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+	url = ssh://git@git.blizzard.systems:25/rit-ecet-notes/arth-135-08

arth-135-08

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notes.md

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+Since we're starting from the beginning, it's also a study of humanity in the early stages. Even without language, it can communicate.
+
+Before we get language, its kinda a shot in the dark at what it actually means.
+
+For those who are new to studying art, we want to find ways to connect everything back together, both in a timeline and in the context.
+We also want to look for innovations about style, people, techniques, materials, etc.
+
+For now, lets start with >120,000 years ago. 
+We start off with nomadic hunter-gatherers. 
+The most important concerns are food, water, resources, and safety (both from the elements and from predators). 
+They don't have a ton of time to do art, so what art we do have from that era is gonna be about one of those things.
+So most art of the time is gonna be about that kinda stuff, possibly to communicate to others, possibly as a record for themselves.
+
+We also haven't found a ton of stuff yet? So don't think we've found everything.
+And since a lot of stuff doesn't survive long, we also don't get a full picture of the time.
+We also lose context as less stuff survives.
+Just because we happen across a writing system, we won't necessarily be able to decode it, much less decode it *correctly*.
+Art is a window into ancient people's lives, but its a pinprick.
+
+We're gonna set aside the ethics for now, and we're just gonna work from the art itself, ethics is a different course.
+We're not perfect in the interpretation, but we've got a couple guesses.
+
+Its always important to look at it in the way that the people of the time did.
+We're in 2024, but ya gotta set it aside to contemplate.
+
+*Homo Sapiens* goes back 400,000 years, so there's a massive range of time.
+
+We're starting through upper paleolithic, gonna move through neolithic, build through the bronze age, to the medieval era.
+
+So lets start with what *isn't* art. 
+A hand-axe, a spearhead, while archeologically significant, it isn't art, because it's a _tool_ first and foremost.
+It's still cool, it's still important, and it's still amazing to see.
+But it's not _art_.
+Its necessary for daily life; its for survival.
+
+Some of the earliest art is either communicative or decorative.
+
+One of the first artifacts that is generally considered art is a piece of decorated ocher, from the Blombos Cave in the Southern Cape Coast of Southern Africa, looking at about 77,000 years ago.
+It's a rust-coloured brick, with etched triangles on one of the smaller sides.
+It looks a lot like something a kid would scribble on for fun in the modern era.
+Ocher is supposedly used for drawing on the body, or on walls.
+There's a lot of pieces in the Blombos Cave that were all marked in a similar manner, and it appears to only be for decoration.
+This was found along with shells with holes (possibly drilled?) in them, that could be sewn or strung to form clothing or a necklace.
+
+The first pivital piece of art is the Lion-Human, carved from mammoth ivory, found in Hohlenstein-Stadel Germany, from approximately 30,0000-26,000BCE.
+This sculpture seems to show that whomever made it had time to study a lion, and make a rough likeness.
+It has context that it was found in Germany, but it may have been traded there, which would potentially indicate a certain amount of trade.
+There is also a level of creativity, to have a human with non-human features.
+This may have been a one-off, or it may have been culturally signifant.
+Also shows some level of clothing, a loincloth aned possibly a collar of some form of "top".
+Demarkated as "sculpture in the round".
+[Scupture in the Round is defined as a 3D object, and something that was considered from all sides.]
+A lot of art of the early art is considered "relief"; that is, it is 2D, or carved into a wall.
+It possibly implies a level of mythology?
+It could also be a lion mask/skull/skin, a representation for ritualistic person.
+The human face is also hard, so it might be just a way to represent a person without having to deal with a face.
+The relation to animals is very different to how we see them culturally nowadays.
+
+"Woman from Willendorf"; found in Austria from approximately 24,000BCE
+A nude female figure in the round, very famous old sculpture.
+Likely not representative of the population, more a representation of the quality of feminity.
+There's a level of detail in the joints as well, both the knees and the elbows.
+The "hat" demonstrates some creativity as well.
+
+This is contrasted from the Woman from Dolni Vestonice, found in the Czech republic, dated to 23,000BCE.
+