The first form of art in primitive society was. Monuments of primitive culture. Fine art of the Paleolithic

All-Russian State Tax Academy

ABSTRACT

IN CULTURAL STUDIES

on the topic

PRIMITIVE ART

Completed by: group student NZ-103

Shchipitsina L.B.

Checked: ____________________

Moscow 2009

Plan

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………3

Paleolithic.

Paleolithic art…………………………………..4

Mesolithic. Mesolithic art……………………………………..8

Neolithic. Neolithic art…………………………………….11

Music and theater of primitive society……………………………….15

Conclusion……………………………………………………………...17

References……………………………………………………….18

Introduction

Primitive art, the art of the era of the primitive communal system. Primitive art arose around the XXX millennium BC. e., when a modern type of man appears.

Primitive (or, in other words, primitive) art geographically covers all continents except Antarctica, and in time - the entire era of human existence. The conversion of primitive people to a new type of activity for them - art - is one of the greatest events in the history of mankind. 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 By consolidating the results of labor experience in art, a person deepened and expanded his ideas about reality, enriched his spiritual world

and rose more and more above nature. The emergence of art therefore meant a huge step forward in human cognitive activity. Contributed to the strengthening of social ties and strengthening of the primitive community. The immediate cause of the emergence of art was the real needs of everyday life. In this work I want to look at the different stages of development primitive art

, starting from the Late Paleolithic era.

Paleolithic. Paleolithic art. Paleolithic, ancient, the first of two main eras of the Stone Age. The Paleolithic is the era of the existence of fossil humans, as well as fossil, now extinct animal species. People of the Paleolithic era used only chipped stone tools, not yet knowing how to polish them and make pottery - ceramics. They hunted and collected plant foods. Fishing was just beginning to emerge, and agriculture and cattle breeding were unknown.

The first works of primitive art were created about 30 thousand years ago, at the end of the Paleolithic era. These are primitive human figurines, mostly female, carved from mammoth ivory or soft stone. Often their surface is dotted with indentations, which probably signified fur clothing.

In addition to the “clothed” figurines, there are naked female figures. These are the so-called “Venuses” associated with the cult of “progenitors”. On their hips you can see a small belt like a loincloth, and sometimes a tattoo. The hairstyles of the figurines are interesting, sometimes quite complex and voluminous. They are still very far from real resemblance to the human body. They all have some common features: enlarged hips, stomach and breasts, absence of feet. Primitive sculptors were not even interested in facial features. Their task was not to reproduce a specific nature, but to create a certain generalized image of a woman-mother, a symbol of fertility and keeper of the hearth. Male images in the Paleolithic era are very rare.

In addition to women, they depicted figures of animals carved from bone or stone: horses, goats, reindeer, etc. The first examples of artistic carving (engraving on bone and stone) date back to the same period.

The most important monuments of Paleolithic art are cave images, where the figures of large animals, full of life and movement, which were the main objects of hunting (bison, horses, deer, mammoths, predatory animals, etc.), predominate. The first images of rock art are paintings in the Altamira cave (Spain), dating back to approximately the 12th millennium BC. – were discovered in 1875, and by the beginning of the First World War there were about 40 similar “” in Spain and France art galleries"".

In the history of cave painting of the Paleolithic era, experts distinguish several periods. In ancient times (from about the 20th millennium BC), works of art were characterized by simplicity of shapes and colors. Cave paintings are, as a rule, the outlines of animal figures, made with bright paint - red, black or yellow, and occasionally - filled with round spots or completely painted over. Such “pictures” were clearly visible in the twilight of the caves, illuminated only by torches or the fire of a smoky fire.

Stone Age people gave an artistic appearance to everyday objects - stone tools and clay vessels, although there was no practical need for this. Why did they do this? One can only make assumptions about this. One of the reasons for the emergence of art is considered to be the human need for beauty and the joy of creativity, another is the beliefs of that time. The beliefs are associated with beautiful monuments of the Stone Age - painted with paints, as well as images engraved on stone that covered the walls and ceilings of underground caves - cave paintings . People of that time believed in magic: they believed that with the help of paintings and other images they could influence nature. It was believed, for example, that it was necessary to hit a drawn animal with an arrow or spear in order to ensure the success of a real hunt.

Later (from about the 18th to 15th millennia BC), primitive craftsmen began to pay more attention to detail. Ancient artists learned to convey the volume and shape of an object, used paint of varying thickness, and changed the saturation of tone.

The contour line changed: it became brighter and darker, marking the light and shadow parts of the figure, folds of skin and thick hair (for example, the manes of horses, the massive scruff of bison). At first, the animals in the drawings looked motionless, but later primitive man learned to convey movement. Animal figures full of life appeared in the cave paintings: deer running in panic, horses racing in a “flying gallop” (the front legs are tucked in, the hind legs are thrown forward). The boar is scary in its rage: it gallops, baring its fangs and bristling. Cave paintings had a ritual purpose - when going hunting, primitive man painted a mammoth, wild boar or horse so that the hunt would be successful and the prey would be easy. This is confirmed by the characteristic overlap of some drawings with others, as well as their large number.

In the 12th millennium BC. e. cave art reached its peak. The painting of that time conveyed volume, perspective, colors, proportions of figures, and movement. At the same time, huge picturesque “canvases” were created that covered the arches of deep caves.

In 1868, in Spain, in the province of Santander, the Altamira cave was discovered, the entrance to which had previously been covered with a landslide. Almost ten years later, the Spanish archaeologist Marcelino Sautuola, who was excavating in this cave, discovered primitive images on its walls and ceiling. Altamira became the first of many dozens of similar caves found later in France and Spain: La Mute, La Madeleine, Trois Freres, Font de Gaume, etc. Now, thanks to targeted searches, about a hundred caves with images of primitive times are known in France alone.

An outstanding discovery was made completely by accident in September 1940. It so happened that it was the children, quite accidentally, who found the most interesting cave paintings in Europe. The Lascaux cave in France, which became even more famous than Altamira, was discovered by four boys who, while playing, climbed into a hole that opened under the roots of a tree that had fallen after a storm. The paintings of the Lascaux cave - images of bulls, wild horses, reindeer, bison, rams, bears and other animals - are the most perfect work of art that was created by man in the Paleolithic era. The most impressive are the images of horses, for example small, dark, stunted steppe horses that resemble ponies. Also interesting is the clear three-dimensional figure of a cow located above them, preparing to jump over a fence or pit-trap. This cave has now been turned into a well-equipped museum.

In the Montespan cave in France, archaeologists found a statue of a clay bear with traces of blows from a spear. Probably, primitive people associated animals with their images: they believed that by “killing” them they would ensure success in the upcoming hunt. Such finds reveal a connection between ancient religious beliefs and artistic activity.

Similar monuments are known outside Europe - in Asia and North Africa.

The huge number of these paintings and their high artistry are amazing. At first, many experts doubted the authenticity of the cave paintings: it seemed that primitive people could not have been so skilled in painting, and the amazing preservation of the paintings suggested a fake.

The exact time of creation of the cave paintings has not yet been established. The most beautiful of them were created, according to scientists, about 20 - 10 thousand years ago. At that time, most of Europe was covered with a thick layer of ice; Only the southern part of the continent remained suitable for habitation. The glacier slowly retreated, and after it, primitive hunters moved north. It can be assumed that in the most difficult conditions of that time, all human strength was spent fighting hunger, cold and predatory animals. Nevertheless, he created magnificent murals. On the walls of the caves are depicted dozens of large animals, which they already knew how to hunt at that time; among them there were also those that would be tamed by man - bulls, horses, reindeer and others. Cave paintings also preserved the appearance of animals that later became completely extinct: mammoths and cave bears. Primitive artists knew very well the animals on which the very existence of people depended. With a light and flexible line they conveyed the poses and movements of the animal. Colorful chords - black, red, white, yellow - create a charming impression. Mineral dyes mixed with water, animal fat and plant sap made the color of the cave paintings especially vibrant. To create such large and perfect works then, as now, one had to study. It is possible that the pebbles with images of animals scratched on them, found in the caves, were student works of the “art schools” of the Stone Age.

