Ag in Art

The painted walls of the interconnected series of caves in Lascaux in southwestern France are among the most impressive and well-known artistic creations of Paleolithic humans. Most of the paintings depict animals that would have been found in the surrounding landscape - horses, bison, mammoths, ibex, aurochs, deer, lions, bears, and wolves. The animals in the foreground above are aurochs, ancestors of the modern cow. The depicted animals comprise both species that would have been hunted and eaten (such as deer and bison) as well as those that were feared predators (such as lions, bears, and wolves). No vegetation or illustration of the environment is portrayed around the animals, who are represented in profile and often standing in an alert and energetic stance. Their vitality is achieved by the broad, rhythmic outlines around areas of soft color. The animals are typically shown in a twisted perspective, with the heads depicted in profile but the pair of horns or antlers rendered frontally visible. (In contrast, a strictly optical profile would show only one horn or antler.) The intended result may have been to imbue the images with more visual power and magical properties. The combination of profile and frontal perspectives is an artistic idiom also observed in ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian art.

The pigments used to paint Lascaux and other caves were derived from readily available minerals and include red, yellow, black, brown, and violet. No brushes have been found, so in all probability the broad black outlines were applied using mats of moss or hair, or even with chunks of raw color. The surfaces appear to have been covered by paint blown directly from the mouth or through a tube; color-stained, hollowed-out bones have been found in the caves.

Compare the cave painting of the aurochs above with depictions of the cow in the paintings listed below:

The Cow With the Subtile Nose, by Jean Dubuffet (1954)
The Yellow Cow, by Franz Marc (1911)
Highland Cattle by the Sea, by William Smellie Watson (1872)
Woman Milking a Red Cow, Karel DuJardin (1650s)
Cow in a Stable, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1845)
The Lying Cow, Vincent VanGogh (1883)
Study of a Cow in a Landscape, Thomas Gainesborough (1758-59)

Hang brown paper on the wall and provide paint, chalk, crayons or markers. Students will create their own "cave paintings" of cows and horses.

P.A.S.S. for these activities

Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom is a program of the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, 4-H Youth Development, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry and the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

Oklahoma Ag in the Classroom

Ag in Art

Lascaux Cave Paintings, ca. 15,000 BC

P.A.S.S. for these activities