Primitive art. Primitive art Early and Middle Paleolithic

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Drawings of hands belong to the most ancient examples of art

Primitive, or prehistoric art- the art of primitive society, created before the advent of writing.

Among the oldest indisputable evidence of the existence of art are the monuments of the Late Paleolithic (40 - 35 thousand years): abstract signs carved on super-hard rock surfaces; drawings of hands and animalistic cave images; zoomorphic and anthropomorphic sculpture of small forms made of bone and stone; engravings and bas-reliefs on bone, stone tiles and horn.

Origin and periodization

The appearance of the beginnings of art dates back to the Mousterian era (150-120 thousand - 35-30 thousand years ago). On individual subjects From this time, rhythmic pits and crosses are found - a hint of ornament. The appearance of the beginnings of art is also evidenced by the coloring of objects (usually with ocher). The production of ornaments is associated with the so-called. “behavioral modernity” - behavior characteristic of a modern type of person.

Many types of art, probably characteristic of the Paleolithic, left no material traces. It is generally accepted that, in addition to sculptures and rock paintings that have survived to this day, the art of the ancient Stone Age was represented by music, dances, songs and rituals, as well as images on the surface of the earth, images on the bark of trees, images on animal skins, various body decorations using colored pigments and all kinds of natural objects (beads, etc.).

Early and Middle Paleolithic

Recent discoveries of primitive jewelry may require a shift back many millennia to the time when Homo sapiens sapiens first showed the ability to think abstractly. 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. In Blombos Cave (South Africa), geometric ocher patterns and more than 40 shells with traces of color were found, indicating their use in beads dating back 75 thousand years. Three mollusk shells with perforations made 90 thousand years ago, found by archaeologists in Israel and Algeria, could also be used as jewelry.

Some scientists claim that the anthropomorphic pieces of stone “Venus from Berekhat-Ram” (230 thousand years old) and “Venus from Tan-Tan” (more than 300 thousand years old) are of artificial, not natural origin. If such an interpretation is justified, then art is not the prerogative of only one species of animal - Homo sapiens. The layers where these figurines were found belong to the period when the corresponding territories were inhabited by more ancient species of people ( Homo erectus, Neanderthals).

Diagonal shark tooth scratches on a 500,000-year-old Javan shell were deliberately caused by Homo erectus, according to a team of scientists. The hollow femur of a cave bear with two holes, 43 thousand years old, could be a kind of flute made by a Neanderthal (see flute from Divye Babe). S. Drobyshevsky describes an artifact from the La Roche-Cotard cave, inhabited by Neanderthals, as follows:

This is a flat piece of stone with a fragment of bone planted in a natural crack, supported by a small wedge. If you wish, you can see eyes in the bone halves sticking out on both sides, and a nose in the stone bridge above the gap. The only question is, did the Neanderthal know that he had made a “mask”?

Many anthropologists (including R. Cline) dismiss speculation about Neanderthal art as pseudoscientific speculation and deny Middle Paleolithic artifacts any purpose other than utilitarian. Thus, the existence of art over 45 thousand years old is still in the realm of hypotheses and not established facts.

Late Paleolithic

The Paleolithic artist depicted what excited his imagination - most often the animals he hunted: deer, horses, bison, mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses. Less common are images of predators that pose a danger to humans - lions, leopards, hyenas, bears. Human figures are very rare (and single images of men are not found until almost the very end of the Paleolithic).

Mesolithic

In the rock paintings of the Mesolithic period (from approximately the 10th to the 8th millennium BC), an important place is occupied by multi-figure compositions depicting a person in action: scenes of battles, hunting, etc.

Neolithic

Kinds

Primitive sculpture

The oldest undoubted examples of sculpture were discovered in the Swabian Alb in the layers of the Aurignacian culture (35-40 thousand years). Among them is the oldest zoomorphic figure - a human lion made from mammoth ivory. The sites of the later Magdalenian culture abound in carvings on the tusks and bones of animals, some of which reach a high artistic level.


Bison licking its wound		“Swimming deer” (11 thousand years BC, France)		Hyena from La Madeleine Grotto

The Upper Paleolithic is especially characterized by figurines of obese or pregnant women, called Paleolithic Venuses. Typologically similar figurines are found in the middle part of Eurasia over a vast territory from the Pyrenees to Lake Baikal. These figurines are carved from bones, tusks and soft stones (soapstone, calcite, marl or limestone). Figurines sculpted from clay and fired are also known - the oldest examples of ceramics. Increasingly stylized female figures with exaggerated breasts and buttocks continued to be created by Balkan Neolithic cultures (Early Cycladic culture, finds from Hamandzhia in Romania).

Probably, wood carving and wood carving were even more widespread in the Paleolithic. wood sculpture, not preserved due to the relative fragility of this material. The first example of wooden plastic known to scientists - the Shigir idol - was discovered on the territory of the Sverdlovsk region and is 11 thousand years old.

Rock painting

Many rock carvings made by people of the Paleolithic era have survived to this day, primarily in caves. Most of these objects were found in Europe, but they are also found in other parts of the world - in Australia, South Africa, Siberia. In total, at least forty caves with Paleolithic painting are known. Many examples of cave painting are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

When creating images, paints were used from mineral dyes (ochre, metal oxides), charcoal, and vegetable dyes mixed with animal fat or blood, or water. 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. The rock paintings are dominated by images of animals, hunting scenes, human figures and scenes of ritual or everyday activities (dancing, etc.).

All primitive painting is a syncretic phenomenon, inseparable from mythology and cults. Over time, the images acquire distinct features of stylization. The skill of ancient artists was reflected in the ability to convey visual means dynamics and characteristics of animals.

Megalithic architecture

The purpose of megaliths cannot always be determined. Many of them are community buildings with a socializing function. Their construction represented primitive technology a daunting task and required the unification of large masses of people. Some megalithic structures, such as the complex of more than 3,000 stones at Carnac (Brittany), were important ceremonial centers associated with the cult of the dead. Similar megaliths were used for funeral cults, including burials. Other megalith complexes could probably have been used to determine the timing of astronomical events such as the solstices and equinoxes.

Houseware

Decorating everyday objects (stone tools and clay vessels) had no practical need. One explanation for the practice of such decoration is the religious beliefs of Stone Age people, another is the need for beauty and the joy of the creative process.

History of the study

The first works of primitive art to attract the attention of science were the magnificently realistic engraved images of animals on the surfaces of the bones of now long-extinct animals of the Pleistocene era (ended 11 thousand years ago), as well as hundreds of tiny beads from natural materials(fossilized calcite sponges) found by Boucher de Pert in the 1830s. on the territory of France. 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.

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 arches of the Altamira cave (northern Spain) a cluster of large (1-2 meters) images of bison, painted with red ocher in a variety of complex poses. These were the first Paleolithic paintings discovered in a cave. Their publication in 1880 became a sensation. The first message about this in Russian appeared only in 1912, in a translation from French of the sixth edition of the course of public lectures by Salomon Reinach, which he read at the Louvre School of Paris in 1902-1903.

Most of the most ancient monuments of art, which initially came to the attention of scientists, are located in Europe. Outside this part of the world, the Sahara rock paintings in Tassilin-Adjer (12-10 thousand years) were considered the oldest. Only in the second half of the 20th century did it become known about the existence of monuments comparable in age to European ones on other continents:

Notes

Beaumont B.Peter and Bednarik G.Robert 2013. Tracing The Emergence of Palaeoart in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Zilhao J. The Emergence of ornaments and art: An archaeological perspective on the origins of “behavioral modernity” // JArR. 2007. N 15. P. 1-54.

Primitive society(also prehistoric society) - a period in human history before the invention of writing, after which the possibility of historical research based on the study of written sources appears. The term prehistoric came into use in the 19th century. In a broad sense, the word “prehistoric” is applicable to any period before the invention of writing, starting from the beginning of the Universe (about 14 billion years ago), but in a narrow sense - only to the prehistoric past of man. Usually, the context gives indications of which “prehistoric” period is being discussed, for example, “prehistoric apes of the Miocene” (23-5.5 million years ago) or “Homo sapiens of the Middle Paleolithic” (300-30 thousand years ago). Since, by definition, there are no written sources about this period left by his contemporaries, information about it is obtained based on data from such sciences as archaeology, ethnology, paleontology, biology, geology, anthropology, archaeoastronomy, palynology.

Since writing appeared among different peoples at different times, the term prehistoric either does not apply to many cultures, or its meaning and time boundaries do not coincide with humanity as a whole. In particular, the periodization of pre-Columbian America does not coincide in stages with Eurasia and Africa (see Mesoamerican chronology, chronology of North America, pre-Columbian chronology of Peru). As sources about the prehistoric times of cultures that until recently were deprived of writing, there can be oral traditions passed down from generation to generation.

