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Cave paintings are the type of paintings that are painted on walls of a cave and any rock. Cave paintings belong to the category of pre-historic art ascribed to Paleolithic age. Cave paintings were made some forty thousand years ago. Mostly, human beings, flowers, animals have been seen in the cave paintings discovered so far.
The period or era to which any cave painting found, can be established by the method of radiocarbon dating. Infact, two types of cave paintings have been discovered, painting that is carved on the stone and the other that is painted on the stone.
Integral cave paintings are very rarely found in the world. Cave paintings are generally graphic illustration in appearance as human beings of the ancient age hardly knew appropriate form of painting. Some of the recognized cave paintings that have been discovered around the globe are cave paintings of Astuvansalmi in Finland, Ajanta and Ellora in Maharashtra; India, Creswell Crags in England, Messak Settafet and Tadrart in Libya, Lascaux in France, Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg in South Africa and Cosquer Cave near Marseille in France.
In India, a place called Bhimbetka, 45 Km from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh; over 500 cave paintings have been found.
In some of the cave paintings also prove that human beings in that pre-historic period also participated in religious ceremonies.
Cave paintings in the pre-historic period formed the medium of expression for the human beings and are also the invaluable source of information about the world at that time.
Cave paintings were made from burnt wood in black color or from soil pigment in the form of a fluid.
When the fluid used got dried into a layer it got stuck up on to the facade of the cave painting and hence an image or drawing was formed. Colors used in cave paintings had a base of limestone or carbon.
The figures in the early cave paintings look like a combination of different geometrical shapes. In pre-historic Age, human beings were not having proper drawing tools so they used hands, feathers, wood, etc. for their paintings. |
