The early man was much interested in the field of art. He found that art is a unique method to express his feelings. So, he tried his hands both in paintings and sculptures.
(i) Paintings: In the very beginning, the early man tried to express every thing which impressed him in his daily life. He was much impressed by seeing (observing) natural beauty, i.e. flora and fauna, the sun, the moon, stars, rivers, etc. and also fond of hunting. Hunting was the part of his daily routine. So he painted many pictures depicting the hunting theme. The paintings depicting hunting theme have been envisaged on the wall of the caves and ceiling on the walls. For example, the caves of Altamira, Lascaux, and Chauvet are specially well known. Altamira caves were discovered by Marcelino sanz de Sautuola and his daughter in 1879.
- Lascaux and Chauvet caves came into limelight in 1894. These caves have plenty of beautiful pictures.
- Most of these paintings are of horses, bison’s, mammoths, bears, leopards, owls, etc. Black, red, yellow and white colors have been widely used for engraving these paintings. A number of questions have been put forward regarding the above mentioned paintings.
- Scholars have different opinions in this regard. Some scholars are of the view that they painted these pictures to beautify the walls and ceilings on the caves while others put forward their argument as they did so to pass their knowledge from one generation to another.
(ii) Sculpture: Small-sized statues were built by early man, representing humans and animals. Most of the human statues were of women and recovered from several places in Europe. These female statues are called Venus goddess.
