“Understanding prehistoric art” – Alexandra Kinevskaya

It is still debated by many scholars in art history whether or not should Prehistoric art, such as cave drawings, be studied as an art form at all or just considered a historical and archaeological phenomenon. This is due to the fact, that there are no other sources or documents from that era that could give us any insight into the function and meaning of such depictions.

“Although the studies mentioned above have greatly enhanced our understanding of prehistoric art, we are still in no way near to answering the absorbing question of what motivated the artists to create these works. We do not even know whether they were meant to be art, specifically made for aesthetic appreciation rather than functional purposes. In fact, it may well be that, be classifying these works as art, we are erecting mental barriers that prevent us from arriving at an appreciation of their original function and meaning.” Günter Berghaus

In my experience, it is almost impossible to decipher iconography of the image without any additional knowledge regarding the cultural orbit of certain area and period. We do not speak the language of our prehistoric ancestors, we do not know the way they think, the way they choose to perceive the world. We can only speculate at this point and use those drawings and archaeological findings as our sources, but will that be enough to reconstruct the whole world, different from ours in order to grasp its cult and culture?

In art history one of the most important things to always keep in mind is the context of every art piece that you encounter. The worldview of the people who lived in the era and area associated with the artwork, the specifics of the geographical region and its mentality, religious aspects, traditions and customs, sometimes important events – all of these factors are just a part of what should be considered closely when analyzing an artwork.

However, when it comes to the prehistoric art we simply lack sources for such a vast cultural reconstruction. Cave drawings are practically the only documentation of live of prehistoric people that we have, so we load them with all the meanings and roles that we are missing whether it is communication, art, cult or all of the above. Because we look at it from our perspective, our knowledge and with our expectations of what it could or should be, purely based on our own experience and cultural habits. But should we be speculating so actively without having enough to go on? What do we, as scholars, want to achieve in the end – to find and decipher the meaning or to assign it?

Bibliography

• Berghaus, Günter.  2004, New perspectives on prehistoric art / edited by Günter Berghaus  Praeger Westport, Conn. ; London, p. 5