеся лучники>> Spain
And these are petroglyphs. Hawaii
Murals on the Tassili-Ajer mountain plateau. Algeria.
Primitive people practiced sympathetic magic - in the form of dancing, singing or painting animals on the walls of caves - to attract herds of animals and ensure the continuation of the race and the safety of livestock. Hunters acted out scenes of a successful hunt to attract energy into the real world. They turned to the Mistress of the Herds, and later to the Horned God, who was depicted with the antlers of goats or deer to emphasize his primacy over the herds. The bones of animals were supposed to be buried in the ground so that animals, like people, were reborn from the womb of Mother Earth.
This is a cave painting in the Lascaux region of France from the Paleolithic era.
Large animals were the preferred food. And Paleolithic people, skilled hunters, destroyed most of them. And not just large herbivores. During the Paleolithic, cave bears completely disappeared as a species.
There is another type of rock paintings, which has a mystical, mysterious character.
Rock paintings from Australia. Either people, or animals, or maybe both...
Drawings from West Arnhem, Australia.
Huge figures and small people next to them. And in the lower left corner there is something incomprehensible.
Here is a masterpiece from Lascaux, France.
North Africa, Sahara. Tassili. 6 thousand years BC Flying saucers and someone in a spacesuit. Or maybe it's not a spacesuit.
Rock art from Australia...
Val Camonica, Italy.
and the next photo is from Azerbaijan, Gobustan region
Gobustan is included in the UNESCO heritage list
Who were those “artists” who managed to convey the message of their time to distant eras? What prompted them to do this? What were the hidden springs and driving motives that guided them?.. Thousands of questions and very few answers... Many of our contemporaries love it when they are asked to look at history through a magnifying glass.
But is everything really so small in it?
After all, there were images of gods
In the north of Upper Egypt is the ancient temple city of Abydos. Its origin dates back to prehistoric times. It is known that already in the era of the Old Kingdom (about 2500 BC) in Abydos, the universal deity Osiris enjoyed widespread veneration. Osiris was considered a divine teacher who gave the people of the Stone Age a variety of knowledge and crafts, and, quite possibly, knowledge about the secrets of the sky. By the way, it was in Abydos that the oldest calendar was found, dating back to the 4th millennium BC. e.
Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome also left a lot of rock evidence that reminds us of their existence. They already had a developed written language - their drawings are much more interesting, from the point of view of studying everyday life, than ancient graffiti.
Why is humanity trying to find out what happened millions of years ago, what knowledge did ancient civilizations have? We look for the source because we think that by revealing it, we will find out why we exist. Humanity wants to find where the starting point is, from which it all began, because it thinks that there, apparently, there is an answer, “what is all this for,” and what will happen in the end...
After all, the world is so vast, and the human brain is narrow and limited. The most complex crossword puzzle of history must be solved gradually, cell by cell...
Ancient rock paintings (petroglyphs) are found all over the world and have one thing in common: they describe animals, including those that are no longer found on earth today. Many of these drawings were so well preserved that at first glance experts considered them to be fakes. However, after careful examination, the images were found to be genuine. Below is a list of ten well-preserved prehistoric cave paintings.
Chauvet Cave
A cave located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc, in the Ardèche River valley in southern France. Contains the earliest known and best-preserved rock art in the world, dating from the Aurignacian era (36 thousand years ago). The cave was discovered on December 18, 1994 by three speleologists - Eliette Brunel, Christian Hillaire and Jean-Marie Chauvet. The paintings in the cave depict various Ice Age animals.
Magura Cave
Magura is a cave located near the village of Rabisha in Vidin region, Bulgaria. In the cave, bones of a cave bear, a cave hyena and other animals were found. And on its walls you can see drawings from different historical periods. They mainly depict female figures, hunters, animals, plants, the sun and stars.
The find includes about 5,000 paintings made by Aboriginal people on rocks in Kakadu National Park, Australia. Most of the paintings were created about 2000 years ago. Interestingly, they depict not only animals such as white sea bass, catfish, kangaroo, rock couscous and others, but also their bones (skeletons).
Tadrart-Akakus
Tadrart-Akakus is a mountain range in the Ghat Desert in western Libya, part of the Sahara. The massif is famous for its prehistoric rock art, which spans the period 12,000 BC. e. - 100 AD e. and reflects cultural and natural changes in the area. The drawings depict animals such as giraffes, elephants, ostriches, camels and horses, as well as people in various situations of everyday life, such as dancing and playing musical instruments.
Serra da Capivara is a national park located in the northeastern part of Brazil in the east of the state of Piaui. The park contains many caves containing examples of prehistoric art. The drawings, in great detail, depict animals and trees, as well as hunting scenes. A prominent site in the park, Pedra Furada contains the oldest remains of human activity on the continent, which significantly changed the understanding of the peopling of the Americas. In order to preserve numerous prehistoric exhibits and drawings, the Brazilian government created this national park.
