cave art first


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Posted by ken k on August 29, 2001 at 21:50:08:

Interesting email I got from a friend. I thought I'd share it with my fellow tubenetters. Not about tubas but art in general:

Friends and colleagues:

I was reading this month's National Geographic magazine, in which there is a fascinating article on prehistoric cave paintings found in France. The Chauvet cave paintings are revolutionary in that they indicate that we developed the ability to create art at a very sophisticated level at a very early stage in our development as humans.

What does this mean to us? Well, these paintings are 35,000 years old (no, that's not a typo, thirty-five THOUSAND years old). There are several accurate radiocarbon dating samples to back this up.

That means that: as soon as we got food in our bellies and knew enough to come in from the rain, WE CREATED ART. Meaningful art, too, not just the scrawlings of a few bored cavemen. These are sophisticated artworks done in a variety of media, from charcoal to pigment. The most important part of this is that the evidence left by our ancestors indicates that these paintings were INTENTIONAL. There are remnants of fires that appear to have been made specifically for the development of the charcoal that was used to draw. Think about it: WE HAVE NEEDED TO AND MEANT TO EXPRESS OURSELVES THROUGH ART FOR AT LEAST 35,000 YEARS!!!!!!

I want to get a poster of the Chauvet paintings and put it in my office so that each time I go out to my bandroom to teach my kids I remember that:

before we were scientists, we were artists..
before we were mathematicians, we were artists..
before we had written language, we were artists..
before we were historians, we were artists..

This is unequivocal proof (not that I needed it, but some people certainly do...) that art is as basic to human nature as eating, sleeping and coming in from the rain.

This hit me so powerfully that I really needed to share it. Thanks for listening, and I hope that your summers are going well.

Cheers

Rich Miller
CD East HS Bands
Harrisburg, PA




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