Cave Art of Europe…what were they saying?

[Alchopwn]

Just now, The Puzzler said:

I’ll elaborate on this part…

The industrial world…is that art? ……

"...a roaring motor car, which seems to run on machinegun fire is more beautiful than the Winged Victory of Samothrace" - F.T. Marinetti.

Yes, unequivocally the industrial world by any measure of the term is art.  You have never seen a Vietnamese refugee, fresh off the boat, stare in awe and wonder for ten minutes at the brightly lit spectacle of a Blockbuster Video Store back in the day.  Every neon light sign is a wonder that we take for granted, and don't even consider to be art, would be unthinkably perfect and worthy of veneration to our distant ancestors.

9 minutes ago, The Puzzler said:

And what? Would we expect them to….what they did was lead us on the path to the industrial Revolution…

Did they tho?  I think there were plenty of forces in humanity that tried very hard to stamp out science and the hope of a better tomorrow.

10 minutes ago, The Puzzler said:

The thing is….it’s the prior thought, that in fact, holds the key to the current thought….if we follow the Picasso example…

”l. That’s what makes cave art so entrancing: it records the moment consciousness makes an entrance. Before 33,000 years ago, all our evidence of the natural world comes from fossils, which reveal the story of life from single-celled creatures to dinosaurs to mammals. Then suddenly humans appear – and they are doing portraits.”

Yeah, hang on a moment...  What about this whole detour?

[The Puzzler]

8 minutes ago, Alchopwn said:

"...a roaring motor car, which seems to run on machinegun fire is more beautiful than the Winged Victory of Samothrace" - F.T. Marinetti.

Yes, unequivocally the industrial world by any measure of the term is art.  You have never seen a Vietnamese refugee, fresh off the boat, stare in awe and wonder for ten minutes at the brightly lit spectacle of a Blockbuster Video Store back in the day.  Every neon light sign is a wonder that we take for granted, and don't even consider to be art, would be unthinkably perfect and worthy of veneration to our distant ancestors.

Did they tho?  I think there were plenty of forces in humanity that tried very hard to stamp out science and the hope of a better tomorrow.

Yeah, hang on a moment...  What about this whole detour?

I do appreciate many forms of art indeed…but  maybe it’s about the artistic style on a surface,  as per the cave art topic idea…the use of pigment to create a thought that gives rise to further thought. In the end you do indeed get a beautiful motor car. It does lead to brain development of further advancement.

Even the days of using pigment to create surface art is disappearing fast…artists worldwide are saying AI is the death of them. The skill has become replaceable…it will be interesting to see if we go forward further or fall back, at this point, if pigment based artistic skill = consciousness, disappears, again.

Yes, many forces of all kinds.

Edited July 5, 2023 by The Puzzler

[The Puzzler]

Imagine if Europe didn’t retain over the last two thousand years, monks and the likes, writing texts incorporating elaborate artistic graphics…leading to Enlightenment also…maybe if that had been lost, we would be back in 15,000BC by now…or at least in 1550AD…being restrained lol

Edited July 5, 2023 by The Puzzler

[The Puzzler]

“Cave artists could do it all. The faces of the animals they painted are exquisite portraits, while their bodies are rendered in perfect perspective. But wait – weren’t these supposed to be the great achievements of European art? After all, in his classic study The Story of Art, EH Gombrich tells how western art took off when the ancient Greeks learned how to show movement, that the perspective was discovered in 15th-century Europe, and that the communication of sensation rather than the seen was the gift of the impressionists. Gombrich had probably not seen much cave art. Lascaux, a series of caves in the French Dordogne, was a recent discovery when he published his book in 1950 – and Chauvet, also in France, wouldn’t be found until 1994.”

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/apr/23/cave-paintings-art-lockdown-obsession-30-000-years-lascaux

[The Puzzler]

“Then suddenly humans appear – and they are doing portraits.”

