The earliest art we have so far discovered.

1. Class 8.1
Humans in an
Animal World: Art
of the Paleolithic

2. papers? no 
I know you are eager to
have them back. I will
get them done as soon
as possible. By Oct 20,
at absolute latest.

3. PART II: HISTORIES
Week 8: 10.10.16
TU 10.11 Early Humans in an Animal World
TH 10.13 Inside the Walls of Jericho
Week 9: 10.17.16
TU 10.18 Art and Power in the Settled Societies
TH 10.20 Emergence of the Figure: Sculpture in
Egypt, Greece and Rome
Week 10: 10.24.16
TU 10.25 Being There: Pilgrimage, Place and Medieval Relics
TH 10.27 Invention of Virtual Space: Perspective & Modeling

4. Week 11: 10.31.16
TU 11.1 The Emergence of Self (Portraiture)
TH 11.3 Making Multiples I: Printing
Week 12: 11.7.16
TU 11.8 Art Academies to the Open Market
PAPER II DUE 11.7, by 11:59 PM online
TH 11.10 Making Multiples II: Photography
Week 13: 11.14.16
TU 11.15 The Rise of a Commercial Visual Culture
TH 11.17 Art with Options HARRISON, pp. 130-50;
295-319.

5. FALL BREAK: 11.21.16
TU 11.22 Thanksgiving Break
TH 11.24 Thanksgiving Day
Week 14: 11.28.16
TU 11.29 Out of the Gallery, Into the Street
Read: Patrick POTTER, Banksy: You Are an
Acceptable Level of Threat, 5th edition, (London: Carpet
Bombing Culture, 2015).
TH 12.1 Participatory Art
Read: Harrell Fletcher and Miranda July, Learning to
Love You More (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2007). And browse
through archived website:
http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/

6. Week 15: 12.5.15 CONCLUSIONS AND REVIEW
TU 12.6 Art for People
TH 12.8 Reading Day, No Class Meeting
FR 12.9 FINAL EXAM, on Compass during scheduled
exam period, 1:30-4:30 PM, per guidelines:
http://registrar.illinois.edu/fall2016schedulingguidelinesfaculty
_staff

7. what is art?
STRICT, MODERN, WESTERN DEFINITION
• A relatively modern invention—last couple of centuries in
Europe.
• Something that is made for “pure, disinterested
contemplation.”
• Something that is appreciated for its sensuous qualities
(for example, its form, its coloring, its tactile appeal, its
sound).
• An invention of the West, though we have appropriated
objects from around the world to join this category

8. But...many of the things we
would today call "art" or
store in museums do NOT
fit this definition at all. They
were made for a variety of
other purposes now
suppressed or distorted in
the art museum.

9. the “art” context
As John Dewey warned us, the "art context" —
the object's framing and display as a work
produced for disinterested contemplation—can
easily get in the way of our connecting with
what the object is.
We need to become aware of the original
contexts from these objects—found all over the
world—in order to understand and appreciate
the significance of these objects.

10. The Art Institute, 1900

11. The Art Institute of Chicago: those lions aren't just for show. They
guardians of the concept of 'high art'!

12. Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877, installed at the Art Institute

13. Cueva de las manos, (Cave of the Hands)
Santa Cruz Province, Argentina
c. 7300 BCE
• what are the materials?
• what is the subject matter?

14. • the line between art and non-art
• Makapansgat cobble, 3 mya [million years ago]
• incised ochre from Blombos cave, c. 77,000 BCE
• plastered human skull, Jericho, c. 7000 BCE [next time]
• plastered human skull, Beisamun, c. 4000 BCE [next time]
where is the line between
art and non-art? human and
non-human?

15. Our picture of humanity’s
origins is constantly
changing.
• There is an active community of research around the
question of our earliest human ancestors.
• Who were they?
• Where did they live?
• What is unique about their anatomy and physiology?
• What behaviors did they engage in? Did they make tools?
art?
• How do we draw the line between human and non-human?

16. These all seem like simple enough
questions, but the answers keep
changing fairly dramatically as we
find new evidence from month to
month.

17. The past isn’t static, but
dynamic.
Therefore, please be aware as you work through this
material that some of the specific information you are
reading here may change. The point is not to memorize
specific facts of human prehistory, but to become aware of
how ongoing discovery keeps revising our sense of the
past, and to begin interpreting the significance of what we
know at this point.

