Paleolithic Art Research Paper

The paleolithic era is an essential time in history that most people tend to overlook. Everything came about during the “Stone Age," from paintings to the sculptures that were created, this is the time when art emerged and created a path for many other artworks to come. The people during this time were faced with a variety of challenges that certainly affected their lives, the most important being survival. The paintings and sculptures is a way to signify their daily events, experiences, and memories that occurred, giving us the impression of what life was like during this era. Although these were primitive people they had a strong sense of art and a way of creating it that is still used today. Much of their lives are told through their

This venus or goddess of love and beauty is carved onto limestone in high relief, which accentuates her curvaceous body and allows her to stand out from the background capturing your attention. It shows a simplistic yet in depth meaning to how the people viewed the women form in the time period. Her body is carved in a specific way that highlights her overweight and curvy figure, however detail is obscured from her face. Interestingly, there was evidence of red ochre located on the figure indicating that the ochre pigment was mixed with a binder and painted on the venus. Since the ochre was the color red it could have symbolized blood, love, or rebirth. As I said earlier, she appears to be a very curvaceous and a full figured women with large breasts, a chunky stomach stipulating that she is carrying a child, and explicit genitals. Her body emphasizes the woman figure and her large belly symbolizes what women were always meant to do, which is to carry and care for a child. In her right hand she holds a bison horn that is shaped like a crescent moon with thirteen vertical lines carved onto

The first most important thing we must consider is the media of this sculpture, it is carved out of a mammoth tusk and dates back to about 13,000 BCE. The amount of effort and time that goes into sculptures like these is unbelievable, everything about them is precise and explicit. As stated, "The sculpture depicts two reindeer that appear to be swimming and was found in Montastruc in central-southern France" ("Swimming reindeer: an Ice Age masterpiece"). These two reindeer, a female followed by a male, represent not only the beauty of the creature itself but a source of food as well. Each day these people struggled to survive, they depended on different animals of food, shelter, clothing, and weapons. "As well as being a source of food, reindeer skins were used for clothing, blankets and tents " ("Swimming reindeer: an Ice Age masterpiece"). Their bones and antlers were used for the manufacture of tools and weapons that aided in the day to day survival. The tools could be used to created such things as knives, hammers, and spear tips, things that would be used to kill their food. When they killed their food such as deer it was a very close and personal time that the hunter experienced with the animal. They could feel the deers heart beat weaken as the steamy, crimson blood withdrew from its body and saw the last breath that the deer would ever take again. This made their