The amazing vitality of many Paleolithic images of animals is due to the peculiarities labor practice and the worldview of Paleolithic man. The accuracy and sharpness of his observations were determined by the daily work experience of hunters, whose entire life and well-being depended on their knowledge of animals and their ability to track them. For all its vital expressiveness, Paleolithic art was, however, completely primitive and infantile. It did not know generalization, the transfer of space, composition in our sense of the word. To a large extent, the basis of Paleolithic art was the reflection of nature in living, personified images of primitive mythology, the spiritualization of natural phenomena, endowing them with human qualities. The bulk of the monuments of Paleolithic art are associated with the primitive cult of fertility and hunting rituals.

Subsequently, the cave images lost their vividness and volume; stylization (generalization and schematization of objects) intensified. IN last period There are no realistic images at all. Paleolithic painting returned to where it began: random interweaving of lines, rows of dots, and unclear schematic signs appeared on the walls of caves.

Along with cave paintings and drawings, various sculptures were made from bone and stone at that time. They were made using primitive tools and the work required extreme patience. The creation of statues, no doubt, was also associated with primitive beliefs.

In the Late Paleolithic, the beginnings of architecture took shape. Paleolithic dwellings appear to have been low, dome-shaped structures sunk about a third into the ground, sometimes with long tunnel-like entrances. The bones of large animals were sometimes used as building material.

Mesolithic. Mesolithic art.

Mesolithic, Stone Age, transitional between Paleolithic and Neolithic. Mesolithic cultures of many territories are characterized by miniature stone tools - microliths. Beaten chopping tools made of stone were used - axes, adzes, picks, as well as tools made of bone and horn - spearheads, harpoons, fishhooks, points, picks, etc. Bows and arrows, various devices for fishing and hunting sea animals became widespread ( dugout canoes, nets). Pottery appeared mainly during the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic.

During the Mesolithic era, or Middle Stone Age (XII-VIII millennium BC), the climatic conditions on the planet changed. Some animals that were hunted have disappeared; they were replaced by others. Fishing began to develop. People created new types of tools, weapons (bows and arrows), and tamed the dog. All these changes certainly had an impact on consciousness primitive man, which is reflected in art.

The most striking examples of Middle Stone Age, or Mesolithic, painting are rock paintings on the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, in Spain. They are located not in the dark, inaccessible depths of caves, but in small rocky niches and grottoes. Currently, about 40 such places are known, including at least 70 separate groups of images.

These paintings differ from the images characteristic of the Paleolithic. Large drawings, where animals are presented in life size, gave way to miniature ones: for example, the length of the rhinoceroses depicted in the Minapida grotto is about 14 cm, and the height of the human figures is on average only 5-10 cm. But the detail of the compositions and the number of characters are striking: sometimes this hundreds of images of humans and animals. Human figures are very conventional; they are rather symbols that serve to depict crowd scenes. The primitive artist freed the figures from everything, from his point of view, of secondary importance, which would interfere with the transmission and perception of complex poses, action, the very essence of what is happening. For him, a person is, first of all, an embodied movement.

"Artists" usually used black or red paint. Sometimes they used both colors: for example, they painted the upper part of a person’s torso red and the legs black. In addition to various shades of red paint, white paint was occasionally used, and egg white, blood and, possibly, honey served as a persistent binder.

Feature rock art- a kind of transfer of individual parts of the human body. Exorbitantly long and narrow body, looking like a straight or slightly curved rod; as if intercepted at the waist; the legs are disproportionately massive, with convex calves; the head is large and round, with carefully reproduced details of the headdress.

Previously, the focus of the ancient “artist” was on the animals he hunted, now on human figures depicted in rapid movement. If the Paleolithic cave paintings represented separate, unrelated figures, then in the Mesolithic rock paintings, multi-figure compositions and scenes began to predominate, which vividly reproduce various periods in the life of hunters of that time.

The people depicted on the light gray background of the rocks are full of rapid energy. Their naked figures are outlined with graceful clarity. The “artists” of this period achieved true mastery in group images. In this they are significantly superior to cave “painters”. In rock paintings, multi-figure compositions appear, mainly of a narrative nature: each drawing is truly a story in color.

A masterpiece of rock art from the Mesolithic period can be called a drawing in the Gasulha gorge (Spanish province of Castellon). On it are two red figures of shooters aiming at a mountain goat that is jumping from above. The pose of the people is very expressive: they stand leaning on the knee of one leg, stretching the other back and bending their torso towards the animal.

A distinctive feature of rock art from this period is that people occupy a central place in it. The group of hunters become the main characters of the fictional story.

Central to the rock art were hunting scenes, in which hunters and animals are linked by energetically unfolding action. Hunters follow the trail or pursue prey, sending a hail of arrows at it as they run, delivering the final fatal blow or running away from an angry, wounded animal.

In living and expressive images we see the life story of a primitive man of the Stone Age, told by himself in rock paintings. As before, the main occupation of people was hunting wild animals. The bow, the main invention of this Stone Age period, became the main weapon. The foreground of the drawings always depicts a hunter armed with a bow. At the same time, people did not stop using throwing darts. Bunches of such darts, along with quivers full of arrows, can be seen in the hands of hunters and warriors. Dogs domesticated at that time also took part in the hunt.

Drawings dedicated to various hunting techniques have been preserved: tracking, catching, etc. The ancient “hunters” emphasized that hunting was a dangerous and difficult task. One of the drawings shows an angry bull, probably slightly wounded by arrows, chasing fleeing hunters.

Rock art allows you to imagine what primitive man looked like. Men in the drawings are usually depicted naked. Only occasionally do they wear short, above-the-knee trousers. The fringe or cords on the belt and at the knees are drawn with special care. The variety of men's hairstyles is interesting; sometimes their heads are decorated with feathers stuck into their hair. Women wear long, bell-shaped skirts; the chest is necessarily bare. Images of women are rare: they are usually static and lifeless.

Rock paintings also tell about dramatic episodes of military clashes between tribes. The drawings often depict battles: fierce battles, warriors running away from pursuit.

One of the large compositions in the Gasulya gorge surprisingly truthfully depicts the battle of ancient people. One group of warriors, armed with bows and arrows, is pushing back another: on the right are the attackers, on the left are the defenders. The attackers rush forward uncontrollably, showering their enemies with a cloud of arrows from tightly drawn bows. Among the defenders one can see the wounded, struck by arrows, suffering from pain, but not surrendering to the enemy. In the foreground, a squad of four riflemen with desperate tenacity is holding back the enemy's onslaught.

In the canopy of the Mola Religion (Gasulya Gorge) an excellent drawing with a scene of a war dance has survived. Five naked warriors run after each other in a chain. Their bodies are equally inclined forward. Each one holds a bunch of arrows in one hand, and a bow in the other, raised militantly upward.

Neolithic. Neolithic art.