Since data about prehistoric times rarely concern individuals and do not even always say anything about ethnic groups, the basic social unit prehistoric era humanity is an archaeological culture. All terms and periodizations of this era, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age, are retrospective and largely arbitrary, and their precise definition is a matter of debate.

Primitive art- art of the era primitive society. Having emerged in the late Paleolithic around 33 thousand years BC. e., it reflected the views, conditions and lifestyle of primitive hunters (primitive dwellings, cave images of animals, female figurines). Experts believe that the genres of primitive art arose approximately in the following sequence: stone sculpture; rock art; clay dishes. Neolithic and Chalcolithic farmers and herders developed communal settlements, megaliths, and pile buildings; images began to convey abstract concepts, and the art of ornament developed.

The technique of making tools and some of its secrets were passed down from generation to generation (for example, the fact that stone heated over a fire is easier to process after cooling). Excavations at sites of Upper Paleolithic people indicate the development of primitive hunting beliefs and witchcraft among them. They made figurines of wild animals from clay and pierced them with darts, imagining that they were killing real predators. They also left hundreds of carved or painted images of animals on the walls and vaults of caves. Archaeologists have proven that monuments of art appeared immeasurably later than tools - almost a million years.

IN ancient times For art, people used available materials - stone, wood, bone. Much later, namely in the era of agriculture, he discovered the first artificial material - refractory clay - and began to actively use it for the manufacture of dishes and sculptures. Wandering hunters and gatherers used wicker baskets because they were easier to carry. Pottery is a sign of permanent agricultural settlements.

The first works of primitive fine art belong to the Aurignac culture (Late Paleolithic), named after the Aurignac cave (France). Since that time, female figurines made of stone and bone have become widespread. If the heyday of cave painting began approximately 10-15 thousand years ago, then the art of miniature sculpture reached high level much earlier - about 25 thousand years. The so-called “Venuses” belong to this era - figurines of women 10-15 cm high, usually with distinctly massive shapes. Similar “Venuses” have been found in France, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, Russia and many other areas of the world. Perhaps they symbolized fertility or were associated with the cult of the female mother: the Cro-Magnons lived according to the laws of matriarchy, and it was through the female line that membership in the clan that revered its ancestor was determined. Scientists consider female sculptures to be the first anthropomorphic, i.e., human-like images.

In both painting and sculpture, primitive man often depicted animals. The tendency of primitive man to depict animals is called the zoological or animal style in art, and for their diminutiveness, small figures and images of animals were called plastics of small forms. Animal style- a conventional name for stylized images of animals (or parts thereof) common in ancient art. The animal style arose in the Bronze Age and was developed in the Iron Age and in the art of early classical states; its traditions were preserved in medieval art, in folk art. Initially associated with totemism, images of the sacred beast over time turned into a conventional motif of the ornament.

Primitive painting was a two-dimensional image of an object, and sculpture was a three-dimensional or three-dimensional image. Thus, primitive creators mastered all the dimensions that exist in modern art, but did not master its main achievement - the technique of transferring volume on a plane (by the way, the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, medieval Europeans, Chinese, Arabs and many other peoples did not master it, because the discovery of reverse perspective occurred only during the Renaissance).

In some caves, bas-reliefs carved into the rock, as well as free-standing sculptures of animals, were discovered. Small figurines are known that were carved from soft stone, bone, and mammoth tusks. The main character of Paleolithic art is the bison. In addition to them, many images of wild aurochs, mammoths and rhinoceroses were found.

Rock drawings and paintings are varied in the manner of execution. The relative proportions of the animals depicted (mountain goat, lion, mammoth and bison) were usually not observed - a huge aurochs could be depicted next to a tiny horse. Failure to comply with proportions did not allow the primitive artist to subordinate composition to the laws of perspective (the latter, by the way, was discovered very late - in the 16th century). Movement in cave painting is conveyed through the position of the legs (crossing legs, for example, depicted an animal on the run), tilting the body, or turning the head. There are almost no motionless figures.

Archaeologists have never discovered landscape paintings in the Old Stone Age. Why? Perhaps this once again proves the primacy of the religious and the secondary nature of the aesthetic function of culture. Animals were feared and worshiped, trees and plants were only admired.

Both zoological and anthropomorphic images suggested their ritual use. In other words, they performed a cult function. Thus, religion (the veneration of those whom primitive people depicted) and art (the aesthetic form of what was depicted) arose almost simultaneously. Although for some reasons it can be assumed that the first form of reflection of reality arose earlier than the second.

Since images of animals had a magical purpose, the process of creating them was a kind of ritual, therefore such drawings for the most part hidden deep in the depths of the cave, in underground passages several hundred meters long, and the height of the vault often does not exceed half a meter. In such places, the Cro-Magnon artist had to work lying on his back in the light of bowls with burning animal fat. However, more often the rock paintings are located in accessible places, at a height of 1.5-2 meters. They are found both on cave ceilings and on vertical walls.

The first discoveries were made in the 19th century in caves in the Pyrenees Mountains. There are more than 7 thousand karst caves in this area. Hundreds of them contain cave paintings created with paint or scratched with stone. Some caves are unique underground galleries (the Altamira Cave in Spain is called the “Sistine Chapel” of primitive art), the artistic merits of which attract many scientists and tourists today. Cave paintings from the Old Stone Age are called wall paintings or cave paintings.

The Altamira Art Gallery stretches over 280 meters in length and consists of many spacious rooms. The stone tools and antlers found there, as well as the figurative images on bone fragments, were created in the period from 13,000 to 10,000 BC. BC e. According to archaeologists, the cave roof collapsed at the beginning of the new Stone Age. In the most unique part of the cave - the “Hall of Animals” - images of bison, bulls, deer, wild horses and wild boars were found. Some reach a height of 2.2 meters; to look at them in more detail, you have to lie down on the floor. Most of the figures are drawn in brown. The artists skillfully used natural relief protrusions on the rock surface, which enhanced the plastic effect of the images. Along with the figures of animals drawn and engraved in the rock, there are also drawings that vaguely resemble the human body in shape.

Periodization

Now science is changing its opinion about the age of the earth and the time frame is changing, but we will study according to the generally accepted names of periods.

Stone Age

Ancient Stone Age - Paleolithic. ... up to 10 thousand BC
Middle Stone Age - Mesolithic. 10 – 6 thousand BC
New Stone Age - Neolithic. From 6th to 2nd thousand BC

Bronze Age. 2 thousand BC

Age of Iron. 1 thousand BC

Paleolithic

Tools were made of stone; hence the name of the era - the Stone Age.

Ancient or Lower Paleolithic. up to 150 thousand BC
Middle Paleolithic. 150 – 35 thousand BC
Upper or Late Paleolithic. 35 – 10 thousand BC

Aurignac-Solutrean period. 35 – 20 thousand BC
Madeleine period. 20 – 10 thousand BC The period received this name from the name of the La Madeleine cave, where paintings dating back to this time were found.

The most early works Primitive art dates back to the late Paleolithic. 35 – 10 thousand BC

Scientists are inclined to believe that naturalistic art and the depiction of schematic signs and geometric figures arose simultaneously.

The first drawings from the Paleolithic period (ancient Stone Age, 35–10 thousand BC) were discovered at the end of the 19th century. Spanish amateur archaeologist Count Marcelino de Sautuola three kilometers from his family estate, in the Altamira cave.

It happened like this: “the archaeologist decided to explore a cave in Spain and took his little daughter with him. Suddenly she shouted: “Bulls, bulls!” The father laughed, but when he raised his head, he saw huge painted figures of bison on the ceiling of the cave. Some of the bison were depicted standing still, others rushing at the enemy with inclined horns. At first, scientists did not believe that primitive people could create such works of art. It was only 20 years later that numerous works of primitive art were discovered in other places and the authenticity of cave paintings was recognized.”

Paleolithic painting

Altamira Cave. Spain.

Late Paleolithic (Madeleine era 20 - 10 thousand years BC).
On the vault of the Altamira cave chamber there is a whole herd of large bison located close to each other.

Wonderful polychrome images contain black and all shades of ocher, rich colors, applied somewhere densely and monochromatically, and somewhere with halftones and transitions from one color to another. A thick paint layer up to several cm. In total, 23 figures are depicted on the vault, if you do not take into account those of which only outlines have been preserved.

Altamira Cave Image

The caves were illuminated with lamps and reproduced from memory. Not primitivism, but the highest degree of stylization. When the cave was opened, it was believed that this was an imitation of hunting - the magical meaning of the image. But today there are versions that the goal was art. The beast was necessary for man, but he was terrible and difficult to catch.

Beautiful brown shades. Tense stop of the beast. They used the natural relief of the stone and depicted it on the convexity of the wall.

Cave of Font de Gaume. France

Late Paleolithic.

Silhouette images, deliberate distortion, and exaggeration of proportions are typical. On the walls and vaults of the small halls of the Font-de-Gaume cave there are at least about 80 drawings, mostly bison, two undisputed figures of mammoths and even a wolf.

