The origin of painting is unknown. The first important records of this art are met in Egypt; but before the Egyptian civilization the men of the early ages probably used color in ornamentation and decoration, and they certainly scratched the outlines of men and animals upon bone and slate.
Traces of this rude primitive work still remain to us on the pottery, weapons and stone implements of the cave dwellers.
But whole indicating the awakening of intelligence in early man, they can be reckoned with as art only in a slight archeological way.
They show inclination rather than accomplishment – a wish to ornament or to represent, with only a crude knowledge of how to go about it.
The first aim of this primitive painting was undoubtedly decoration – the using of colored forms for color and form only, as shown in the pottery designs or cross hatchings on stone knives or spear heads.
The second, and perhaps later aim, was by imitating the shapes and colors or men animals and the like to convey an idea of the proportions and characters of such things.
An outline of a cave bear or a mammoth was perhaps the cave-dweller’s way of telling his fellows what monsters he had slain.
Researchers assume that is was pictorial record, primitive picture written history.
This early method of conveying an idea is, in intent substantially the same as the later hieroglyphic writing and historical painting of the Egyptians.
The difference between them is merely one of development. Thus there is an indication in the art of Primitive Man of the two great departments of painting existent to day.
- Decorative Printing
- Expressive Painting
The Origin of Painting