Neolithic, New Stone Age, an era of the later Stone Age characterized by the exclusive use of flint, bone, and stone tools (including those made by sawing, drilling, and grinding techniques) and a generally widespread use of pottery. The tools of the Neolithic era represent the final stage of the development of stone tools, which were then replaced by metal products appearing in ever greater quantities. According to cultural and economic characteristics, Neolithic cultures fall into two groups:

farmers and pastoralists,

developed hunters and fishermen.

The melting of glaciers in the Neolithic, or New Stone Age, set in motion peoples who began to populate new spaces. The intertribal struggle for possession of the most favorable hunting grounds and for the seizure of new lands intensified. In the Neolithic era, man was threatened by the worst of dangers - another person. New settlements arose on islands in river bends, on small hills, that is, in places protected from sudden attack.

Cave painting in the Neolithic era became more and more schematic and conventional: the images only slightly resembled a person or animal. This phenomenon is typical for different regions of the globe. These are, for example, rock paintings of deer, bears, whales and seals found in Norway, reaching eight meters in length. In addition to schematism, they are distinguished by careless execution. Along with stylized drawings of people and animals, there are various geometric shapes (circles, rectangles, rhombuses and spirals, etc.), images of weapons (axes and daggers) and vehicles (boats and ships). Reproduction of wildlife fades into the background.

Rock art existed in all parts of the world, but nowhere was it as widespread as in Africa. Carved, embossed and painted images have been found over vast areas - from Mauritania to Ethiopia and from Gibraltar to the Cape of Good Hope. Unlike European art, African rock painting is not exclusively prehistoric. Its development can be traced approximately from the VIII-VI millennia BC. e. right up to the present day. The first rock paintings were discovered in 1847-1850. in North Africa and the Sahara Desert (Tassilin-Ajjer, Tibesti, Fezzan, etc.)

During the New Stone Age, cave painting faded into the background, giving way to sculpture - clay figurines. More or less mass production of similar products began, in particular sculptural images of animals and people, especially women. Archaeologists find them over a vast area: from the Mediterranean Sea to Lake Baikal.

The transition from hunting to agriculture and cattle breeding contributed to the development of new trends in art. The decorative and ornamental direction, which had already taken shape in the Paleolithic (decoration of household items, homes, clothing), developed more strongly than before. In the Neolithic and Chalcolithic eras and partly in the Bronze Age, art spread among the ancient tribes of Egypt, India, Western Asia, Asia Minor and Central Asia, and was largely associated with agricultural mythology: painted ceramics with ornaments (in the Danube-Dnieper region in China - complex curvilinear , mainly spiral; in Central Asia, Iran, India, Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt - rectilinear geometric patterns, often combined with images of animals and stylized human figures).

The Stone Age was followed by the Bronze Age (it got its name from the then widespread alloy of metals - bronze). The Bronze Age began relatively late in Western Europe, about four thousand years ago. Bronze was much easier to process than stone; it could be cast into molds and polished. Therefore, in the Bronze Age, all kinds of household items were made, richly decorated with ornaments and of high artistic value. Ornamental decorations consisted mostly of circles, spirals, wavy lines and similar motifs. Particular attention was paid to decorations - they were large in size and immediately caught the eye.

Along with decorative ornaments, many agricultural tribes had vitally expressive sculpture. Neolithic and Chalcolithic architecture is represented by the architecture of communal settlements (multi-room adobe houses of Central Asia and Mesopotamia, dwellings of the Trypillian culture with a frame base of twigs and adobe floors, etc.).

In the III-II millennium BC. e. unique, huge structures made of stone blocks appeared, owing their appearance also to primitive beliefs - megaliths (from the Greek “megas” - “large” and “lithos” - “stone”). Megalithic structures include menhirs - vertically standing stones more than two meters high. On the Brittany Peninsula in France, the so-called fields stretch for kilometers. menhirov. In the language of the Celts, the later inhabitants of the peninsula, the name of these stone pillars several meters high means “long stone”. Other structures have also been preserved - dolmens - several stones dug into the ground, covered with a stone slab, originally used for burials. Megaliths also include cromlechs - complex structures in the form of circular fences with a diameter of up to one hundred meters made of huge stone blocks. Megaliths were widespread: they were found in Western Europe, North Africa, the Caucasus and other areas of the globe. In France alone, about four thousand of them were discovered.

Numerous menhirs and dolmens were located in places that were considered sacred. Particularly famous are the ruins of such a sanctuary - a cromlech in England near the city of Salisbury - the so-called. Stonehenge(II millennium BC) . Stonehenge is built from one hundred and twenty stone blocks weighing up to seven tons each, and is thirty meters in diameter. It is curious that the Presekli Mountains in South Wales, from where the building material for this structure was supposed to be delivered, are located two hundred and eighty kilometers from Stonehenge. However, modern geologists believe that the stone blocks came to the vicinity of Stonehenge with glaciers from different places. It is assumed that the sun was worshiped there.

The tribes that preserved the fishing and hunting way of life (forest hunters and fishermen of Northern Europe and Asia, from Norway and Karelia in the West to Kolyma in the East) had both ancient motifs and realistic forms of art inherited from the Paleolithic. These include rock carvings, animal figurines made of clay, wood and horn (for example, finds in the Gorbunovsky peat bog and the Oleneostrovsky burial ground). Rock art of the Neolithic and Late Bronze Ages were also created in Central Asia (Zaraut-Sai) and the Caucasus (Kobustan). In the steppes of Eastern Europe and Asia, pastoral tribes created the so-called animal style at the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age. Cultural ties with Ancient Greece, the countries of the Ancient East and China contributed to the emergence of new subjects, images and visual means in the artistic culture of the tribes of Southern Eurasia. The later stages of primitive art were associated with the growth of productive forces, the development of the division of labor during the period of the beginning of the decomposition of the primitive communal system and the beginning of the formation of a class society. Rich and varied art, organically connected with the forms of primitive art, continued to exist until the 19th and 20th centuries. among peoples who have largely preserved primitive communal relations (the aborigines of Australia, Oceania and South America, the peoples of Africa).

The art of the Stone Age had a huge positive significance for the history of ancient mankind. Consolidating your life experience and worldview, primitive man deepened and expanded his ideas about reality, enriched his spiritual world.

Music and theater of primitive society.

It is difficult for us to imagine the music of primitive people. After all, writing did not exist then, and no one knew how to write down either the words of songs or their music. We can get the most general idea of this music partly from the preserved traces of the lives of people of those distant times (for example, from rock and cave paintings), and partly from observations of the lives of some modern peoples who preserved the primitive way of life. So we learn that even at the dawn of human society, music played an important role in people's lives.

Mothers hummed and rocked their children to sleep; warriors inspired themselves before the battle and frightened their enemies with warlike songs - cries; the shepherds gathered their flocks with drawn-out words; and when people gathered together for some work, measured shouts helped them unite their efforts and cope with the work more easily. When someone from the primitive community died, his relatives expressed their grief in lamenting songs. This is how the most ancient forms of musical art arose: lullabies, military songs, shepherd songs, work songs, funeral laments. These ancient forms continued to develop and have survived even to this day, although, of course, they have changed very much. After all, the art of music is constantly developing, like human society itself, reflecting the diversity of a person’s feelings and thoughts, his attitude to the life around him. This is the main feature of real art.

Music was included in the games of primitive people as an indispensable component. She was inseparable from the words of the songs, from the movements, from the dancing. In the games of primitive people, the rudiments of various types of art - poetry, music, dance, theatrical performance - were merged into one whole, which subsequently became isolated and began to develop independently. Such an undifferentiated (syncretistic) art, more like a game, has been preserved to this day among tribes living in conditions of a primitive communal system.