Grazing deer. Font de Gaume. France. Late Paleolithic.
Perspective image of horns. Deer at this time (the end of the Madeleine era) replaced other animals.

Fragment. Buffalo. Font de Gaume. France. Late Paleolithic.
The hump and crest on the head are emphasized. The overlap of one image with another is a polypsest. Detailed study. Decorative solution for the tail.

Lascaux Cave

It so happened that it was the children, and quite accidentally, who found the most interesting cave paintings in Europe:
“In September 1940, near the town of Montignac, in the southwest of France, four high school students set off on an archaeological expedition they had planned. In place of a tree that had long been uprooted, there was a hole in the ground that aroused their curiosity. There were rumors that this was the entrance to a dungeon leading to a nearby medieval castle.
There was another smaller hole inside. One of the guys threw a stone at it and, judging by the sound of the fall, concluded that it was quite deep. He widened the hole, crawled inside, almost fell, lit a flashlight, gasped and called others. From the walls of the cave in which they found themselves, some huge animals were looking at them, breathing such confident power, sometimes seeming ready to turn into rage, that they felt terrified. And at the same time, the power of these animal images was so majestic and convincing that they felt as if they were in some kind of magical kingdom.”

Late Paleolithic (Madeleine era, 18 - 15 thousand years BC).
Called the primitive Sistine Chapel. Consists of several large rooms: rotunda; main gallery; passage; apse.

Colorful images on the calcareous white surface of the cave. The proportions are greatly exaggerated: large necks and bellies. Contour and silhouette drawings. Clear images without aliasing. A large number of male and female signs (rectangle and many dots).

Kapova Cave

KAPOVA CAVE - to the South. m Ural, on the river. White. Formed in limestones and dolomites. The corridors and grottoes are located on two floors. The total length is over 2 km. On the walls are Late Paleolithic paintings of mammoths and rhinoceroses.

The numbers on the diagram indicate the places where the images were found: 1 - wolf, 2 - cave bear, 3 - lion, 4 - horses.

Paleolithic sculpture

Art of small forms or mobile art (small plastic art)

An integral part of the art of the Paleolithic era consists of objects that are commonly called “small plastic”. These are three types of objects:

Figurines and other three-dimensional products carved from soft stone or other materials (horn, mammoth tusk).
Flattened objects with engravings and paintings.
Reliefs in caves, grottoes and under natural canopies.

The relief was embossed with a deep outline or the background around the image was cramped.

Deer crossing the river.
Fragment. Bone carving. Lorte. Hautes-Pyrenees department, France. Upper Paleolithic, Magdalenian period.

One of the first finds, called small sculptures, was a bone plate from the Chaffo grotto with images of two deer or deer: A deer swimming across a river. Lorte. France

Everyone knows the wonderful French writer Prosper Merimee, the author of the fascinating novel “The Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX,” “Carmen” and other romantic stories, but few people know that he served as an inspector for the protection of historical monuments. It was he who handed over this record in 1833 to the historical museum of Cluny, which was just being organized in the center of Paris. It is now kept in the Museum of National Antiquities (Saint-Germain en Lay).

Later, a cultural layer of the Upper Paleolithic era was discovered in the Chaffo Grotto. But then, just as it was with the painting of the Altamira cave, and with other visual monuments of the Paleolithic era, no one could believe that this art was older than ancient Egyptian. Therefore, such engravings were considered examples of Celtic art (V-IV centuries BC). Only in late XIX c., again, like cave paintings, they were recognized as the most ancient after they were found in the Paleolithic cultural layer.

The figurines of women are very interesting. Most of these figurines are small in size: from 4 to 17 cm. They were made from stone or mammoth tusks. Their most noticeable distinguishing feature is their exaggerated “plumpiness”; they depict women with overweight figures.

Venus with a cup. France
"Venus with a Cup." Bas-relief. France. Upper (Late) Paleolithic.
Goddess of the Ice Age. The canon of the image is that the figure is inscribed in a rhombus, and the stomach and chest are in a circle.

Almost everyone who has studied Paleolithic female figurines, with varying degrees of detail, explains them as cult objects, amulets, idols, etc., reflecting the idea of motherhood and fertility.

In Siberia, in the Baikal region, a whole series of original figurines of a completely different stylistic appearance was found. Along with the same overweight figures of naked women as in Europe, there are figurines of slender, elongated proportions and, unlike European ones, they are depicted dressed in thick, most likely fur clothes, similar to “overalls”.

These are finds from the Buret sites on the Angara and Malta rivers.

Mesolithic

(Middle Stone Age) 10 - 6 thousand BC

After the glaciers melted, the familiar fauna disappeared. Nature becomes more pliable to humans. People become nomads. With a change in lifestyle, a person’s view of the world becomes broader. He is not interested in an individual animal or a random discovery of cereals, but in the active activity of people, thanks to which they find entire herds of animals and fields or forests rich in fruits. This is how the art of multi-figure composition arose in the Mesolithic, in which it was no longer the beast, but man, who played the dominant role.

Changes in the field of art:

The main characters of the image are not an individual animal, but people in some action.
The task is not in a believable, accurate depiction of individual figures, but in conveying action and movement.
Multi-figure hunts are often depicted, scenes of honey collection, and cult dances appear.
The character of the image changes - instead of realistic and polychrome, it becomes schematic and silhouetted.
Local colors are used - red or black.

A honey collector from a hive, surrounded by a swarm of bees. Spain. Mesolithic.

Almost everywhere where planar or three-dimensional images of the Upper Paleolithic era were discovered, there seems to be a pause in the artistic activity of people of the subsequent Mesolithic era. Perhaps this period is still poorly studied, perhaps the images made not in caves, but in the open air, were washed away by rain and snow over time. Perhaps among the petroglyphs, which are very difficult to date accurately, there are those dating back to this time, but we do not yet know how to recognize them. It is significant that small plastic objects are extremely rare during excavations of Mesolithic settlements.

Of the Mesolithic monuments, literally a few can be named: Stone Tomb in Ukraine, Kobystan in Azerbaijan, Zaraut-Sai in Uzbekistan, Shakhty in Tajikistan and Bhimpetka in India.

In addition to rock paintings, petroglyphs appeared in the Mesolithic era. Petroglyphs are carved, carved, or scratched rock images. When carving a design, ancient artists used a sharp tool to knock down the upper, darker part of the rock, and therefore the images stand out noticeably against the background of the rock.

In the south of Ukraine, in the steppe there is a rocky hill made of sandstone rocks. As a result of severe weathering, several grottoes and canopies were formed on its slopes. In these grottoes and on other planes of the hill, numerous carved and scratched images have been known for a long time. In most cases they are difficult to read. Sometimes images of animals are guessed - bulls, goats. Scientists attribute these images of bulls to the Mesolithic era.

Stone grave. South of Ukraine. General form and petroglyphs. Mesolithic.

South of Baku, between the southeastern slope of the Greater Caucasus Range and the Caspian coast, there is a small Gobustan plain (country of ravines) with hills in the form of table mountains composed of limestone and other sedimentary rocks. On the rocks of these mountains there are many petroglyphs of different times. Most of them were discovered in 1939. Large (more than 1 m) images of women and male figures made with deep carved lines.
There are many images of animals: bulls, predators and even reptiles and insects.

Kobystan (Gobustan). Azerbaijan (territory of the former USSR). Mesolithic.

Grotto Zaraout-Qamar

In the mountains of Uzbekistan, at an altitude of about 2000 m above sea level, there is a monument widely known not only among archaeological specialists - the Zaraut-Kamar grotto. The painted images were discovered in 1939 by local hunter I.F. Lamaev.

The painting in the grotto is made with ocher of different shades (from red-brown to lilac) and consists of four groups of images, which include anthropomorphic figures and bulls.
Here is the group in which most researchers see bull hunting. Among the anthropomorphic figures surrounding the bull, i.e. There are two types of “hunters”: figures in clothes that flare out at the bottom, without bows, and “tailed” figures with raised and drawn bows. This scene can be interpreted as a real hunt by disguised hunters, and as a kind of myth.

The painting in the Shakhty grotto is probably the oldest in Central Asia.
“I don’t know what the word Shakhty means,” writes V.A. Ranov. Perhaps it comes from the Pamir word “shakht”, which means rock.”

In the northern part of Central India, huge cliffs with many caves, grottoes and canopies stretch along river valleys. A lot of rock carvings have been preserved in these natural shelters. Among them, the location of Bhimbetka (Bhimpetka) stands out. Apparently these picturesque images date back to the Mesolithic. True, we should not forget about the unevenness in the development of cultures in different regions. The Mesolithic of India may be 2-3 millennia older than in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Hunting scene. Spain.
Some scenes of driven hunts with archers in the paintings of the Spanish and African cycles are, as it were, the embodiment of the movement itself, taken to the limit, concentrated in a stormy whirlwind.

