Design History: Mesolithic art – Episode #2

The Mesolithic age also known as the period of middle Stone Age, from about 10,000 – 8,000 BC years over a span of 2000 years. It corresponds to period of primarily nomadic hunting and gathering which preceded the adoption of domesticated plants and animals.

Now let’s take a close look at those art works and see what great artists and art analyzers have told about the art works of those periods and learn what we can get from that.

Annette Labedzki a Canadian artist with a experience of 25 years in this field and owns a exhibition says that this era brought about a transition in the culture, art, and the overall lifestyle of the Stone Age. Mesolithic Age, though lasted for a brief period of 2000 years, but was a definite bridge between Paleolithic and Neolithic Ages. Innovations in day-to-day activities and the adaptation of the human race to altered environmental conditions were the defining ranges of Mesolithic Age. People began hunting, pottery making, and started living in settlements. The phase also marked the starting point of human expression in the form of art. The genre of art belonging to this age was mostly cave or rock paintings. These works differed from the rudimentary Paleolithic Art in a way that they were centered more on human subjects, rather than portraying only the animals of those times.

The people of this period were mostly vagabonds. They painted walls of caves, while wandering from place to place. These paintings carried mundane themes, portraying the objects of daily utility, such as bows, spears, and arrows. Most of these art works delineated the fauna, mostly bison, horses, aurochs, and deer. These paintings, predominantly red and yellow in colors, employed natural products, like manganese & charcoal.

As mentioned above, the Mesolithic Art was far more mature and stylized, since it carried human emotions and colors, as opposed to the stick-like figures of the Paleolithic Art. In the Mesolithic period, people were far more interactive and held various social events, a fact that was meticulously captured in their cave paintings, like those at the Rock Shelter, in Gasulla Gorge, Spain. These drawings represent some people with arrows, in some sort of rhythm, perhaps performing a daily ritual of dance.

history will continue…

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