In ancient music there was a lot of imitation of the sounds of surrounding life. Gradually, people learned to select musical sounds from a huge number of sounds and noises, learned to recognize their relationship in pitch and duration, their connection with each other.

Rhythm was developed in primitive musical art before other musical elements. And there is nothing surprising here, because rhythm is inherent in human nature itself. Primitive music helped people find rhythm in their work. Melodically monotonous and simple, this music was at the same time surprisingly complex and varied rhythmically. Singers emphasized rhythm by clapping or stamping their feet: this is the oldest form of accompanied singing.

In primitive society, man was completely dependent on the forces of nature that he did not understand. Changes of seasons, unexpected cold weather, fires, loss of livestock, crop failure, illness - everything was attributed to supernatural forces that had to be appeased and won over. According to the ancients, one of the most important means of achieving success in any business was considered magic (magic). It consisted in the fact that before any labor process, a mimic scene was played out, depicting the successful implementation of this process. This is how ritual games were born.

Participants in ritual games used a rather complex pantomime, accompanying it with songs, music, and dances. It seemed to the ancients that all this had magical powers. Thus, already in early ritual actions some elements were contained and merged together modern theater. Ritual games are always associated with forms of economy that are developed among a particular people. Among the tribes that obtained their food by hunting and fishing, entire hunting performances were performed. Their participants were divided into two groups. Those who portrayed “prey” decorated themselves with bird feathers, fangs, wore animal skins, animal masks, or painted their bodies and faces. The game consisted of scenes of tracking, chasing and killing prey. Then all participants performed a dance to the sounds of a tambourine or drum, accompanying it with warlike cries and singing.

Among agricultural peoples, mimic games were part of holidays associated with spring - with the revival of nature, with the beginning of sowing, and in autumn - with harvesting, the fading of nature. Therefore, most agricultural rituals depict the “birth” and “dying” of the deity - the patron of nature, the triumph of the light forces of life over the dark forces of death. At these holidays, mourning and sadness were replaced by joy, fun, and jokes. Some features of such games were preserved in later Western European carnivals.

Conclusion.

The history of primitive art includes the problem of the origin of art and examines the stages of its development over several tens of thousands of years from the most ancient works of art of the Paleolithic era. In other words, this is the history of the pre-class period in the development of art. Once upon a time, what we call artistic creativity was not yet an independent type of professional work activity. Unlike the art of the era of civilization, primitive art does not constitute an autonomous area in the sphere of culture. In primitive society, artistic activity is closely intertwined with all existing forms culture: mythology, religion. With them it exists in indissoluble unity, forming what is called a primitive cultural complex.

In primitive society, almost all types of spiritual activity are associated with art and express themselves through art. At this stage of development, art is the same multi-valued instrument of spiritual culture as a pointed stone was for the labor activity of primitive man - a universal tool used in all cases of his life.

In primitive art, the first ideas about the surrounding world were developed. They contribute to the consolidation and transfer of primary knowledge and skills, and are a means of communication between people. Labor that transforms the material world has become a means of man's purposeful struggle with pristine nature. Art, which organizes the system of ideas about the surrounding world, regulates and directs social and mental processes, served as a means of combating chaos in man himself and in human society.

The moment a person turns to this new type of activity, which we can conditionally call artistic creativity, can be considered as the greatest discovery, perhaps unparalleled in history in terms of the possibilities that are inherent in it.

Bibliography

1. Alekseev V.P., Pershits A.I. History of primitive society. M., 1999.

2. Great Soviet Encyclopedia. In 30 volumes / Ed. A. M. Prokhorova. 3rd ed. M., 1970-1978.

T. 16. Moesia - Morshansk. M., 1974. P. 8.

T. 17. Morshin - Nikish. M., 1974. P. 472.

T. 19. Otomi - Plaster. M., 1975. P. 355.

3. Mirimanov V.B. Primitive and traditional art. M., 1973.

4. Tylor E. B. Primitive culture. M., 1989.

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26. Features of formation and development primitive art Peculiarities primitive

Images on the surface of the earth, dendroglyphs - images on the bark of trees and images on animal skins, various body decorations using colored pigments and all kinds of natural objects, such as beads, which are still popular today. But all of the above is not able to withstand the onslaught of destructive time. Therefore, only abstract signs were preserved and gradually discovered, carved artificially on super-hard rock surfaces in Central India, northern Australia and Peru, as well as pictograms of positive and negative hand stencils and animalistic cave images (Nerja, Southern coast of Spain, Chauvet , Ardèche, South of France) zoomorphic and anthropomorphic sculpture of small forms (Venus from Hole Fels and Man-Lev - Swabian Alb, Germany) made of bone and stone, engravings and bas-reliefs on bone, stone slabs and horn, Upper Paleolithic time (35 - 40 thousand . years) and numerous accumulations of rock carvings on the surfaces of the rocks below open air, Neolithic era, or New Stone Age, (11 thousand years), known on all inhabited continents. The ruins of various megalithic buildings in Europe also belong to the Neolithic, South America and Asia (for example: Stonehenge in Salisbury, with vertically installed stones in a circle - cromlechs, weighing up to 50 tons, Great Britain, ordered rows of large uncut obelisk stones, on the endless Karnak field, called menhirs, and grave complexes of uncut large stones, for example, Corconne dolmen, Morbigan, France).

The first works of primitive art discovered during excavations were magnificent, realistic, engraved images of animals on the surfaces of bones, now long extinct animals of the Pleistocene era (ended 11 thousand years ago) and hundreds of tiny beads from natural materials(fossilized calcite sponges) found by Boucher de Perth for the first time in the 30s of the 19th century in France. But then, these finds turned out to be the subject of a fierce dispute between the first amateur researchers and dogmatic creationists represented by clergy, confident in the divine origin of the world. As a result, the amazing, unusual findings did not inspire confidence among both professional scientists of the French Academy of Sciences and the general public. A revolution in views on primitive art was made by the discovery of Paleolithic cave painting. In 1879, Maria, the eight-year-old daughter of the Spanish amateur archaeologist M. de Sautuola, discovered on the vaults of the Altamira cave, in northern Spain, a cluster of large, one to two meters, images of bison, painted with red ocher in a variety of complex poses. These were the first, officially published in 1880, Paleolithic paintings discovered in a cave. Currently, about forty caves with Paleolithic paintings are known in Australia, South Africa, Russia, Spain and France. The skill of ancient artists was reflected in the ability to convey visual means dynamics and characteristics of animals. The first message about this, in Russian, appeared only in 1912, in translation from French, the sixth edition of the course of public lectures by Solomon Reinach, which he read at the Louvre School in Paris in 1902-1903. Currently, primitive visual creativity is being studied by researchers from two international organizations ICOMOS (ICOMOS) - uniting professional researchers and IFRAO (IFRAO), an association of amateur researchers, which includes more than 50 national organizations from around the world. In June 2012, the journal Science published new uranium dating methods in 11 Spanish caves and the French Chauvet Cave. An international group of scientists finally managed to obtain a reliable series of datings of the most ancient cave paintings. The images of “black rhinoceroses” in the Chauvet cave were 35.3-38.8 thousand years old. The oldest known dates in the world turned out to be the dates of the ocher pigment images of the Spanish Nerja Cave - 43.5-42.3 thousand years. All of the above, on the one hand, and new finds of examples of portable art in Germany, on the other, made it possible to completely refute the point of view of academic science, presented by 100 years of systematic research, in particular, the authoritative opinion of Leroy-Gourhan.