18. The Laetoli footprints, 3.6 million years
ago
These are not the only
hominin footprints that
have been found in
Africa, but they remain
the most famous physical
evidence that our
hominin ancestors (in
this case,
Australopithecus
afarensis) walked
upright. This evolutionary
change came before
larger cranial size,
according to current state
of research.
Cast of the Laetoli footprints displayed in Tanzania

19. http://leakeyfoun
dation.org/about-
us/leakey-
family/mary-
leakey/
PROFILE OF MARY LEAKEY

20. Hominid footprint, 3.5 million BC, found at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

21. LEARN MORE about the
LAETOLI FOOTPRINTS
:http://www.amnh.org/exhibitio
ns/permanent/humanorigins/hi
story/humans3.php
LAETOLI FOOTPRINTS

22. http://www.amnh.org/exhibition
s/permanent/humanorigins/hist
ory/humans4.php
fossil remains of 'Lucy':
AUSTRALOPITHECUS
AFARENSIS

23. LEARN MORE ABOUT LUCY!:
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/
humanorigins/history/humans5.php
'LUCY,' human
ancestor of species
Australopithecus
afarensis

24. It is widely agreed upon that original routes of human migration began with
emigrations from Africa into the Mideast, Asia, and Europe, and only much later
from Asia to the Americas.
Exactly when and how migrations occurred is highly debated.

25. Terms
paleolithic: “Old Stone Age”
Greek– paleo = old; lithos = stone
incise: To cut into a surface with a sharp
instrument; a means of decoration, especially
on metal and pottery.
manuport: something that can be carried in the
hand

26. hominid fossil sites in
Eastern and Southern
Africa

27. 27
Pebble with wear pattern
resembling a human face.
Found at an
australopithecine site in
Makapansgat, South
Africa, dated to c. 3
million years ago.
Reddish brown jasperite,
approx. 2 3/8” wide.
Would you consider this
to be "art"? Why or why
not?
http://www.originsnet.
org/oldowangallery1/
pages/a%29makapan
sgat.htm

28. location of Blombos Cave, virtually at the tip of South Africa

30. exterior of the cave

31. The Indian Ocean, seen from inside the cave. Layers of sandbags are
protecting the surface from the excavators walking in and out.

32. excavation at Blombos
BLOMBOS CAVE,
SOUTH AFRICA
excavation at work, note
the meticulously flagged
layers
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/e
p/Blombos.html

33. incised ochre,
Blombos Cave,
c. 77,000 BCE

34. Marine shell bead excavated at Blombos Cave, South Africa,
dating to 70,000 years ago (string of beads at bottom is a reconstruction)

35. 35
Human with feline head,
from Hohlenstein-Stadel,
Germany, ca. 30,000–
28,000 BCE. Mammoth
ivory, 11 5/8” high. Ulmer
Museum, Ulm.

36. 36
Animal figure, from the Apollo 11 Cave, Namibia, ca. 23,000 BCE. Charcoal on
stone, 5” X 4 1/4”. State Museum of Namibia, Windhoek.

37. 37
Nude woman (Venus of
Willendorf), from Willendorf,
Austria, ca. 28,000–25,000
BCE. Limestone, 4 1/4” high.
Naturhistorisches Museum,
Vienna.

38. 38
Woman holding a bison horn, from Laussel,
France, ca. 25,000–20,000 BCE. Painted
limestone, approx. 1’ 6” high. Musée
d’Aquitaine, Bordeaux.

39. Rock-Cut Woman
La Magdelaine,
France
Used the natural
contours of the
cave wall as a
basis for the
representation.
Incised and carved.

40. 40
Two bison, reliefs in cave at Le Tuc d’Audoubert, France, ca. 15,000–
10,000 BCE. Clay, each 2’ long.

41. 41
Bison with turned head, fragmentary spearthrower, from La Madeleine,
France, ca. 12,000 BCE. Reindeer horn, 4” long.

42. 42
How were cave paintings made?
• The caves were pitch black, so artists needed simple
stone lamps that burned animal fat.
• To DRAW they used chunks of red and yellow ochre,
but also other minerals.
• The PALETTE was a large flat stone.
• BRUSHES were made from reeds, bristles or twigs.
• May have used reed or blowpipe to spray paint on
hard to reach locations.
• Used ledges and perhaps primitive scaffolds to reach
the walls.

43. 43
Bison, detail of a painted
ceiling in the cave at
Altamira, Spain, ca.
12,000–11,000 BCE. Each
bison 5’ long.

44. 44
Spotted horses and negative hand imprints, wall painting in the cave at Pech-
Merle, France, ca. 22,000 BCE. 11’ 2” long.

45. Lascaux Cave,
Lascaux, France

46. 46
Hall of the Bulls (left wall) in the cave at Lascaux, France, ca. 15,000–13,000 BCE.

47. cave painting, Lascaux, France ca. 15,000 – 13,000 BCE.
47