Neolithic

(New Stone Age) from 6 to 2 thousand BC.

Neolithic - New Stone Age, the last stage of the Stone Age.

The entry into the Neolithic coincides with the transition of culture from an appropriating (hunters and gatherers) to a producing (farming and/or cattle breeding) type of economy. This transition is called the Neolithic Revolution. The end of the Neolithic dates back to the time of the appearance of metal tools and weapons, that is, the beginning of the Copper, Bronze or Iron Age.

Different cultures entered this period of development at different times. In the Middle East, the Neolithic began around 9.5 thousand years ago. BC e. In Denmark, the Neolithic dates back to the 18th century. BC, and among the indigenous population of New Zealand - the Maori - the Neolithic existed back in the 18th century. AD: Before the arrival of Europeans, Maori used polished stone axes. Some peoples of America and Oceania have still not completely transitioned from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.

The Neolithic, like other periods of the primitive era, is not a specific chronological period in the history of mankind as a whole, but characterizes only cultural characteristics of certain peoples.

Achievements and activities

1. New features of people’s social life:
— The transition from matriarchy to patriarchy.
— At the end of the era, in some places (Foreign Asia, Egypt, India), a new formation of class society emerged, that is, social stratification began, the transition from a clan-communal system to a class society.
— At this time, cities begin to be built. Jericho is considered one of the most ancient cities.
— Some cities were well fortified, which indicates the existence of organized wars at that time.
— Armies and professional warriors began to appear.
— We can quite say that the beginning of the formation of ancient civilizations is associated with the Neolithic era.

2. The division of labor and the formation of technologies began:
— The main thing is that simple gathering and hunting as the main sources of food are gradually being replaced by agriculture and cattle breeding.
The Neolithic is called the “age of polished stone.” In this era, stone tools were not just chipped, but already sawed, ground, drilled, and sharpened.
— Among the most important tools in the Neolithic is the axe, previously unknown.
- spinning and weaving are developing.

Images of animals begin to appear in the design of household utensils.

Ax in the shape of a moose head. Polished stone. Neolithic. Historical Museum. Stockholm.

A wooden ladle from the Gorbunovsky peat bog near Nizhny Tagil. Neolithic. State Historical Museum.

For the Neolithic forest zone, fishing became one of the leading types of economy. Active fishing contributed to the creation of certain reserves, which, combined with hunting animals, made it possible to live in one place all year round. The transition to a sedentary lifestyle led to the appearance of ceramics. The appearance of ceramics is one of the main signs of the Neolithic era.

The village of Catal Huyuk (Eastern Turkey) is one of the places where the most ancient examples of ceramics were found.

Ceramics of Çatalhöyük. Neolithic.

Women's ceramic figurines

Monuments of Neolithic painting and petroglyphs are extremely numerous and scattered over vast territories.
Clusters of them are found almost everywhere in Africa, eastern Spain, in the territory of the former USSR - in Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, on Lake Onega, near the White Sea and in Siberia.
Neolithic rock art is similar to Mesolithic, but the subject matter becomes more varied.

For approximately three hundred years, the attention of scientists has been captivated by a rock known as the Tomsk Pisanitsa. “Pisanitsa” are images painted with mineral paint or carved on the smooth surface of walls in Siberia. Back in 1675, one of the brave Russian travelers, whose name, unfortunately, remained unknown, wrote down:

“Before reaching the fortress (Verkhnetomsk fortress), on the edges of the Tom River there lies a large and high stone, and on it are written animals, and cattle, and birds, and all sorts of similar things...”

Real scientific interest in this monument arose already in the 18th century, when, by order of Peter I, an expedition was sent to Siberia to study its history and geography. The result of the expedition was the first images of Tomsk writing published in Europe by the Swedish captain Stralenberg, who participated in the trip. These images were not an exact copy of the Tomsk writing, but conveyed only the most general outline rocks and placing drawings on it, but their value lies in the fact that on them you can see drawings that have not survived to this day.

Images of Tomsk writing made by the Swedish boy K. Shulman, who traveled with Stralenberg across Siberia.

For hunters, the main source of subsistence was deer and elk. Gradually, these animals began to acquire mythical features - the elk was the “master of the taiga” along with the bear.
The image of a moose plays the main role in the Tomsk writing: the figures are repeated many times.
The proportions and shapes of the animal’s body are absolutely faithfully conveyed: its long massive body, a hump on the back, a heavy large head, a characteristic protrusion on the forehead, a swollen upper lip, bulging nostrils, thin legs with cloven hooves.
Some drawings show transverse stripes on the neck and body of moose.

Moose. Tomsk writing. Siberia. Neolithic.

...On the border between the Sahara and Fezzan, on the territory of Algeria, in a mountainous area called Tassili-Ajjer, bare rocks rise in rows. Nowadays this region is dried up by the desert wind, scorched by the sun and almost nothing grows in it. However, the Sahara used to have green meadows...

Bushmen rock art. Neolithic.

— Sharpness and precision of drawing, grace and elegance.
— Harmonic combination of shapes and tones, the beauty of people and animals depicted with a good knowledge of anatomy.
— Swiftness of gestures and movements.

The small plastic arts of the Neolithic, like painting, acquire new subjects.

"The Man Playing the Lute." Marble (from Keros, Cyclades, Greece). Neolithic. National Archaeological Museum. Athens.

The schematism inherent in Neolithic painting, which replaced Paleolithic realism, also penetrated into small plastic art.

Schematic image of a woman. Cave relief. Neolithic. Croisard. Department of the Marne. France.

Relief with a symbolic image from Castelluccio (Sicily). Limestone. OK. 1800-1400 BC National Archaeological Museum. Syracuse.

Mesolithic and Neolithic rock paintings It is not always possible to draw an exact line between them. But this art is very different from typically Paleolithic:

— Realism, which accurately captures the image of the beast as a target, as a cherished goal, is replaced by a broader view of the world, the depiction of multi-figure compositions.
— There appears a desire for harmonious generalization, stylization and, most importantly, for the transmission of movement, for dynamism.
— In the Paleolithic there was monumentality and inviolability of the image. Here there is liveliness, free imagination.
— In human images, a desire for grace appears (for example, if you compare the Paleolithic “Venuses” and the Mesolithic image of a woman collecting honey, or Neolithic Bushman dancers).

Small plastic:

— New stories are appearing.
— Greater mastery of execution and mastery of the craft and material.

Achievements

Paleolithic
— Lower Paleolithic
> > taming fire, stone tools
— Middle Paleolithic
>> exit from Africa
— Upper Paleolithic
> > sling

Mesolithic
– microliths, onions, canoes

Neolithic
— Early Neolithic
> > agriculture, cattle breeding
— Late Neolithic
>> ceramics

Lecture 2. Primitive culture

1. Prerequisites for occurrence

3. The birth of architecture

4. Burials

5. Matriarchy and patriarchy

The culture of primitive society covers the longest and perhaps least studied period of world culture. Primitive or archaic culture dates back more than 30 thousand years.

1. Prerequisites for occurrence

When humanity moved from hunting and gathering to agriculture (5-6 thousand years ago), the period of primitive art and primitive culture ended. The period has begun early states, writing and urban civilization. In other words, primitive culture is a pre- and non-literate culture. Humanity has been familiar with agriculture and cattle breeding for less than ten thousand years, and before that, for hundreds of thousands of years, people obtained food in three ways: gathering, hunting and fishing. Primitive hunters and gatherers, fishermen and gardeners (in extreme cases, early farmers) can be called primitive people, and mature farmers and pastoralists who formed states are more correctly called ancient people (but not primitive in the strict sense).

Under primitive culture it is customary to understand archaic culture, which characterizes the beliefs, traditions and art of peoples who lived more than 30 thousand years ago and died long ago, or those peoples (for example, tribes lost in the jungle) that exist today, preserved in an untouched form primitive image life. They are often called fragments or remnants of primitive society. However, primitive culture covers mainly the art of the Stone Age.

Primitive art- art of the era of primitive society. It arose in the Late Paleolithic around 33 thousand BC. e., reflected the views, conditions and lifestyle of primitive hunters (primitive dwellings, cave images of animals, female figurines). Neolithic and Chalcolithic farmers and herders developed communal settlements, megaliths, and pile buildings; images began to convey abstract concepts, and the art of ornament developed. In the Neolithic era, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, among the tribes of Egypt, India, Western, Central and Minor Asia, China, South and South of Eastern Europe Art related to agricultural mythology (ornamented ceramics, sculpture) developed. Northern forest hunters and fishermen had rock paintings and realistic animal figurines. The pastoral steppe tribes of Eastern Europe and Asia at the turn of the Bronze and Iron Ages created the animal style.

Primitive art is only a part of primitive culture, which, in addition to art, includes religious beliefs and cults, special traditions and rituals. Since they have already been discussed, let us consider primitive art.

