In Randall White's Prehistoric Art: The Symbolic Journey of Humankind, we are again brought into the Paleolithic Era. In this book, some of the objectives are to illustrate how a modern Western notion of "art" impedes an understanding of the emergence and adaptive value of the earliest representations in any given region, to present the reader the newest analytical techniques for studying prehistoric representations, and to illustrate the complexity, diversity, and patterning of prehistoric art. I feel that the last objective relates most to our class.
In class, our discussions consist of stylistic or formal characteristics, subject matter, function, and context of a piece of art. The entire book talks about prehistoric art, saying that the "most striking works of paleolithic art are the images of animals incised, painted, or sculptured on the rock surfaces of caves." This previous statement is referring to a cave painting of an injured bison at Altamira, Spain. This book describes the bison as "lifelike." The subject matter is a dying bison who has a lowered head, and is collapsed onto the ground because it can no longer carry its weight. There are many contextual observations for this piece, one of them being that "the bison is one of a group, part of a painted composition on an eighteen-meter-long ceiling(not a wall). Which includes twenty-seven bison, four red deer does, one red deer buck, and two horses." .
If we were discussing this particular painting in class, we might talk about how the animals in the painting relate to each other, and if the way they are positioned is representing something. We might also discuss the region where this painting was discovered. What might the painting tell us about the people or person who did it? .
This book also takes us to a more archaeological level in Art History. There is discussion about other things found besides art, such as stone tools and seashell ornaments.
