IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS ART

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PREHISTORIC ART

ART PRODUCED LONG LONG AGO BY BEFORE WRITTEN WORD AND HISTORY RECORDS BEGAN.

Prehistoric art largely consisted of cave paintings and sculptures of people and animals

Types of Prehistoric art

The three main art forms were cave painting, rock engraving and miniature figurative carvings.

cave art

petroglyphs: Petroglyph is a picture carved into stone surphase

PICTOGRAPH: Pictographs are rock and stone paintings

PETROFORMS : Art made by pilling natural stones.

cupules: Earliest known prehistoric art

The worlds first artists lived in caves

Chauvet Cave painting of animals. Created between 10,000 and 22,000 years ago.

Chauvet Cave is located in France

Ancient sea turtles cave painting found at

Gadao's Cave on the island of Guam

Petroglyphs: images created by removing part of a rock surface

Pictograph: a drawing or painting that is created on a rock. not "carved" into the rock like petroglyphs

'PECKHAM ROCK': STREET ARTIST Bansky placed a fake prehistoric rock art of a caveman with a shopping trolley on the walls of the British Museum.

the work went unnoticed for three days.

human-made shapes and patterns made by lining up large rocks on the open ground

Cupules are humanly made depressions on rock surfaces that resemble the shape of a spherical cap or dome.

PREHISTORIC PALETTE

Prehistoric artists used materials that they found in their surroundings. Colour was applied with sticks, stones, bones and their fingers. They made white pigments from chalk, black pigments from charcole, brown pigments from earth and red pigments from blood. The pigments were dried into powder then mixed with water to make paint.

Most cave paintings date from 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. The oldest are from about 32,000 years ago

MAKE YOUR OWN CAVE PAINTING

Find an empty spray bottle, fill with watery paint, poster paint, watercolour or acrylic . Place hand on brown paper and spray over your hand.

adult supervision required

NEXT UP, ANCIENT ART