Anthropologists associate the true emergence of art with the appearance of Homo sapiens sapiens, otherwise known as Cro-Magnon man. The Cro-Magnons (these people were named after the place where their remains were first found - the Cro-Magnon grotto in the south of France), who appeared from 40 to 35 thousand years ago, were tall people (1.70-1.80 m), slender, strong physique. They had an elongated, narrow skull and a distinct, slightly pointed chin, which gave the lower part of the face a triangular shape. In almost every way they resembled modern humans and became famous as excellent hunters. They had well-developed speech, so they could coordinate their actions. They skillfully made all kinds of tools for different occasions: sharp spear tips, stone knives, bone harpoons with teeth, excellent choppers, axes, etc.

2. Rock paintings and miniature sculpture

The technique of making tools and some of its secrets were passed down from generation to generation (for example, the fact that stone heated over a fire is easier to process after cooling). Excavations at human sites Upper Paleolithic indicate the development of primitive hunting beliefs and witchcraft among them. They made figurines of wild animals from clay and pierced them with darts, imagining that they were killing real predators. They also left hundreds of carved or painted images of animals on the walls and vaults of caves.
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Archaeologists have proven that monuments of art appeared immeasurably later than tools, almost a million years.

Experts believe that the genres of primitive art arose approximately in the following time sequence:

- · stone sculpture,

- · rock painting,

- · clay dishes.

In ancient times, people used materials at hand for art - stone, wood, bone. Much later, namely in the era of agriculture, he discovered the first artificial material - refractory clay - and began to actively use it for the manufacture of dishes and sculptures. Wandering hunters and gatherers used wicker baskets. It is more convenient to carry. Their clay pottery is a sign of permanent agricultural settlements.

Perhaps they symbolized fertility or were associated with the cult of the female mother: the Cro-Magnons lived according to the laws of matriarchy, and it was through the female line that membership in the clan that revered its ancestor was determined. Scientists consider female sculptures to be the first sign anthropomorphic , ᴛ.ᴇ. humanoid images.

In both painting and sculpture, primitive man often depicted animals. The tendency of primitive man to depict animals is called zoological, or animal style in art, and for their miniature size, small figures and images of animals were called plastics of small forms.

Animal style- a conventional name for stylized images of animals (or parts thereof) common in ancient art. The animal style arose in the Bronze Age, developed in the Iron Age and in the art of early classical states; its traditions were preserved in medieval art and folk art. Initially associated with totemism, images of the sacred beast over time turned into a conventional motif of the ornament.

Primitive painting was a two-dimensional image of an object, and sculpture was three-dimensional, or three-dimensional. Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ϭ ᴍ ᴍ, primitive creators have mastered the time that existed in contemporary art, but did not own its main achievement - the technique of transferring volume on the plane (by the way, it was not owned by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, medieval Europeans, Chinese, Arabs and many other nations , since the discovery of reverse perspective occurred only during the Renaissance).

Some caves have been found carved into the rock. bas-reliefs, as well as free-standing animal sculptures. Small figurines are known that were carved from soft stone, bone, mammoth tusks, bison figurines sculpted from clay. The main characters of Paleolithic art are bison. In addition to them, many images of wild aurochs, mammoths and rhinoceroses were found.

Rock drawings and paintings are varied in the manner of execution. The relative proportions of the animals depicted (mountain goat, lion, mammoth and bison) were usually not observed - a huge aurochs could be depicted next to a tiny horse. Failure to comply with proportions did not allow the primitive artist to subordinate the composition laws of perspective(the latter, by the way, was discovered very late - in the 16th century). Movement in cave painting it is conveyed through the position of the legs (crossing legs, it turns out, depicted an animal running), tilting the body or turning the head. There are almost no motionless figures.

Both zoological and anthropomorphic images suggested their ritual use. In other words, they performed a cult function. Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, religion(veneration of those depicted by primitive people) and art(the aesthetic form of what was depicted) arose practically simultaneously . Although for some reasons it can be assumed that the first form of reflection of reality arose earlier than the second.

Lecture 2. Primitive culture - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Lecture 2. Primitive culture" 2017, 2018.

N. Dmitriev

Art as a special area of human activity, with its own independent tasks, special qualities, served by professional artists, became possible only on the basis of the division of labor. Engels says about this: “... the creation of arts and sciences - all this was possible only with the help of an enhanced division of labor, which was based on a large division of labor between the masses engaged in simple physical labor and the privileged few who manage the work, engage in trade, state affairs, and later also science and art. The simplest, completely spontaneously formed form of this division of labor was precisely slavery" ( F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1951, p. 170).

But since artistic activity is a unique form of knowledge and creative work, its origins are much more ancient, since people worked and in the process of this work learned about the world around them long before the division of society into classes. Archaeological discoveries over the past hundred years have revealed numerous works of visual creativity of primitive man, the age of which is estimated at tens of thousands of years. These are rock paintings; figurines made of stone and bone; images and ornamental patterns carved on pieces of deer antlers or on stone slabs. They are found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. These are works that appeared long before a conscious idea of artistic creativity could arise. Many of them, reproducing mainly figures of animals - deer, bison, wild horses, mammoths - are so vital, so expressive and true to nature that they are not only precious historical monuments, but also retain their artistic power to this day.

The material, objective nature of works of fine art determines especially favorable conditions for researchers of the origins of fine arts in comparison with historians studying the origins of other types of arts. If the initial stages of epic, music, and dance must be judged mainly by indirect data and by analogy with the creativity of modern tribes in the early stages of social development (the analogy is very relative, which can only be relied upon with great caution), then the childhood of painting and sculpture and graphics confront us with our own eyes.

It does not coincide with the childhood of human society, that is, the most ancient eras of its formation. According to modern science, the process of humanization of the ape-like ancestors of man began even before the first glaciation of the Quaternary era and, therefore, the “age” of humanity is approximately a million years. The first traces of primitive art date back to the Upper (Late) Paleolithic era, which began approximately several tens of thousands of years BC. so-called Aurignacian time( The Chellesian, Acheulian, Mousterian, Aurignacian, Solutrean, Magdalenian stages of the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic) are named after the places of the first finds.) This was a time of comparative maturity of the primitive communal system: the man of this era in his physical constitution was no different from modern man, he already spoke and was able to make quite complex tools from stone, bone and horn. He led a collective hunt for large animals using spears and darts. Clans united into tribes, and matriarchy arose.

More than 900 thousand years had to pass, separating the most ancient people from modern man, before the hand and brain were ripe for artistic creativity.

Meanwhile, the manufacture of primitive stone tools dates back to much more ancient times of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic. Already Sinanthropus (the remains of which were found near Beijing) had reached a fairly high level in the manufacture of stone tools and knew how to use fire. People of the later, Neanderthal type processed tools more carefully, adapting them to special purposes. Only thanks to such a “school”, which lasted many millennia, did they develop the necessary flexibility of the hand, fidelity of the eye and the ability to generalize what is visible, highlighting its most significant and characteristic features - that is, all those qualities that appeared in the wonderful drawings of the Altamira cave. If a person had not exercised and refined his hand, processing for the sake of obtaining food such a difficult-to-process material as stone, he would not have been able to learn to draw: without mastering the creation of utilitarian forms, he would not have been able to create an artistic form. If many, many generations had not concentrated their thinking ability on capturing the beast - the main source of life for primitive man - it would not have occurred to them to depict this beast.

So, firstly, “labor is older than art” (this idea was brilliantly argued by G. Plekhanov in his “Letters without an address”) and, secondly, art owes its emergence to labor. But what caused the transition from the production of exclusively useful, practically necessary tools to the production, along with them, of “useless” images? It was this question that was most debated and most confused by bourgeois scientists who sought at all costs to apply Immanuel Kant’s thesis about the “purposelessness,” “disinterest,” and “inherent value” of the aesthetic attitude to the world to primitive art. Those who wrote about primitive art, K. Bucher, K. Gross, E. Grosse, Luke, Vreul, V. Gausenstein and others, argued that primitive people were engaged in “art for art’s sake”, that the first and determining stimulus for artistic creativity was the innate human desire to play .

Theories of “play” in their various varieties were based on the aesthetics of Kant and Schiller, according to which the main feature of aesthetic, artistic experience is precisely the desire for “free play with appearances” - free from any practical goal, from logical and moral evaluation.

“The aesthetic creative impulse,” wrote Friedrich Schiller, “imperceptibly builds, in the midst of the terrible kingdom of forces and in the midst of the sacred kingdom of laws, a third, cheerful kingdom of play and appearance, in which it removes from man the shackles of all relationships and frees him from everything that is called coercion as in physically and morally"( F. Schiller, Articles on Aesthetics, p. 291.).

