I am still reading an enthralling book and came across this startling image, a portrait of a stone age woman carved 26,000 years ago from mammoth ivory. She is no bigger than your thumb. She was found in that incredible site in Moravia at Dolni Vestonice in the 1920's. Apparently there is a reason that it is called a portrait, according to Jill Cook, the British Museum Curator,"The reason we say it is a portrait is because she has absolutely individual characteristics. She has one beautifully engraved eye: on the other, the lid comes over and there is just a slit. Perhaps she had a stroke or a palsy or was injured in some way... She has a dimple in her chin, this is an image of a real, living woman."
Extraordinarily it would seem that all the characteristics that we think of as art was already in place 26,000 years ago. Each of the pieces found would have taken many hours to carve using stone tools on the hard mammoth tusk and it make you think that maybe they had an artist class, people whose job it was to make art while others hunted game or gathered fruits. At the site Jill Cooke states that there are pieces that are not of the same quality making her wonder if there were apprentices, practising to reach the standard of the master or mistriss.
No comments:
Post a Comment