The Lascaux Cave is located in southwest France and is famous for its cave paintings dating back to the Paleolithic period. The cave contains about 2,000 drawings, which can be grouped into three main categories: animals, human figures and abstract characters. The cave is one of the places on the planet where you will not be allowed.
Bhimbetka rock shelters are an archaeological site consisting of over 600 rock shelters located in Raisen district, Madhya Pradesh, India. These shelters contain the earliest traces of human activity in India; according to archaeologists, some of them could have been inhabited more than 100 thousand years ago. Most of the designs are made in red and white colors and depict animals such as crocodiles, lions, tigers and others.
Laas Gaal
Laas Gaal is a cave complex located on the outskirts of the city of Hargeisa in Somalia. Known for its well-preserved rock art. The drawings date back to the ninth - third millennia BC. e. and depict mainly cows, people, giraffes, wolves or dogs.
The Altamira Cave is located near the town of Santillana del Mar, Cantabria in Spain. It was accidentally discovered in 1879 by amateur archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola. This great archaeological discovery is famous for its ancient cave paintings from the Upper Paleolithic era (35 - 12 thousand years ago), which depict bison, horses, wild boars, human handprints and more.
Cueva de las Manos
Cueva de las Manos is a cave located in southern Argentina, in the province of Santa Cruz, in the valley of the Pinturas River. Known for archaeological and paleontological finds. First of all, these are cave paintings depicting human hands, the oldest of which date back to the ninth millennium BC. e. The left hands of teenage boys are depicted on the walls of the cave. This fact suggested that these images were part of an ancient ritual. In addition to hands, on the walls of the cave there are depictions of guanacos, rheas, cats and other animals, as well as scenes of hunting them.
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Which drawing is the oldest? Probably it should be drawn on an old, worn-out piece of papyrus, which is now kept in some museum under certain temperature conditions. But time will not be kind to such a drawing even under the most optimal storage conditions - after several thousand years it will inevitably turn into dust. But destroying rock, even over several tens of thousands of years, is a difficult task even for all-consuming time. Perhaps, in those distant times, when man had just begun to live on Earth and huddled not in houses built with his own hands, but in caves and grottoes created by nature, he found time not only to get food for himself and keep the fire going, but also to create?
Indeed, cave paintings dating back several tens of thousands of years BC can be found in some caves scattered across different parts of the planet. There, in a dark and cold confined space, the paint retains its properties for a long time. Interestingly, the first cave paintings were found in 1879 - relatively recently by historical standards - when archaeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, walking with his daughter, wandered into the cave and saw numerous drawings decorating its roof. Scientists around the world did not believe the amazing discovery at first, but studies of other caves around confirmed that some of them actually served as a refuge for ancient man and contain traces of his stay, including drawings.
To determine their age, archaeologists radiocarbon date the particles of paint that were used to paint the images. After analyzing hundreds of drawings, experts saw that rock art existed ten, twenty, and thirty thousand years ago.
This is interesting: By “arranging” the found drawings in chronological order, experts saw how rock art changed over time. Starting with simple two-dimensional images, artists of the distant past improved their skills, first adding more detail to their creations, and then shadows and volume.
But the most interesting thing, of course, is the age of the rock paintings. The use of modern scanners when exploring caves reveals to us even those rock paintings that are already indistinguishable to the human eye. The record of the antiquity of the found image is constantly updated. How deeply were we able to penetrate into the past by exploring the cold stone walls of caves and grottoes? To date, the cave boasts the oldest rock paintings El Castillo, located in Spain. It is believed that the most ancient rock paintings were discovered in this cave. One of them - the depiction of a human palm by spraying paint on a hand leaning against a wall - is of particular interest.
The oldest drawing to date, age ~ 40,800 years. El Castillo Cave, Spain. Since traditional radiocarbon dating would provide too much variation in the readings, to more accurately determine the age of the images, scientists used the method of radioactive decay of uranium, measuring the amount of decay products in the stalactites formed over thousands of years on top of the picture. It turned out that the age of the rock paintings is about 40,800 years, making them the most ancient on Earth among those discovered so far. It is quite possible that they were not even drawn by homo sapience, but by a Neanderthal.
But El Castillo Cave has a worthy competitor: caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. To determine the age of the local drawings, scientists examined the age of the calcium deposits that formed on top of them. It turned out that calcium deposits appeared no less 40,000 years ago, which means that the rock paintings cannot be younger. Unfortunately, it is not possible to more accurately determine the age of the ancient artist’s creations. But we know one thing for sure: in the future, humanity will face even more ancient and amazing discoveries.
Illustration: image of a bison in a cave in Altamira, Spain. About 20,000 years old
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