Ice Age Art and the unbroken continuum of human creativity; from rock art to contemporary art, and the fundamental human desire to create. Contemporary works of art can help us explore the range of possibilities that an ancient image might embody. Moreover, for artists separated in time, from the Palaeolithic to today, seeing and expressing is constant; it is liminal. For this reason the phrase 'Arrival of the Modern Mind' seems entirely appropriate.
'Galgenburg', artist unknown, 30,000 BC, amphibolite and 'Odalisque' by Peter Lyell Robinson, 2004, bronze.
In 2013 the British Museum presented the exhibition 'Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind', curated by Jill Cook. To accompany the exhibition the British Museum published the book by the same title, authored by Jill Cook.
This publication explores the sculptures and drawings created duringthe last European Ice Age, between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago - the oldest known figurative art in the world.*
The book features over 250 objects, including small but exquisite sculptures made from mammoth ivory, engraved drawings, ceramic models, decorated objects and jewellery from the age of the great painted caves.
Some are celebrated masterpieces such as the Swimming Reindeer, the Willendorf and Lespugue figurines, the Vogelherd Horse and the Lion Man; others are lesser-known treasures from the collections of European museums.
The author examines them in a new light, as works of aesthetic - not solely archaeological - interest, and as such forming part of an unbroken continuum of human creativity.
These exceptional pieces are presented alongside modern works by artists such as Picasso, Courbet, Derain, Freud, Epstein and Quinn, illustrating the fundamental human desire to communicate and make art as a way of understanding ourselves and our place in the world.
Find 'Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind' in the Book Review section:
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/books/ice_age_art.php
* The rock art recently discovered in the Maros region of southern Sulawesi, Indonesia, should be mentioned. It is important for several reasons. The fact that it has been dated to a minimum age of almost 40,000 years proves that the making of rock art did not originate in Europe, and that it is more likely a much older behaviour brought by the first humans to both Europe and Southeast Asia. Or it demonstrates that rock art practices of making hand stencils and creating paintings of animals independently occurred in various parts of the world many tens of thousands of years ago.
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