Comparison 3: Lascaux at the Beginning
[Click image to be taken to larger version.]
Pictured: Detail of the Lascaux (Montignac) cave site (c. 15,000-17,000 B.C.E.)
Various earth-based pigments and/or engraving on white calcite cave walls/ceiling, approx. 2000 figures arranged into approx. 600 compositions, individually up to 17 feet in length
Lascaux Cave (near the village of Montignac), France
Virtual Tour: Quick scan via Vimeo, or you can try the official site, which requires Flash and is a lot more frustrating to use, but does have way more detail available if you can get those bits to work.
The Lascaux Cave paintings are probably the best-known proof that the mark-making tendency has been with humans for a long, long time. These pictures were made using pigments sourced from locally available dirt (including various minerals as well as charcoal, and bound by liquids such as animal fat). Application: typically NOT by hand, actually, but by 1) cutting into the surface of the rock to get to a different color underneath, 2) by applying pigments with pads or mats (of e.g. moss or hair), or 3) by a type of 'spray paint' method in which pigment was blown onto the wall, sometimes via a tube (created out of e.g. hollow bone, some of which have been found at Lascaux covered in color on the inside). Scaffolds were also built to reach some of the upper areas.
Indication of the 'spray paint' method.
If you care about art, as either a maker or a viewer, sites like Lascaux can make you tingly. However, it should still be noted that these images were likely not created as 'art' as we'd know it — that is, they probably had a function beyond decoration (or, god forbid, 'expression'). It's still up for debate, and the theories range from a 'hunting magic' to some sort of documentation (since the makers had no written language). But the most convincing theories seem to agree that there's a spiritual or ritualistic element here, intended to help these early humans shape the world (or themselves) in some concrete way. If this was the case, making a physical mark on the world would be an act taking on especially great significance...but seeing that modern humans are this far removed from the context of that significance, we're currently left looking at marks that are really just as alien as they are familiar.