1. Art history allows us to better understand societies other than our own, and to see beyond our cultural boundaries.
Works are with us in the present
Modern photo and print make it available to us
Differences in art reflect different points of view

2. Paleolithic Period When did art begin?
About 750,000 years ago, humans developed symmetrical and refined tools. (awareness of form to function and form as enjoyable in itself).
Blombos Cave in South Africa (77,000 yrs. old)
Engraved ochre
Beads pierced for stringing

3. Engraved Ochre. Blombos Cave, South Africa

4. 30,000 to 40,000 yrs. ago, hunter-gatherers painted images of animals they hunted on cave walls.
Expressive naturalism
Painted with charcoal and earthen pigments
Often geometric signs or symbols appear with the animals
Occasionally humans are portrayed, but with less detail than the animals

5. WALL PAINTING OF ANIMALS. Chauvet Cave. 28,000 B.C.E.

9. Hand-size carvings of female figures were found in what is now eastern and western Europe.
Giving credit to women for birthing a new person
Religious art, the Great Mother Goddess

10. Woman of Lespugue

11. WOMAN OF WILLENDORF. 25,000 – 20,000 B.C.E.

12. Petroglyphs – Rock art carvings
Made by scratching or pecking the surface of exposed stone.
Carvings of humans, animals and mythic beings
Purpose is not known for sure

13. Murujuga petroglyphs

14. petroglyphs

15. Neolithic Period New Stone Age Marks a turning point for human history
From nomadic hunters to village farmers and herders
Produces early architecture and technological developments
Geometric abstract art (enhance objects of daily use)
Clay storage pots

17. The Beginnings of Civilization
Mesopotamia
Between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (Iraq)
Sumer
Developed the first writing, the wheel and the plow
Ziggurats – temples set on huge platforms
Linked heaven and earth
Sun-baked bricks

19. The Nile River (deserts on both sides) The Great Pyramids
Egypt
The Nile River (deserts on both sides)
The Great Pyramids
Burial vaults for pharaohs
Cut stone blocks stacked without mortar

20. THE GREAT PYRAMIDS. GIZA, EGYPT. 2500 B.C.E. – 2570 B.C.E.

21. TEMPLE OF QUEEN HATSHEPSUT

22. Sculpture form determined by geometric plan
Naturalism and abstraction
Human figure is depicted frontal or in profile

23. MASK FROM MUMMY CASE. 1340 B.C.E.