Schiller applied this basic tenet of his aesthetics to the question of the emergence of art (long before the discoveries of genuine monuments of Paleolithic creativity), believing that the “merry kingdom of play” was being erected already at the dawn of human society: “...now ancient German seeks out more brilliant animal skins, more magnificent horns, more graceful vessels, and the inhabitant of Caledonia seeks out the most beautiful shells for his festivities. Not content with introducing a surplus of aesthetics into what is necessary, the free impulse to play finally breaks completely with the shackles of need, and beauty itself becomes the object of human aspirations. He adorns himself. Free pleasure is counted among his needs, and the useless soon becomes the best portion of his joy." F. Schiller, Articles on Aesthetics, pp. 289, 290.). However, this point of view is refuted by facts.

First of all, it is absolutely incredible that cave people, who spent their days in the most severe struggle for existence, helpless in the face of natural forces that confronted them as something alien and incomprehensible, constantly suffering from a lack of food sources, could devote so much attention and energy to “free pleasures.” Moreover, these “pleasures” were very labor-intensive: it took a lot of work to carve large relief images on stone, like the sculptural frieze in the shelter under the rock of Le Roc de Cerre (near Angoulême, France). Finally, numerous data, including ethnographic data, directly indicate that images (as well as dances and various kinds of dramatic actions) were given some extremely important and purely practical meaning. Ritual ceremonies were associated with them, aimed at ensuring the success of the hunt; it is possible that they made sacrifices associated with the cult of the totem, that is, the beast - the patron saint of the tribe. Drawings have been preserved reproducing a re-enactment of a hunt, images of people in animal masks, animals pierced by arrows and bleeding.

Even tattoos and the custom of wearing all kinds of jewelry were not caused by the desire to “play freely with appearances” - they were either dictated by the need to intimidate enemies, or protected the skin from insect bites, or again played the role of sacred amulets or testified to the exploits of a hunter, for example, a necklace made of bear teeth could indicate that the wearer took part in a bear hunt. In addition, in the images on pieces of deer antler, on small tiles, one can see the beginnings of pictography ( Pictography is the primary form of writing in the form of images of individual objects.), that is, a means of communication. Plekhanov in “Letters without an Address” cites the story of one traveler that “once he found on the coastal sand of one of the Brazilian rivers, drawn by the natives, an image of a fish that belonged to one of the local breeds. He ordered the Indians accompanying him to cast a net, and they pulled out several pieces of fish of the same species that are depicted on the sand. It is clear that by making this image, the native wanted to bring to the attention of his comrades that such and such a fish was found in this place"( G. V. Plekhanov. Art and Literature, 1948, p. 148.). It is obvious that Paleolithic people used letters and drawings in the same way.

There are many eyewitness accounts of hunting dances of Australian, African and other tribes and of rituals of “killing” painted images of animals, and these dances and rituals combine elements magical ritual with exercise in appropriate actions, that is, with a kind of rehearsal, practical preparation for the hunt. A number of facts indicate that Paleolithic images served similar purposes. In the Montespan cave in France, in the region of the northern Pyrenees, numerous clay sculptures of animals were found - lions, bears, horses - covered with traces of spear blows, apparently inflicted during some kind of magical ceremony ( See the description, according to Beguin, in the book by A. S. Gushchin “The Origin of Art”, L.-M., 1937, p. 88.).

The indisputability and numerousness of such facts forced later bourgeois researchers to reconsider the “game theory” and put forward a “magic theory” as an addition to it. At the same time, the theory of play was not discarded: most bourgeois scientists continued to argue that, although works of art were used as objects of magical action, the impulse for their creation lay in the innate tendency to play, to imitate, to decorate.

It is necessary to point out another version of this theory, which asserts the biological innateness of the sense of beauty, supposedly characteristic not only of humans, but also of animals. If Schiller’s idealism interpreted “free play” as a divine property of the human spirit—namely, the human spirit—then scientists, prone to vulgar positivism, saw the same property in the animal world and accordingly connected the origins of art with the biological instincts of self-decoration. The basis for this statement was some observations and statements of Darwin about the phenomena of sexual selection in animals. Darwin, noting that in some breeds of birds, males attract females with the brightness of their plumage, that, for example, hummingbirds decorate their nests with multi-colored and shiny objects, etc., suggested that aesthetic emotions are not alien to animals.

The facts established by Darwin and other naturalists are not in themselves subject to doubt. But there is no doubt that it is just as illegitimate to deduce from this the origin of the art of human society as to explain, for example, the reasons for travel and geographical discoveries made by people, by the instinct that prompts birds to their seasonal migrations. Conscious human activity is the opposite of the instinctive, unconscious activity of animals. Well-known color, sound and other stimuli actually have a certain influence on the biological sphere of animals and, being consolidated in the process of evolution, acquire the meaning of unconditioned reflexes (and only in some, relatively rare cases, the nature of these stimuli coincides with human concepts of the beautiful, the harmonious).

It cannot be denied that colors, lines, as well as sounds and smells, affect the human body - some in an irritating, repulsive way, others, on the contrary, strengthening and promoting its correct and active functioning. This is one way or another taken into account by a person in his artistic activity, but in no way lies at its basis. The motives that forced Paleolithic man to draw and carve figures of animals on the walls of caves, of course, have nothing to do with instinctive impulses: this is a conscious and purposeful creative act of a creature that has long ago broken the chains of blind instinct and has embarked on the path of mastering the forces of nature - and, consequently, and understanding these forces.

Marx wrote: “The spider performs operations reminiscent of those of the weaver, and the bee, with the construction of its wax cells, puts some human architects to shame. But even the worst architect differs from the best bee from the very beginning in that, before building a cell of wax, he has already built it in his head. At the end of the labor process, a result is obtained that was already in the worker’s mind at the beginning of this process, i.e. ideal. The worker differs from the bee not only in that he changes the form of what is given by nature: in what is given by nature, he at the same time realizes his conscious goal, which, like a law, determines the method and character of his actions and to which he must subordinate his will"( ).

To be able to realize a conscious goal, a person must know the natural object with which he is dealing, must comprehend its natural properties. The ability to know also does not appear immediately: it belongs to those “dormant forces” that develop in a person in the process of his influence on nature. As a manifestation of this ability, art also arises - it arises just when labor itself has already moved away from the “first animal-like instinctive forms of labor”, “freed from its primitive, instinctive form” ( K. Marx, Capital, vol. I, 1951, p. 185.). Art and, in particular, fine art, at its origins, was one of the aspects of labor that developed to a certain level of consciousness.

A man draws an animal: thereby he synthesizes his observations of it; he more and more confidently reproduces his figure, habits, movements, and his various states. He formulates his knowledge in this drawing and consolidates it. At the same time, he learns to generalize: one image of a deer conveys features observed in a number of deer. This in itself gives a huge impetus to the development of thinking. It is difficult to overestimate the progressive role of artistic creativity in changing human consciousness and his relationship to nature. The latter is now not so dark for him, not so encrypted - little by little, still by touch, he studies it.

Thus, primitive fine art is at the same time the embryos of science, or more precisely, primitive knowledge. It is clear that at that infant, primitive stage of social development, these forms of knowledge could not yet be dismembered, as they were dismembered in later times; At first they performed together. It was not yet art in the full scope of this concept and it was not knowledge in the proper sense of the word, but something in which the primary elements of both were inseparably combined.

In this regard, it becomes understandable why Paleolithic art pays so much attention to the beast and relatively little to man. It is aimed primarily at understanding external nature. At the very time when animals have already learned to depict remarkably realistically and vividly, human figures are almost always depicted very primitively, simply ineptly, with the exception of some rare exceptions, such as the reliefs from Lossel.

In Paleolithic art there is not yet that primary interest in the world of human relationships that distinguishes art, which delimited its sphere from the sphere of science. From the monuments of primitive art (at least fine art) it is difficult to learn anything about the life of a tribal community other than its hunting and related magical rituals; The most important place is occupied by the object of the hunt - the beast. It was its study that was of main practical interest, since it was the main source of existence, and the utilitarian-cognitive approach to painting and sculpture was reflected in the fact that they depicted mainly animals, and such species, the extraction of which was especially important and at the same time difficult and dangerous, and therefore required particularly careful study. Birds and plants were rarely depicted.

Of course, people of the Paleolithic era could not yet correctly understand both the patterns of the natural world around them and the patterns of their own actions. There was still no clear awareness of the difference between the real and the apparent: what was seen in a dream probably seemed to be the same reality as what was seen in reality. From all this chaos of fairy-tale ideas, primitive magic arose, which was a direct consequence of the extreme underdevelopment, extreme naivety and inconsistency of the consciousness of primitive man, who mixed the material with the spiritual, who out of ignorance ascribed material existence to immaterial facts of consciousness.

