Cave Art(15,000 BCE)

Theory #1: Artist’s Canvas

• People of prehistoric times were excellent big-game hunters

• Did not need to work very hard and had plenty of leisure time

• Art during this time may have been a teaching tool for kids to learn lessons about the hunt

Theory #2: Sympathetic Magic

• Sympathetic Magic: making an image of something gives the artist power over whatever the image represents

• Drawing animals with arrows in their side or incomplete animals could create real wounded or weakened animals

Theory #3: Vision Quest

• Shaman: communicates with and interprets the supernatural– Dark, silence, isolation

– Hallucinogenic drugs

– Pain

• Cave art was a portal to the supernatural world

Cave of Beasts(Gilf Kebir, Egypt)