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Primitive art is the art of the era of primitive society. The appearance of the beginnings of art is attributed to the Mousterian era (150-120 thousand - 35-30 thousand years ago). On some objects of this time, rhythmic pits and crosses are found - a hint of ornament. Individual finds may indicate the emergence of the rudiments of art - ornamentation from pits and notches, coloring of objects, and even the production of anthropomorphic figurines - even in previous eras. Thus, “Venus from Berekhat-Ram” dates back 230 thousand years, and “Venus from Tan-Tan” - more than 300 thousand years ago. The production of ornaments is associated with the so-called. "behavioral modernity" ( behavioral modernity) A series of finds of primitive jewelry may indicate a relative early start modern culture and about the time from which Homo sapiens sapiens showed the ability to abstract thinking. Three perforated mollusk shells, found by archaeologists in Israel and Algeria, and made approximately 90 thousand years ago, are considered elements of the first jewelry created by man. In 2007, isolated decorated and perforated shells that may have been made into beads were found in eastern Morocco; their age is 82 thousand years. More than 40 shells were found in Blombos Cave (South Africa) with traces of color and traces indicating use in beads 75 thousand years old.

Primitive sculpture

Rock painting

File:Naskl.jpg
A bison attacks a man.

Many rock carvings made by people of the Paleolithic era have survived to this day, primarily in caves. Most of these objects are found in Europe, but they are also found in other parts of the world. When creating images, paints were used from mineral dyes (ochre, metal oxides), charcoal, and vegetable dyes mixed with animal fat or blood, or water. The oldest known rock painting is apparently a scene of a battle between rhinoceroses in the Chauvet cave, about 32 thousand years old. Rock paintings are often made taking into account the color and shape of the rock surface and conveying the movement of the animals depicted, but, as a rule, without observing the proportions of the figures, perspective and without conveying volume. On rock paintings images of animals, hunting scenes, human figures and scenes of ritual or everyday activities (dancing, etc.) predominate.
All primitive painting, as part of primitive visual creativity, is a syncretic phenomenon and was presumably created in accordance with cults. Later, images of primitive fine art acquired features of stylization. Many examples of cave paintings are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Megalithic architecture

Types of megalithic structures
- menhir - a single vertical stone
- cromlech - a group of menhirs forming a circle or semicircle
- dolmen - a structure made of a huge stone placed on several other stones
The question of the origin and essence of art is extremely complex. He finds ambiguous interpretations in science:

Art is one of the forms of cognition and display real world(Marxism);

The roots of art lie not in the material sphere, but in the consciousness of people or given to them “from above” (“art for art’s sake” - idealism);

Art is a game, an aimless activity in which the excess of physical and spiritual strength inherent in a person is manifested (F. Schiller);

Art is a game caused by the biologically inherent desire for beauty in a person (G. Spencer);

An artist creates works of art instinctively, like a spider that weaves a web without realizing the goal (A. Schopenhauer);

Art comes from religion, primarily from magical beliefs (S. Reynak);

The creative process allows a person to escape reality into a fantasy world and thus satisfy inherited ancient ancestors sexual and aggressive drives that had to be hidden in a civilized society (F. Nietzsche). Culturology. Textbook village // Ed. N.N.Fomina, N.O.Svechnikova. - St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University ITMO, 2008. - P.102-107.

Each of these versions has its own rational grain, however, none of them can be considered absolute. If we consider this problem In the context of the genesis of culture as a whole, it is obvious that many ideas and theories can be extrapolated into the field of art. Thus, reflection, labor, racial and anthropological features, the process of signification, communications, extraterrestrial and supernatural sources can serve as impulses for the emergence of art.

The origin of such a bright and complex phenomenon of human activity as art is a consequence of many objective and subjective reasons. It originated as part of a single life activity and arose in a team from the inherent human need to communicate, convey one’s thoughts and feelings. Theories of the origin of art in Appendix 2.

The most ancient works of art known to us belong to the late (Upper) Paleolithic era (20 - 30 thousand years BC). Of the various types of artistic creativity of primitive man, archaeological monuments directly preserved traces of only fine art. In the Late Paleolithic era (Aurignacian and Solutre), all its types immediately appeared. This is a design that is a very primitive outline image, carved or carved on stone, bone or antler. Painting is equally primitive, also limited to a contour image on a rock, in black or red paint, probably applied with a finger. The subject is predominantly an animal (horse, lion, rhinoceros, deer). The style is strictly realistic.

The desire to understand one’s place in the surrounding world can be read in the images that were brought to us by engraved and painted images on stone from Bourdelle, El Parnallo, Isturiz, Paleolithic “Venuses”, paintings and petroglyphs (images carved, scratched or carved on stone) of caves Lascaux, Altamira, Nio, rock art North Africa and Sahara. Round sculpture is represented almost exclusively by figurines of women, carved from soft stone, limestone, and, less commonly, ivory. They are executed in a realistic manner, but the body is sometimes elongated and gender characteristics are strongly emphasized. The hands are conventional, the face is missing. The usual height of sculptures is 5-10 cm. These are the so-called “Paleolithic Venuses”. The figurines had a magical meaning: they were associated with the cult of fertility, embodying concern for procreation, the growth and prosperity of the primitive community.

Before the discovery of paintings in the Spanish cave of Altamira in 1879 by the nobleman Marcelino de Southwall, there was an opinion among ethnographers and archaeologists that primitive man was devoid of any spirituality and was engaged only in searching for food. However, already the English researcher of primitive art Henri Breuil at the beginning of the century spoke about a real “Stone Age civilization”, tracing the evolution of primitive art from the simplest spirals and handprints on clay through engraved images of animals on bones, stone and horn to polychrome (multi-color) paintings in caves in vast areas of Europe and Asia.

Speaking about primitive art, it is necessary to keep in mind that the consciousness of primitive man represented an inextricable syncretic (from the Greek synkretismos - connection) complex, and all of the cultures that later developed into independent forms of culture existed as a single whole and were interconnected. Art, fixing the measure of sociality that is characteristic of Homo Sapiens, also became a means of communication between people and consolidated its inherent ability to give a generalized picture of the world in artistic images. The famous researcher of the psychology of art L.S. Vygotsky came to the following conclusion: “... art is a social technique of feeling, an instrument of society, through which it involves the intimate and most personal aspects of our being in the circle of social life.”

Following the first, but already quite confident steps, the end of the Paleolithic gives a picture of a remarkable flowering of the fine arts. The sculpture is rare, but the drawing reaches a perfection that is truly remarkable for its time. The subject matter here in the overwhelming majority of cases are large animals - main object hunting of that time (bison, deer, horse, less often - mammoth, rhinoceros and even less often - predators). Animals are usually depicted alone, the compositions are few. Images of humans and plants are very rare. The painting is represented by contours carved on rocks, painted with colors (red, black, white and yellow, with red predominating). Mineral paints mixed with fat and bone marrow. Prepared paints are often found at sites; even a bone bottle with preserved red ocher powder was found. The sizes of the images are usually quite large and reach 2.5-4 and even 6 m. They are located mainly in the depths of caves. The man didn't live here. These were sanctuaries in which magical rites related to hunting and the life of the primitive community were performed.

Both drawing and painting of the Late Paleolithic are distinguished by great realism, often revealing an excellent knowledge of nature. Unlike previous images, the nature in these drawings is full of movement. The drawing is not without perspective. Painting conveys volume well, and plasticity is achieved through the distribution of light and dark tones.

During the Mesolithic era there was a transition from realistic depiction to stylization and ornament. Fine art is changing fundamentally. Mesolithic paintings were most often performed in open areas. Unlike the Paleolithic, man occupies a huge place in them. The paintings are multi-figure compositions.

