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In the history of art, prehistoric art is all art produced in preliterate, prehistorical cultures beginning somewhere in very late geological history, and generally continuing until that culture either develops writing or other methods of record-keeping, or makes significant contact with another culture that has, and that makes some record of major historical events.
The word art comes from the Latin word ars, which, loosely translated, means "arrangement". Art is commonly understood as the act of making works (or artworks) which use the human creative impulse and which have meaning beyond simple description. Art is often distinguished from crafts and recreational hobby activities.
Content, on the other hand, refers to a work's subject matter, i.e., its meaning. [2] [3] But the terms form and content can be applied not only to art: every meaningful text has its inherent form, hence form and content appear in very diverse applications of human thought: from fine arts to even mathematics and natural sciences. Even more, the ...
The art of the Upper Paleolithic represents the oldest form of prehistoric art. Figurative art is present in Europe and Southeast Asia, beginning around 50,000 years ago. [1] [2] [3] Non-figurative cave paintings, consisting of hand stencils and simple geometric shapes, are somewhat older, at least 40,000 years old, and possibly as old as ...
In Greece and Rome, wall painting was not considered high art. The most prestigious form of art besides sculpture was panel painting, i.e. tempera or encaustic painting on wooden panels. Unfortunately, since wood is a perishable material, only a very few examples of such paintings have survived, namely the Severan Tondo from circa 200 AD, a ...
The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing system, is often known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, [ 2 ] there are no written records from human prehistory, which can only be known from material archaeological and anthropological evidence: prehistoric materials and human remains.
The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetic visual form. Visual art can be classified in diverse ways, such as separating fine arts from applied arts ...
Many pre-Columbian cultures did not have writing systems, so visual art expressed cosmologies, world views, religion, and philosophy of these cultures, as well as serving as mnemonic devices. Artisans of the Ancient Americas drew upon a wide range of materials ( obsidian , gold, spondylus shells), creating objects that included the meanings ...