By drawing the figure of an animal, a person, in a certain sense, really “mastered” the animal, since he knew it, and knowledge is the source of mastery over nature. The vital necessity of figurative knowledge was the reason for the emergence of art. But our ancestor understood this “mastery” in a literal sense and performed magical rituals around the drawing he made to ensure the success of the hunt. He fantastically rethought the true, rational motives of his actions. True, it is very likely that visual creativity did not always have a ritual purpose; here, obviously, other motives were also involved, which were already mentioned above: the need for the exchange of information, etc. But, in any case, it can hardly be denied that the majority of paintings and sculptures also served magical purposes.

People began to engage in art much earlier than they had a concept of art, and much earlier than they could understand its real meaning, its real benefits.

While mastering the ability to depict the visible world, people were also unaware of the real world. public importance this skill. Something similar to the later development of sciences happened, which were also gradually liberated from the captivity of naive fantastic ideas: medieval alchemists sought to find the “philosopher’s stone” and spent years of hard work on this. Philosopher's Stone They never found it, but they gained valuable experience in studying the properties of metals, acids, salts, etc., which prepared the way for the subsequent development of chemistry.

Saying that primitive art was one of the original forms of knowledge, the study of the surrounding world, we should not assume that, therefore, there was nothing aesthetic in it in the proper sense of the word. The aesthetic is not something completely opposite to the useful.

Already labor processes, associated with the manufacture of tools and, as we know, began many millennia earlier than the practice of drawing and modeling, in to a certain extent prepared a person’s ability to judge aesthetically, taught him the principle of expediency and correspondence of form to content. The oldest tools are almost shapeless: they are pieces of stone, hewn on one side, and later on both sides: they served for different purposes: for digging, and for cutting, etc. As tools become more specialized according to function (pointed points appear , scrapers, cutters, needles), they acquire a more defined and consistent, and thereby more elegant form: in this process the importance of symmetry and proportions is realized, and that sense of proper proportion is developed, which is so important in art. And when people, who sought to increase the efficiency of their work and learned to appreciate and feel the vital significance of a purposeful form, approached the transfer of complex forms of the living world, they were able to create works that were already aesthetically very significant and effective.

Economical, bold strokes and large spots of red, yellow and black paint conveyed the monolithic, powerful carcass of the bison. The image was full of life: you could feel the trembling of tensing muscles, the elasticity of short strong legs, you could feel the readiness of the beast to rush forward, bowing its massive head, sticking out its horns and looking from under its brows with bloodshot eyes. The painter probably vividly recreated in his imagination his heavy run through the thicket, his furious roar and the warlike cries of the crowd of hunters pursuing him.

In numerous images of deer and fallow deer, primitive artists very well conveyed the slender figures of these animals, the nervous grace of their silhouette and that sensitive alertness that is reflected in the turn of the head, in the perked ears, in the bends of the body when they listen to see if they are in danger. Depicting with amazing accuracy both the formidable, powerful bison and the graceful doe, people could not help but assimilate these very concepts - strength and grace, roughness and grace - although, perhaps, they still did not know how to formulate them. And a slightly later image of a mother elephant, covering her baby elephant with her trunk from an attack by a tiger - doesn’t it indicate that the artist was beginning to be interested in something more than appearance beast, that he looked closely at the very life of animals and its various manifestations seemed interesting and instructive to him. He noticed touching and expressive moments in the animal world, manifestations maternal instinct. In a word, a person’s emotional experiences were undoubtedly refined and enriched with the help of his artistic activity already at these stages of its development.

We cannot deny Paleolithic visual art its incipient compositional ability. True, the images on the walls of the caves are for the most part arranged randomly, without proper correlation with each other and without an attempt to convey the background or surroundings (for example, the painting on the ceiling of the Altamira cave. But where the drawings were placed in some kind of natural frame (for example, on deer antlers, on bone tools, on the so-called “leaders’ staffs”, etc.), they fit into this frame quite skillfully. On the staffs, which have an oblong shape, but are quite wide, they are most often carved out in a row, one after another, horses or deer. On narrower ones - fish or even snakes. Often sculptural images of animals are placed on the handle of a knife or some tool, and in these cases they are given poses that are characteristic of the given animal and at the same time adapted in shape to the purpose of the handle Here, therefore, the elements of the future “applied art” are born with its inevitable subordination of the visual principles to the practical purpose of the object (ill. 2 a).

Finally, in the Upper Paleolithic era, multi-figure compositions are also encountered, although not often, and they do not always represent a primitive “enumeration” of individual figures on a plane. There are images of a herd of deer, a herd of horses, as a whole, where the feeling of a large mass is conveyed by what is visible whole forest perspectively diminishing horns or a string of heads, and only some figures of animals standing in the foreground or to the side of the herd are completely drawn. Even more indicative are such compositions as deer crossing the river (bone carving from Lorte or a drawing of a herd on a stone from Limeil, where the figures of walking deer are spatially combined and at the same time each figure has its own characteristics ( See the analysis of this drawing in the book by A. S. Gushchin “The Origin of Art,” page 68.). These and similar compositions already show a fairly high level of generalizing thinking, developed in the process of labor and with the help of visual creativity: people are already aware of the qualitative difference between the singular and the plural, seeing in the latter not only the sum of units, but also a new quality, itself possessing a certain unity.

The development and development of the initial forms of ornament, which went in parallel with the development of fine art itself, also affected the ability to generalize - to abstract and highlight some general properties and patterns of a wide variety of natural forms. From the observation of these forms, the concepts of a circle, a straight, wavy, zigzag line arise and, finally, as already noted, symmetry, rhythmic repeatability, etc. Of course, ornament is not an arbitrary invention of man: it, like any type of art , based on real prototypes. First of all, nature itself provides many examples of ornament, so to speak, “in pure form“and even “geometric” ornament: patterns covering the wings of many types of butterflies, bird feathers (peacock tail), the scaly skin of a snake, the structure of snowflakes, crystals, shells, etc. In the structure of the calyx of a flower, in the wavy streams of a stream, in the plant and animal organisms - in all this, too, more or less clearly, an “ornamental” structure appears, that is, a certain rhythmic alternation of forms. Symmetry and rhythm are one of the external manifestations of the general natural laws of interrelation and balance of the constituent parts of any organism ( E. Haeckel’s wonderful book “The Beauty of Forms in Nature” (St. Petersburg, 1907) gives many examples of such “natural ornaments”.).

As can be seen, creating ornamental art in the image and likeness of nature, man was also guided by the need for knowledge, the study of natural laws, although, of course, he was not clearly aware of this.

The Paleolithic era already knows an ornament in the form of parallel wavy lines, teeth, and spirals that covered tools. It is possible that these drawings were initially also interpreted as images of a certain object, or rather, part of an object, and were perceived as a symbol of it. Be that as it may, a special branch of fine art - ornamental - is emerging in most ancient times. It reached its greatest development already in the Neolithic era, with the advent of pottery production. Neolithic clay vessels were decorated with a variety of patterns: concentric circles, triangles, checkerboards, etc.

But in the art of the Neolithic and then the Bronze Age, new, special features are observed, noted by all researchers: not only the improvement of ornamental art as such, but also the transfer of ornamental techniques to images of animal and human figures and, in connection with this, the schematization of the latter.

If we consider the works of primitive creativity in chronological order (which, of course, can only be done very approximately, since establishing an exact chronology is impossible), then the following is striking. The earliest images of animals (Aurignacian time) are still primitive, made only with a linear outline, without any elaboration of details, and from them it is not always possible to understand which animal is depicted. This is a clear consequence of ineptitude, uncertainty of the hand trying to depict something, or the mouth of the first imperfect experiments. Subsequently, they were improved, and Magdalenian times produced those wonderful, one might say “classical,” examples of primitive realism that have already been mentioned. At the end of the Paleolithic, as well as in the Neolithic and Bronze eras, schematically simplified drawings are increasingly encountered, where the simplification comes not so much from inability, but from a certain deliberateness and intentionality.

The growing division of labor within the primitive community, the formation of the clan system with its already more complex relationships between people and each other also determined the splitting of that original, naive view of the world, in which both the strength and weakness of the Paleolithic people are manifested. In particular, primitive magic, initially not yet torn away from the simple and unbiased perception of things as they are, gradually turns into a complicated system of mythological ideas, and then cults - a system that presupposes the presence of a “second world”, mysterious and unlike real world. A person’s horizons are expanding, an increasing number of phenomena are entering his field of vision, but at the same time the number of mysteries is multiplying, which can no longer be resolved by simple analogies with the closest and most understandable objects. Human thought strives to delve deeper into these mysteries, prompted to do so again by the interests of material development, but on this path it faces the dangers of detachment from reality.

In connection with the complication of cults, a group of priests and sorcerers is isolated and distinguished, using art, which in their hands loses its initially realistic character. Even before, as we know, it served as an object of magical actions, but for the Paleolithic hunter the train of thought boiled down to approximately the following: the more similar the drawn animal is to a real, living one, the more achievable the goal. When an image is no longer considered as a “double” of a real being, but becomes an idol, a fetish, the embodiment of mysterious dark forces, then it should not have a real character at all; on the contrary, it gradually turns into a very distant, fantastically transformed likeness of what exists in everyday reality. The data suggests that among all nations, their specially cult images are most often the most deformed, the most removed from reality. On this path, monstrous, terrifying idols of the Aztecs, formidable idols of the Polynesians, etc. appear.