[Alchopwn]

4 hours ago, The Puzzler said:

Imagine if Europe didn’t retain over the last two thousand years, monks and the likes, writing texts incorporating elaborate artistic graphics…leading to Enlightenment also…maybe if that had been lost, we would be back in 15,000BC by now…or at least in 1550AD…being restrained lol

Honestly I think the artistic decline the Middle Ages shows the infantilizing effect of Christianity.  It started in the late Roman Empire...  Compare the Four Tetrarchs sculpture, which comes into being around the time that Christianity has just become the dominant religion in the Roman Empire:

This is produced after we have had the wonders of the classical era.  Look how crappy and amateurish it is.  It's an insult to sculpture by the standards of what went before it in the Roman Empire, and yet it is on display as a symbol of Imperial unity.  These mighty emperors look like stunted mutants.  When you compare them to the cave art of Lascaux, you must reach the conclusion that there has been a major infantile regression in our species during the rise of Christianity. 

Edited July 5, 2023 by Alchopwn

[The Puzzler]

15 hours ago, Alchopwn said:

Honestly I think the artistic decline the Middle Ages shows the infantilizing effect of Christianity.  It started in the late Roman Empire...  Compare the Four Tetrarchs sculpture, which comes into being around the time that Christianity has just become the dominant religion in the Roman Empire:

This is produced after we have had the wonders of the classical era.  Look how crappy and amateurish it is.  It's an insult to sculpture by the standards of what went before it in the Roman Empire, and yet it is on display as a symbol of Imperial unity.  These mighty emperors look like stunted mutants.  When you compare them to the cave art of Lascaux, you must reach the conclusion that there has been a major infantile regression in our species during the rise of Christianity. 

Yes, much of our abilities, science, astronomy, freedom of artistry was quashed for way too long. “Infantile regression” indeed.

Edited July 6, 2023 by The Puzzler

[The Puzzler]

Maybe after the highest realms of artistic abilities were achieved in Europe at the dawn of Homo sapiens foray into world dominance….that was enough.

To know you can do it, but choose not to, seems a bit of a human trait…

maybe because we knew then and it entered our consciousness of what we were capable of, in the future, if we used it….

It’s like the Picasso reference again…we have achieved nothing!  Seems we chose not to use it.
 

Did it represent us just acknowledging we had a high ability to become dominant species, did we start the paintings once Neanderthal were taken over…? To let everyone around know that we were pretty darn intelligent. 

Is it actual symbolism…an ownership of the caves…they’re our caves now dude…painted at that time to literally say to any other would be usurpers… “suck my ****”….

Edited July 6, 2023 by The Puzzler

[The Puzzler]

Maybe Europeans hadn’t seen many elephants…lol

Rabbits always seem evil.…

Terrible art wastelands.

Edited July 6, 2023 by The Puzzler

[The Puzzler]

[The Puzzler]

Terminator 2 is actually my all time favourite movie lol x

[The Puzzler]

Should we, would we….be further along in advancement of mind and technology if we had kept creating high end art?

Will creating more high end art lead us towards more advancement? Namely AI art and 3D printing for example..?

Edited July 6, 2023 by The Puzzler

[jmccr8]

8 hours ago, The Puzzler said:

Maybe after the highest realms of artistic abilities were achieved in Europe at the dawn of Homo sapiens foray into world dominance….that was enough.

To know you can do it, but choose not to, seems a bit of a human trait…

maybe because we knew then and it entered our consciousness of what we were capable of, in the future, if we used it….

It’s like the Picasso reference again…we have achieved nothing!  Seems we chose not to use it.
 

Did it represent us just acknowledging we had a high ability to become dominant species, did we start the paintings once Neanderthal were taken over…? To let everyone around know that we were pretty darn intelligent. 

Is it actual symbolism…an ownership of the caves…they’re our caves now dude…painted at that time to literally say to any other would be usurpers… “suck my ****”….

Hi Puzzler

They may have expressed their artistic skills in other ways with materials that easily degrade like basket weaving or other textiles for cllothing or adornment.

[The Puzzler]

On 7/7/2023 at 1:01 AM, jmccr8 said:

Hi Puzzler

They may have expressed their artistic skills in other ways with materials that easily degrade like basket weaving or other textiles for cllothing or adornment.

Weaving a basket is hardly comparable to a da Vinci painting  but I know what you’re saying. 