The figures of people and animals are small (rarely reaching 75 cm), depicted in a solid silhouette, red and black paint. Images are stylized, schematized, sometimes reduced almost to a sign. The reason for this was that man acquired the ability to think in more general, more abstract categories, to reflect broader and more complex phenomena. The naive faith in the image of the “double” weakened and the need for designation, communication, and story about the event came to the fore.

The predominant direction in the fine arts of the Neolithic is decorative, giving extremely diverse forms and often reaching great artistic heights.

A person strives to decorate all things that serve him, even the most ordinary and simple objects of everyday use, for example, pottery. Such decoration gives an ornament (lat. ornamentum - decoration) - a pattern consisting of rhythmically ordered elements that cover weapons, utensils, and clothing.

Sculpture and relief acquire a decorative character.

The Bronze Age is characterized by high achievements in decorative art, as well as megalithic architecture. At this time, battle axes and axes, daggers and spearheads, ritual vessels and all kinds of jewelry were made from bronze: clasps, belts, buckles, bracelets, earrings, rings, hoops, sewn-on plaques.

Quite quickly, all metal processing techniques were mastered: forging, casting, chasing and engraving. Using these techniques, all bronze products were covered with various patterns and images, and small plastic objects were created. The main visual motif remains animals, each of which has a certain magical, symbolic meaning.

The most important phenomenon of the Bronze Age was megalithic architecture, closely associated with religious and cult ideas and concepts. There are three types of megaliths: menhirs, dolmens and cromlechs.

Menhirs are single, vertically placed stones of varying heights (from 1 to 20 m). They were probably worshiped as symbols of fertility, guardians of pastures and springs, or designated places of ceremonies.

Dolmens are structures made of large stone slabs standing vertically and covered with another slab on top. They were a burial place for clan members.

Cromlechs are the most significant structures of antiquity. They are stone slabs or pillars arranged in a circle, which were sometimes covered with slabs. Cromlechs are located around a mound or sacrificial stone. These are the first religious buildings known to us. At the same time, they were also the oldest observatories.

The Iron Age was marked by a further flowering of decorative and applied arts. Works of art not only served as decoration for people, weapons, horse harness, and utensils, but also played a magical role and expressed the religious ideas of people. The so-called “animal style” appears.

Unlike previous times, preference here is given to images of predatory animals rather than commercial ones - lions, panthers, tigers, leopards, eagles. Great place occupied by fantastic animals - griffins. Animal poses express a tense state or moments of struggle.

All these features of the animal style expressed the desire to impart and add to the owner of things the qualities inherent in the animals depicted, as well as to protect him from harm. In works of the decorative style, realism was combined with decorativeness and stylization. However, high compositional skill and expressiveness have always been maintained.

Concluding the conversation about primitive art, I would like to emphasize that “primitive” in no way means “simplified”, low in its level. On the contrary, primitive works evoke amazement and admiration. During this period, all major types of art began to develop: painting, sculpture, graphics, decorative and applied arts, architecture. Two main approaches to depiction have clearly emerged: realism (following nature) and convention (this or that transformation of nature in order to achieve certain goals). Primitive art, which became widely known only in the twentieth century, made a strong impression and had a great influence on the art of this and the present sophisticated centuries.

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Autonomous non-profit organization of higher professional education

discipline: CULTURAL HISTORY

on the topic: THE EMERGENCE AND EARLY FORMS OF ART

Performed:

Durneva Irina Vladimirovna

Moscow, 2012

Introduction

4. Discovery of Altamira

5. Cave painting

6. Neolithic Revolution

7. Copper and Bronze Age

Conclusion

Introduction

Throughout history, man and art have been inextricably linked. A person’s awareness of himself is reflected in stone figurines and in the features of architectural monuments. Human qualities and feelings are captured in works of painting and sculptural groups. Problems of existence, religion, and worldview are reflected in works of art.

Help in understanding the world through emotional perception of it, broadening one’s horizons, awakening creative forces, and shaping a person’s spiritual appearance are the functions of art. The moment a person turns to artistic creativity, perhaps, is greatest discovery, which has no equal in history for the capabilities it contains. Art does not exist outside of time and society; in its content it is social and inextricably linked with national tradition and era.

Soviet psychologist L.S. Vygotsky wrote: “Art is social in us - it is a social technique of feeling, an instrument of society, with the help of which it draws into the circle of social life the most intimate and most personal aspects of our being.”

The artist, having rethought what he saw, unraveling the mysteries of existence in his own way, with the help of a system of artistic images, tries to convey his worldview, involving us in a complex process of self-knowledge, forcing us to work not only our eyes and brain, but also our imagination, mobilizing our spiritual powers to action.

The history of art in the history of mankind presents a complex picture of the development of various national schools, movements, styles, mutual penetration of forms and traditions that do not know time and geographical boundaries, due to which in stepped forms Orthodox churches, the richness of the decor is not inferior to examples of the French Baroque, geometric lines can be traced Egyptian pyramids, and Russian icons look at us through the eyes of faces painted with the brush of a Byzantine artist.

In my work I would like to show what the earliest stages of the development of art exist and how a person, changing, created something new, something different from the previous one.

1. The origins of art and its features of early forms

The origins of art go back to ancient times. The problem of the origin of art has worried the best for many centuries. philosophical minds, but not too much is known about the artistic activity of humanity in the early stages of development. Numerous works of fine art (rock paintings, sculptural images made of stone and bone) appeared much earlier than a person’s conscious idea of artistic creativity was formed.

The origin of art dates back to the primitive era, when man first tried to reflect his ideas about the world around him in art, which contributed to the consolidation and transfer of knowledge and skills, and the emergence of another form of communication between people. According to archaeologists, already in the Paleolithic era (Old Stone Age) around 35-10 thousand BC. e., the main types of fine art (sculpture, painting, graphics) appeared.

It should be noted that in primitive society, human artistic activity was inextricably linked with all existing forms of spiritual and material culture: mythology, religion, and everyday life.

Artistic, spiritual culture exists in close unity with material culture, forming a primitive syncretic, i.e., unified, cultural complex, which only centuries later will disintegrate into independent spheres of culture: religion, art (in all the variety of its forms), sports, science.

Images reproduced by the hand of primitive man are a link in a single chain of artistic, religious and theatrical magic performance, reflecting the synthesis of the material and spiritual culture of man of that distant era. Early drawings are primitive; this is a contour image of animal heads, impressions of a human hand, wavy lines squeezed out in damp clay with the fingers of the hand (the so-called “pasta”). Later images of the Paleolithic era are drawings of animals of that time (deer, horses, bison, mammoths) made on the walls and ceilings of caves. The oldest figurines of animals are distinguished by their accurate depiction; life forced the human hunter to study in detail the character of the animal and its habits. This knowledge was of practical value. Man has not yet known himself, therefore sculptural images of man are very schematic and conventional. These are the primitive “Venuses” (Venus of Willendorf), the simplest female figures with disproportionate limbs, exaggerated maternal features and the absence of features human face. While correctly perceiving individual objects, a person has not yet grasped the overall picture of the world and has not realized his place in it.

Pictorial images of the Mesolithic period (Middle Stone Age) 10-6 thousand BC. e., became more colorful. Multi-figure compositions appeared, reflecting dynamic scenes of hunting, battles between tribes, and everyday activities. A person makes his first attempts to reveal the interconnections of the universe, to master the general laws of life.

Neolithic (New Stone Age), 6-2 thousand BC. e., enriched the fine arts with the creation of works of monumental anthropomorphic (humanoid) sculpture, for example, the so-called “stone women” of the Northern Black Sea region.

