Lascaux Caves: Art as a Culture

Functions of Early Art

I think the cave artists were trying to give an amazing review of what life was like during their times. The art displayed in the Lascaux Caves gives the viewer a deep sense of what animals and people looked like back then in the eyes of the artist. The animals most often show movement and expression, as if the artists were trying to show how they functioned and behaved. These portraits of life from over 17000 years ago show people interesting facts of animals, people, and culture from that time period.

I think there were so many more animals in the paintings compared to people because I believe there were more animals than humans where the artists were living. In addition, I feel like the artists would have a better chance of drawing animals than humans because they did not know what an artist was or what he was doing. I think it might have been easier to draw animals in the cave, as well as they would look more elegant having many different types of animals painted on the wall.

The paintings can tell us about the life of animals in the early cave dwellers eyes. They show they shape and movement of many different animals, and we can compare them to animals today. In addition, the art shows how animals were accepted by the culture and how they behaved. Also, the paintings show early human culture and what the early humans looked like. The paintings show what type of medium was readily available in the early cave dwellers life. It showed that they considered art to be a very important part of their culture. The paintings also show some ancient figures such as ancient star charts. This shows that the early cave dwellers relied on star formations to help them through everyday cultural life. This shows some high intelligence of these people.

These early humans faced many difficult tasks to be able to paint the amazing figures in the caves. The artists had to paint inside steep, dangerous caves that had to be very dark. It would be a very difficult challenge just to get into the caves and around them without being injured. I think painting on surfaces of rock that is very uneven would be difficult to control the painting process and how one would want to paint. I think it would be difficult for some of the artists to paint the animals they did because they would have to observe them without being harmed.

I think these paintings provide important functions to the culture of these early humans. One function of the art would be to serve as a leisure activity to the people of the early cave dwelling society, serving as their society's pastime. Secondly, I think the art serves as a medium of history to show what life was like back in the early cave cultures. Even thousands of years later, one can view amazing paintings that portray the history of these cave dwelling humans. Thirdly, the art could serve as a source of communication between people of the early humans. They could use their art as a source of telling a story and communicating to another individual or group.

Commonalities in Function

The functions in the art of the early humans compared to that of modern art shows some important similarities. One similarity is that the art provides a leisure for the culture. One can use art to fulfill hobbies and as a medium to express oneself. In addition, modern and early art is used as communication of stories and thought. The art is seen as a medium to tell stories and spread ideas in the artist's culture. In both early and modern art, the art serves as a function of preserving the history for future generations. The art can be viewed by many generations in the future and can see what culture was like for the artist and what influenced him to create it.

My Favorite Art: Sculpture

People who use sculpture to express themselves do so by creating a three dimensional piece of art. Sculpture serves as a way for the artist to model something in real life or to model abstract ideas that show their emotion in their mind. The material the artist uses to sculpt with serves as a function. The material signifies a mood the artist wants to create for the viewer of the sculpture. In addition, some sculptures function as a preservation of history, such as a famous person. They want this person's legacy to live on for as long as possible to give future generations more information.

I think the art of sculpture had its own culture back in the early years of the Greek culture. They used there own set of language and behaviors throughout the making of sculptures. The sculpture was a very important part of the Greek culture and is seen today has its own unique art form. Today, I  don' think there is any special form of unique dress or behavior that goes on in the art form of sculpture. I think the only unique ideas that surround the art form is the language used to describe the process of sculpting. All the techniques and different mediums used have a unique language that only the sculptors know.

I think this art form benefits society because it can be used to showcase the life of human being who have changed our history in a positive modern. Sculptures and statues of presidents and war heroes remind people of the amazing things they have done in there life. Also, abstract sculptures serve as a unique way to showcase different emotions and give other people something to think about when they see an amazing sculpture. It gets them thinking critically and realizing that art is an important part of our culture. Although all of these reasons are positive, I think sculptures can have an negative consequence. They can be vandalized and create a cultural problem for some people in different parts of the world. Sometimes, sculptures or statues of bad people are made and they create an uneasy feeling for people who think they should be brought down. Some examples of these are the Saddam Hussein and Joe Paterno statues.