The history of painting It dates back more than 64,000 years approximately, according to a recent study of cave paintings found in various caves in Spain. To determine the age of these drawings, the well-known uranium-thorium dating test of carbon crusts was used..
The cave paintings are in three caves, each one with different drawings, images or paintings: La Pasiega in Cantabria, which contains figures of all kinds of animals; Maltravieso in Extremadura, where the rubbings or stencils represent hands, points and other geometric figures; and Ardales, Andalusia, in the speleothems painted red.
The study suggests that these cave paintings were made by Neanderthals, since they are more than 20 thousand years old than the arrival of modern man in Europe..
This means that the rock art of the Iberian Peninsula is the oldest so far found in the whole world..
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Throughout history, man has used painting to express ideas and emotions through a two-dimensional visual language. This language has different colors, tones, lines, shapes and textures, to produce different sensations of space, volume, light and movement..
In the history of painting, from Neanderthals to the present day, many elements of different nature have influenced, such as religion, geography, the discovery and development of new materials, ideas and important events. All this configures in the artist a certain way of seeing the world.
Painting is undoubtedly a way of describing and recording reality. It has served to reflect the material and ideological changes that have occurred in the world, always revealing details beyond the written word.
After the first paintings, his development has been a constant and inseparable chain of styles, adding elements to the art of those who preceded him..
From the dating of the caves in Spain it is inferred that Neanderthals and modern humans may have painted rock art in the caves. In addition, it indicates that human ancestors used more advanced symbology than previously believed..
The Spanish rock art in these and other caves such as Altamira, mainly comprises red and black paintings. Animals (deer, bison and birds), geometric shapes and linear signs are represented, as well as templates (traces) and handprints.
The first human beings decorated the walls of the caves where they lived with images of subjects that were very important to them: their food and the way they obtain it through hunting..
That is why they represent bison, reindeer and mammoths in the Ice Age, as well as their own images that they see reflected in the shadows on the walls..
Apart from the caves of La Pasiega, Maltravieso and Ardales, there are other very important ones. Among the caves best known for their antiquity are those of Chauvet (France), whose age is dated at about 31,000 years; and the caves of Altamira and Lascaux (France).
Altamira has a carbon dating of 13,000 years, while Lascaux is 17,000 years old. In addition to these, there are many more around the world.
In these caves the walls and ceilings are decorated with paintings of reddish tones, black, brown, yellow and black. The paintings were created with powdered mineral oxides, which were surely mixed with the fat and blood of animals. The motifs are game animals and wild cattle (horses, servants, bison).
Apparently the cave painting had not only a decorative but also magical-religious character. It is believed that it was used to help hunting and also the trance of shamans.
The Egyptian civilization was the first to establish a recognizable artistic style. It was characterized by following a strange but consistent structure, in which the head, legs and feet of human figures are always shown in profile. Instead, the shoulders, torso, arms, and eyes are depicted from the front.
Egyptian painting techniques remained intact for centuries. One of the methods used was to place the watercolor paint on plaster or limestone walls..
The other process consisted of cutting out the contours on stone walls and painting the designs with watercolors. The region's dry climate and sealed tombs aided in its preservation.
Mesopotamian civilization developed in the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Near East. Its constructions are mainly made of clay, therefore no buildings are preserved because all have collapsed and the murals that adorned its buildings have also been destroyed..
Only decorated ceramics (painted and lit) and colorful mosaics have been preserved. Although mosaics are not considered painting, they did influence the forms of painting of this civilization.
This is the third great primitive culture. It developed on the islands off the coast of Greece and on the peninsula of Asia Minor. The Aegean civilization was contemporary with the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians.
In their palaces in Knossos and other regions, they painted on wet plaster walls with paints made from oxides, sand, and ocher earth. They were the forerunners of the frescoes. The Cretans painted with colors red, bright yellow, blue and green.
The Greeks decorated their temples and palaces with wall paintings. They used to paint small pictures with which they made mosaics. Very little Greek painting has managed to survive to the present day, due to time and the destruction caused by wars..
The Greeks painted little on tombs as the Egyptians did, for this reason the works were not protected.
On the other hand, the wall paintings of the Romans were made mainly in the villas or country houses in the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, but in 79 both cities were completely buried in the lava of the Vesuvius volcano..
Roman paintings were made on previously prepared marble and plaster surfaces. In general, they did not have original motifs but were copies of other Greek paintings from the 4th century BC. C.
After prehistoric painting by the Greeks, Mesopotamians, and Romans, other styles of pictorial art emerged, listed below:
- Byzantine and early Christian painting (300-1300 AD).
- Medieval painting (500-1400).
- Italy with Cimabue and Giotto (late 13th century).
- Late medieval painting (north of the Alps in the early 15th century).
- Italian Renaissance painting.
- Florence and Venice (15th century).
- Rome (16th century).
- Renaissance in Flanders and Germany.
- Baroque painting (17th century).
- Spain (15th and 16th centuries).
- Flanders (15th and 16th centuries).
- Holland (17th century).
- 18th century painting (including Rococo painting from France).
- 19th century painting (France, Holland).
- 20th century painting (Spain, France, United States).
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