[Abramelin]

On 7/5/2023 at 4:58 PM, Alchopwn said:

you must reach the conclusion that there has been a major infantile regression in our species during the rise of Christianity. 

I don't know, but those medieval cathedrals don't appear to me signs of 'infantile regression'.

[The Puzzler]

7 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

I don't know, but those medieval cathedrals don't appear to me signs of 'infantile regression'.

That’s true but building a pyramid or cathedral is not a painting.

Edited July 9, 2023 by The Puzzler

[Abramelin]

1 minute ago, The Puzzler said:

That’s true but building a pyramid or cathedral is not a painting.

They are not just 'buildings', and most certainly not "infantile creations'.

[The Puzzler]

26 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

They are not just 'buildings', and most certainly not "infantile creations'.

They are “special buildings”…lol

No they are not infantile creations.

What I’m driving at here is though, it’s the techniques of the painting themselves that drive our mind…the result might be the cathedral but could the cathedral be built without an inner knowledge of parchment art? 

No, you cannot build a cathedral without blue prints. The drawn art comes first. 
My father is a draughtsman.. He draws the building, in a mathematical concept, on paper, like a cathedral but he could not build it. 

Edited July 9, 2023 by The Puzzler

[The Puzzler]

The cave art is blueprints for our intelligence.

[Alchopwn]

On 7/5/2023 at 8:05 PM, The Puzzler said:

Even the days of using pigment to create surface art is disappearing fast…artists worldwide are saying AI is the death of them. The skill has become replaceable…it will be interesting to see if we go forward further or fall back, at this point, if pigment based artistic skill = consciousness, disappears, again.

Well, has it really become replaceable?  I mean, consider the state of painters when the camera was invented.  They firmly believed that their art was over, and photos weren't even in color yet.  Remember the film "Un Chien Andalou"?  That was all about demonstrating that the camera can lie, as a means of undermining the whole idea prevalent at the time that cameras cannot lie.  In many ways the whole of modern art is a reaction to the camera.  Even AI will prove to have its limits as a technology I'm sure.  After all, for all the pretense, no AI has yet produced something that could be called original thought.  While this is not to say that many humans struggle with the concept, but they aren't artists.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Alchopwn

[Alchopwn]

43 minutes ago, Abramelin said:

I don't know, but those medieval cathedrals don't appear to me signs of 'infantile regression'.

They seem squalidly primitive and childish to me.  Compare them to the work coming out of the Classical period and they are simply pathetic, given that the aim of art had always been realism.  But I'm interested in your opinion Abramelin. How do you regard them?

Edited July 9, 2023 by Alchopwn

[Abramelin]

7 minutes ago, Alchopwn said:

They seem squalidly primitive and childish to me.  Compare them to the work coming out of the Classical period and they are simply pathetic, given that the aim of art had always been realism.  But I'm interested in your opinion Abramelin. How do you regard them?

I was talking about cathedrals. I consider them 'art' too.

[Alchopwn]

Just now, Abramelin said:

I was talking about cathedrals. I consider them 'art' too.

Cathedrals are a completely different story... But relatively few of them are actually medieval afaik.  What is your opinion of the paintings of the Medieval era though?

Edited July 9, 2023 by Alchopwn

[Abramelin]

2 minutes ago, Alchopwn said:

Cathedrals are a completely different story... But relatively few of them are actually medieval afaik.  What is your opinion of the paintings of the Medieval era though?

Of course those cave paintings are superior to the medieval paintings.

I once read somewhere that those people painted the animals from up close, after they killed them and dragged them inside a cave. But that was just an idea.

[Alchopwn]

Just now, Abramelin said:

Of course those cave paintings are superior to the medieval paintings.

I once read somewhere that those people painted the animals from up close, after they killed them and dragged them inside a cave. But that was just an idea.

That's an interesting idea about how they came to understand the animals' physiology, but it doesn't quite account for how they seem to move naturalistically in the flicker of the torchlight.

So how do you account for the fact that stone age humans are painting better than Medievals?  I mean, they turn a corner into the Renaissance soon enough, but...   TBH I don't think I am being particularly unfair about the subject either; European Medieval art is just not good.