It would be wrong to reduce all art of the period of the tribal system to this line of cult art. The tendency toward schematization was far from all-consuming. Along with it, the realistic line continued to develop, but in slightly different forms: it is mainly carried out in areas of creativity that have the least connection with religion, that is, in the applied arts, in crafts, the separation of which from agriculture already creates the preconditions for commodity production and marks the transition from a tribal system to a class society. This is the so-called era of military democracy, which different peoples took place at different times, is characterized by the flourishing of artistic crafts: it is in them at this stage of social development that the progress of artistic creativity is embodied. It is clear, however, that the sphere of applied arts is always limited in one way or another by the practical purpose of a thing, therefore, all those possibilities that were already hidden in their embryonic form in the art of the Paleolithic could not receive full and comprehensive development.

The art of the primitive communal system bears the stamp of masculinity, simplicity and strength. Within its framework, it is realistic and full of sincerity. There can be no question of the “professionalism” of primitive art. Of course, this does not mean that all members of the clan community were engaged in painting and sculpture. It is possible that elements of personal talent already played a certain role in these activities. But they did not give any privileges: what the artist did was a natural manifestation of the entire collective, it was done for everyone and on behalf of everyone.

But the content of this art is still poor, its horizons are closed, its very integrity rests on the underdevelopment of social consciousness. Further progress of art could only be achieved at the cost of losing this initial integrity, which we see already in the later stages of primitive communal formation. Compared with the art of the Upper Paleolithic, they mark a certain decline in artistic activity, but this decline is only relative. By schematizing an image, the primitive artist learns to generalize and abstract the concepts of a straight or curved line, circle, etc., and acquires the skills of conscious construction and rational distribution of drawing elements on a plane. Without these latently accumulated skills, the transition to those new artistic values that are created in the art of ancient slave societies would be impossible. We can say that during the Neolithic period the concepts of rhythm and composition were finally formed. Thus, artistic creativity the later stages of the tribal system is, on the one hand, a natural symptom of its decomposition, on the other, a transitional stage to the art of the slave-owning formation.

Primitive art - art of the era of primitive society. Having emerged in the late Paleolithic around 33 thousand years BC. e., it reflected the views, conditions and lifestyle of primitive hunters (primitive dwellings, cave images of animals, female figurines). Experts believe that the genres of primitive art arose approximately in the following sequence: stone sculpture; rock art; clay dishes. Neolithic and Chalcolithic farmers and herders developed communal settlements, megaliths, and pile buildings; images began to convey abstract concepts, and the art of ornament developed.

Anthropologists associate the true emergence of art with the appearance of homo sapiens, who is otherwise called Cro-Magnon man. Cro-Magnons (these people were named after the place where their remains were first found - the Cro-Magnon grotto in the south of France), who appeared from 40 to 35 thousand years ago, were tall people (1.70-1.80 m), slender, strong physique. They had an elongated, narrow skull and a distinct, slightly pointed chin, which gave the lower part of the face a triangular shape. In almost every way they resembled modern humans and became famous as excellent hunters. They had well-developed speech, so they could coordinate their actions. They skillfully made all kinds of tools for different occasions: sharp spear tips, stone knives, bone harpoons with teeth, excellent axes, axes, etc. The technique of making tools and some of its secrets (for example, the fact that a stone heated over a fire is easier to process after cooling). Excavations at sites of Upper Paleolithic people indicate the development of primitive hunting beliefs and witchcraft among them. They made figurines of wild animals from clay and pierced them with darts, imagining that they were killing real predators. They also left hundreds of carved or painted images of animals on the walls and vaults of caves. Archaeologists have proven that monuments of art appeared immeasurably later than tools - almost a million years.

In ancient times, people used materials at hand for art - stone, wood, bone. Much later, namely in the era of agriculture, he discovered the first artificial material - refractory clay - and began to actively use it for the manufacture of dishes and sculptures. Wandering hunters and gatherers used wicker baskets because they were easier to carry. Pottery is a sign of permanent agricultural settlements.

The first works of primitive fine art belong to the Aurignac culture (Late Paleolithic), named after the Aurignac cave (France). Since that time, female figurines made of stone and bone have become widespread. If the heyday of cave painting came about 10-15 thousand years ago, then the art of miniature sculpture reached a high level much earlier - about 25 thousand years. The so-called “Venuses” belong to this era - figurines of women 10-15 cm high, usually with distinctly massive shapes. Similar “Venuses” have been found in France, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, Russia and many other areas of the world. Perhaps they symbolized fertility or were associated with the cult of the female mother: the Cro-Magnons lived according to the laws of matriarchy, and it was through the female line that membership in the clan that revered its ancestor was determined. Scientists consider female sculptures to be the first anthropomorphic, i.e., human-like images.

In both painting and sculpture, primitive man often depicted animals. The tendency of primitive man to depict animals is called the zoological or animal style in art, and for their diminutiveness, small figures and images of animals were called plastics of small forms. Animal style is the conventional name for stylized images of animals (or parts thereof) common in ancient art. The animal style arose in the Bronze Age and was developed in the Iron Age and in the art of early classical states; its traditions were preserved in medieval art and folk art. Initially associated with totemism, images of the sacred beast over time turned into a conventional motif of the ornament.

Rock drawings and paintings are varied in the manner of execution. The relative proportions of the animals depicted (mountain goat, lion, mammoth and bison) were usually not observed - a huge aurochs could be depicted next to a tiny horse. Failure to comply with proportions did not allow the primitive artist to subordinate composition to the laws of perspective (the latter, by the way, was discovered very late - in the 16th century). Movement in cave painting is conveyed through the position of the legs (crossing legs, for example, depicted an animal on the run), tilting the body or turning the head. There are almost no motionless figures.

Since the images of animals had a magical purpose, the process of their creation was a kind of ritual, therefore such drawings are mostly hidden deep in the bowels of the cave, in underground passages several hundred meters long, and the height of the vault often does not exceed half a meter. In such places, the Cro-Magnon artist had to work lying on his back in the light of bowls with burning animal fat. However, more often the rock paintings are located in accessible places, at a height of 1.5-2 meters. They are found both on cave ceilings and on vertical walls.

The Altamira Art Gallery stretches over 280 meters in length and consists of many spacious rooms. The stone tools and antlers found there, as well as the figurative images on the bone fragments, were created in the period from 13,000 to 10,000 BC. BC e. According to archaeologists, the cave roof collapsed at the beginning of the new Stone Age. In the most unique part of the cave - the “Hall of Animals” - images of bison, bulls, deer, wild horses and wild boars were found. Some reach a height of 2.2 meters; to look at them in more detail, you have to lie down on the floor. Most of the figures are drawn in brown. The artists skillfully used natural relief protrusions on the rock surface, which enhanced the plastic effect of the images. Along with the figures of animals drawn and engraved in the rock, there are also drawings that vaguely resemble the human body in shape.

In 1895, drawings of primitive man were found in the La Moute cave in France. In 1901, here, in the Le Combatelle cave in the Vézère valley, about 300 images of a mammoth, bison, deer, horse, and bear were discovered. Not far from Le Combatelle, in the Font de Gaume cave, archaeologists discovered an entire “art gallery” - 40 wild horses, 23 mammoths, 17 deer.

When creating cave paintings, primitive man used natural dyes and metal oxides, which he either used in pure form or mixed with water or animal fat. He applied these paints to the stone with his hand or with brushes made of tubular bones with tufts of wild animal hairs at the end, and sometimes he blew colored powder through the tubular bone onto the damp wall of the cave. They not only outlined the outline with paint, but painted over the entire image. To make rock carvings using the deep-cut method, the artist had to use rough cutting tools. Massive stone burins were found at the site of Le Roc de Cerre. For drawings of the middle and Late Paleolithic characterized by a more subtle elaboration of the contour, which is conveyed by several shallow lines. Painted drawings and engravings on bones, tusks, horns or stone tiles are made using the same technique.

In the Camonica Valley in the Alps, covering 81 kilometers, a collection has been preserved rock art prehistoric times, the most representative and most important of all that have yet been discovered in Europe. The first “engravings” appeared here, according to experts, 8,000 years ago. Artists carved them using sharp and hard stones. To date, about 170,000 rock paintings have been recorded, but many of them are still awaiting scientific examination.

Thus, primitive art is presented in the following main types: graphics (drawings and silhouettes); painting (images in color, made with mineral paints); sculptures (figures carved from stone or sculpted from clay); decorative arts(stone and bone carving); reliefs and bas-reliefs.

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