A characteristic feature of Neolithic culture is the spread of small plastic arts and artistic crafts, which laid the foundation for decorative art.

During the Bronze Age, about 2 thousand years BC. e., the architecture called megalithic (that is, the architecture of large stones: from the Greek roots “meg” - large and “lit” - stone) gained predominant importance. Megalithic structures include: menhirs, dolmens, cromlechs. Their emergence is associated with the development religious ideas. Stone pillars - menhirs - up to 20 m high (located in Brittany, France, Transcaucasia, Armenia) bear the features of architecture and sculpture.

2. Archaeologists have found works of primitive art for the first time

Works of primitive art can be divided into two large groups:

1) rock and cave painting and engraving;

2) small works of art made of stone, bone, horn.

In the middle of the 19th century, a number of discoveries were made that became possible thanks to the development of scientific archaeology. In almost all corners of the earth, archaeologists have discovered and uncovered centers of material culture: sites caveman, stone and bone tools of labor and hunting - spears, axes, needles, scrapers. At many sites, objects were found that can only be called works of art: silhouettes of animals, patterns and mysterious signs carved on pieces of deer antlers, on bone plates and stone slabs, strange human figures made of stone and bone, drawings, carvings and reliefs on rocks . In secret caves, where archaeologists penetrated with difficulty, by touch, and sometimes by swimming through underground rivers, they happened to discover entire “museums” of primitive painting and sculpture.

3. The first works of art

The most ancient works of the Upper Paleolithic plastics date back to the 25th millennium BC. e.

In a vast area from Siberia to Western Europe During this era, female figurines made mainly of ivory (mammoth tusks), the so-called Paleolithic Venus, were common. These images of women are still very far from real resemblance to the human body. But big breasts and curvy hips leave no doubt that these are women. Primitive sculptors were not interested in facial features. Their task was not to reproduce a specific nature, but to create a certain generalized image of a woman-mother, a symbol of fertility and keeper of the hearth. Many of them are highly polished, indicating that they have been handled frequently. Most likely, these figurines were associated with the cult of fertility. Be that as it may, the desire to create an expressive form, attempts to artistically process the material allow us to see the first works of art in these things.

4. Discovery of Altamira

People have always tried to recreate a reliable picture of the origin of the human race. At first, the history of the origin of man was based on myths and religious beliefs. The development of rational thinking in the 17th century required a different approach to this problem, based on the logic of the rapidly developing natural sciences. Traditional ideas no longer satisfied enlightenment philosophers. Charles Darwin, in his seminal work “The Origin of Species” (1859), pointed out the possibility of human origin from apes, which caused a wave of religious protest. However, under the influence of Darwin, interest in the study of the early stages in human development flared up.

Archaeological excavations have discovered the most important monuments of prehistoric art, including examples of Paleolithic painting. We owe the discovery of the Altamira cave in Northern Spain more to chance than to the diligence of archaeologists. In 1869, a hunter was looking for a lost dog and ended up in a part of the cave unknown to him. Six years later, local amateur archaeologist Marcelino Sautuola began his own research. One day, in 1879, he took his 12-year-old daughter with him, who drew her father’s attention to the images on the ceiling, difficult to discern in the darkness of the cave. “Look, dad, bulls,” said the girl. Sautuola published the results of his discovery, but Sautuola was accused of deliberate falsification, that these paintings were made by one of his friends, an artist. Only almost 15 years after Sautuola’s death were his opponents forced to publicly admit they were wrong and agree that Altamira’s paintings date back to the Paleolithic era.

5. Cave painting

The first examples of rock art are paintings in the Altamira cave (Spain), dating back to approximately the 12th millennium BC. e., - were discovered in 1875. Over the course of 50 years, about 40 similar “art galleries” were opened in Spain and France. Ironically, the paintings in the Altamira Cave were mistaken for fakes. They seemed too perfect to be the creations of primitive man. In cave paintings, images of animals are most often found - horses, bison, deer, cows, wild boars. In Africa there are also images of rhinoceroses and zebras. In earlier drawings, animals looked motionless, but later primitive artists learned to convey movement. Rarely found images of a person are very sketchy. The artists used black and red paints made from various inorganic materials. Stones and clays were ground into powder, then water or some kind of binder, such as resin, was added. Ancient craftsmen learned to convey the volume and shape of an object by using paint of varying thicknesses and changing the saturation of the tone. Numerous finds have allowed scientists to trace the evolution of rock art and study its technique, style, and subjects. But neither the images themselves nor knowledge of the painting method can tell why they were created. There are many explanations. Some believe that it is simply a reflection of the visible world. Primitive artists knew well the animals on which the very existence of people depended. Others believe that the location itself explains everything. It was once thought that primitive man lived in caves, but it has now been proven that his home was like a hut made of animal bones covered with skins. Picturesque images were usually located far from the entrance to the cave, which indicates their religious and magical nature, connection with rituals that ensure the success of the hunt and procreation.

6. Neolithic Revolution

The end of the Ice Age (approximately 13 thousand years ago) led to dramatic climate change. The ice gave way to vast forests. Many large mammals became extinct and were replaced by modern species of animals. Man had to adapt to serious changes.

About 10 thousand years ago, gatherers and hunters discovered that cereal grains thrown into watered soil produced a new harvest the following year. In addition, people have learned to keep wild animals in captivity and obtain offspring from them. The development of agriculture, which implied a sedentary lifestyle, led to an increase in the size of the community and the emergence of quite large permanent settlements, and later cities. About 9 thousand years ago, the first permanent settlements appeared in Western Asia, whose inhabitants were engaged in agriculture. The transition from an appropriating economy to a producing one was called the Neolithic Revolution.

The Neolithic is characterized primarily by significant improvements in the technology of making stone tools. The most main feature new technology consists of the final finishing of stone tools by grinding or polishing, as well as sawing and drilling stone. Another important achievement of the Neolithic era was the invention of ceramics. Practical need gave rise to the ability to make and fire clay vessels, which were decorated with abstract ornaments. These utensils were intended both for everyday use and for religious rituals. Richly decorated items were most likely used for religious purposes.

More developed public relations gave rise to more diverse forms of religious cults. Excavations in the south of Turkey in Çatalhöyük, one of the oldest cities in the world, which appeared about 10 thousand years ago, showed the existence of the cult of the sacred bull. The sanctuaries were decorated with the long horns of this animal. The need for light and heat good harvest led to the spread of solar cults.

7. Copper and Bronze Age

About 4 thousand years ago, another turning point occurred in the evolutionary development of man. People discovered metals and began to process them. Copper turned out to be the first metal that man used to make tools, perhaps because it was easier to mine than other metals. Later, man began to mine and extract other metals from ore, including tin and lead. By fusing copper with tin, man created the first metal that does not exist in nature - bronze. The resulting alloy was much harder than copper and was easy to process. High temperature kilns were first used to make ceramics, but gradually they were adapted for casting bronze and other metals. Metal soon replaced ceramics from the most important areas - the production of religious objects and jewelry. The ability to smelt metals penetrated into Northern Europe, and after that another innovation from Mesopotamia came there - bronze (c. 3000 BC). The Celtic cultures that dominated Europe before the Roman conquest made extensive use of bronze and other metals and created their own decorative traditions. Many weapons, religious and household items decorated with ornaments were found in Celtic burials.

Conclusion

The emergence of art is associated with the development of society and human living conditions. But why art arose, why it acquired exactly these forms, there are no simple and accurate answers to these questions.

Humanity strives to find them in order to understand the origins, in the depths of which one of the main active forces in the creation of civilization arose. art artistic architecture

List of used literature

1. Miriamov V.B. - Primitive and traditional art. - M., 1973.

2. Alekseeva V.V. - What is art? - M., 1991.

3. Popular art encyclopedia. / Ed. V.M. Polevoy. - M.: Publishing house Soviet encyclopedia, 1986.

4. Kuzmina M.T., Maltseva N.L. - History of foreign art. - M., 1980.

5. Early forms art: Collection. - M., 1972.

6. Formozov A.A. - Monuments of primitive art on the territory of the USSR: 2nd ed. - M., 1980.

7. Stolyar A.D. - Origin of fine arts. - M., 1985.

8. Vipper R.Yu. Story ancient world. - M.: Republic, 1994.

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1879 - Marcelino Southwallo's discovery of the paintings in the Spanish cave of Altamira.

Periodization:

1. Paleolithic(Old Stone Age)

lower middle upper

100-40 thousand BC – 10 thousand BC

Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) – 10-8 thousand BC.

Neolithic (New Stone Age) – 8 – 5 thousand BC.

Eneolithic (Copper Stone Age) -4-3 thousand BC.

II. The Age of Copper and Bronze - 2 thousand BC.

III. Iron Age – 1 thousand BC

On the edge Middle and Upper Paleolithic Homo Sapuens appeared, a variety of stone tools (points, sewn clothes), exclusion of immediate relatives from family relationships, the emergence of regular marriage, the formation of a family, and tribal relations.

Upper Paleolithic- the emergence of speech, religion, art. Main occupations: hunting, gathering, hoe farming. Tools: spears, darts, needles. The emergence of artificial housing. Sedentary lifestyle. Forms of primitive religion: totemism– belief in supernatural kinship between people and any species of animals, fish, insects; animism(spirit, soul) – belief in the existence of supernatural forces in the form of spirits; fetishism- worship of inanimate objects, which were assigned supernatural powers. Magic- actions based on a person’s belief in his ability to influence supernatural forces.

Neolithic revolution: the emergence of agriculture and animal husbandry (cattle breeding), permanent settlements, the emergence of alliances of tribes and nationalities.

General characteristics of art primitive era :

- Syncretism(unity, non-division), i.e. art was closely intertwined with all existing forms of culture and art: religion, mythology, etc. T.O., art exists in indissoluble unity, forming the so-called. primitive syncretic cultural complex.

- Conservative- All artistic images- These are variations on a traditional theme that has been established for centuries.

- The role of the animal– the zoomorphic nature of fine art, even in the anthropomorphic sculpture of Venuses. The predominance of animal images, because it provided a person with food, clothing, all human interests were connected with it.

In primitive art, the utilitarian preceded the aesthetic: in order to kill an animal, it was necessary to know its most vulnerable places, behavior, etc. At the beginning, a person learned to grasp and capture the outlines and plastic forms of objects, and then to distinguish and reproduce colors.

Evolution of painting:

- human handprints

- linear drawing(pasta) - wavy lines made by tracing along the contour or splashing paint to fill open areas.

A contour drawing in which the figures of animals and animal heads were guessed. The images are often unfinished, the proportions are not respected, only the most important features of the body, head, external signs subject. The image was carved onto the stone or drawn on raw clay.

The most famous Late Paleolithic paintings were found at the end of the 19th century. in caves: France - Font de Gaume, Lascaux, Montignac, Montespan, Nio, 3 brothers, etc.; Spain – Altamira Cave. Just at the end of the 20th century. More than 300 caves of primitive art were discovered: France - 150, Spain - 125, Italy - 21, Portugal -3, Russia - 2.

The body of the animal was depicted in profile, and the hooves and horns were depicted in full face or ¾ view. In contour planar painting, a transition to detailing and shading was gradually outlined.

- hatching– oblique strokes depicting animal fur.

Subsequently, the figures were completely painted over, and the contour line began to play a subordinate role. Comes to the fore

- color spot, applied with earthen (ocher) paint (brown, yellow or black), which created the impression of volume.

Image of bulls, bison, horses measuring 1.5 m using protrusions and uneven walls of the cave. Image of bison in the Altamira cave: a steep ridge, all the bulges of the body are visible: muscles, elasticity of the legs; the feeling of the animal being ready to jump, the eyes looking from under its brows - this is no longer an elementary drawing, but an attitude towards the animal not only as prey - a source of food, but also admiration for it, respect as the patron of the clan. However, primitive realism remains intuitive and spontaneous, because consists of individual specific images. There is no background, no composition in modern sense this word.

With the transition of man to complex forms of labor, in addition to hunting and fishing, the emergence of agriculture and cattle breeding, the invention of arrows and bows, pottery and metal objects appear, changes also occur in art, in which the growth of

- schematization of images and their narrative: attempts to convey an action, an event (hunting scenes, military operations). The iso is already one-color (black or white). Rock paintings in Spain, South Africa, Karelia (Russia) depict a person in action (battle scenes, multi-figure compositions). Then the images become more conventional, especially the human figure.

Towards the end of the Mesolithic, towards the Neolithic, conventional figurative images gradually give way to various signs and symbols, random interweaving of lines, dots, schematic signs - such images were called petroglyphs, those. stone writings (on the rocks of Karelia, Uzbekistan, the shores of the White Sea, Lake Onega). Hunting scenes, etc., are narrated in a conventional form.

Primitive sculpture:

Animal figurines are totems found in hunters’ settlements and carved from bone, horn or stone. Sculptures of women (5-10 cm) are the so-called. Venuses associated with the cult of the ancestral mother and having magical significance, as indicated by the absence of a face image. Finds in Willendorf (Austria), Menton and Lespug (France), Savignino (Italy), the village of Kostenki (Voronezh region). Paleolithic Venus from Willendorf - swollen belly, bulky breasts - vessels of fertility, i.e. treating a person primarily as an animal.

Dwellings: grottoes, caves, then settlement-sites, consisting of several dwellings: 1/3 deepening into the ground, without windows, doors, made of branches, skins, reeds, with a hole on top. Dishes made of birch bark, coconut, pumpkin, clay, leather. Food was stored in wicker baskets coated with clay. Thus, in the Mesolithic era, ornament (Latin for “decoration”) appears as traces of weaving coated with clay. Subsequently, the ornament was artificially applied in order to give objects magical actions(these are parallel stripes, double spirals, schematic images of people and animals).

Architecture:

Towards the end of the primitive period, types appeared architectural structures, called cyclopean, in which the walls of the fortresses were made of huge roughly hewn blocks - stones (France, Sardinia, the Balkan Peninsula, Transcaucasia). In addition to the Cyclopean fortresses - defensive structures, the so-called. Megalithic buildings, i.e. built from large stones-boulders:

- menhirs– vertically standing pillar stones (idols). The oldest of them dates back to the Bronze Age (2 thousand BC), more than 20.5 m high.

- dolmens- the most ancient burials - tombs, to which long corridors led. They were covered with earth (hill).

- cromlechs– the most ancient Sanctuaries of the sun (Avebury and Stonehenge, Great Britain, 2 thousand BC) The height of the “blue blocks” is up to 7 m, weight – 50 tons.

In the forest belt of Europe in the 2nd half. 1 thousand BC there were settlements - “fortifications”, fortified with ramparts and log fences.

The first form of art in primitive society was. Monuments of primitive culture. Fine art of the Paleolithic

Primitive art (3)

Primitive culture as a historical type

Features of formation and development primitive art

Encyclopedic YouTube

Primitive sculpture

Rock painting

Megalithic architecture

Types of megalithic structures

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