I have an idea in my head. I am wondering about creativity, art, and the impact of inspiration. When people think of prehistoric man they think of primitive cave paintings. They do not credit them with intelligence or expansive creativity. The simpleness of their art seems to make a person assume they had no complex thoughts. I think I disagree.
Think about this, there was no art when they began. Grunts and emphatic gesturing was all they had to communicate. They had to work, and work hard just to stay alive. Who had time to ruminate on the beauty of their life? I imagine there was much savagery and competition for control. Who would want to commemorate that with a poem or piece of art? As time goes on there suddenly appears little bits and bobs of cave drawings. I think it no accident that art appears after they learn to store food for the winter. I can just picture it. Packed away in a cave with nothing to do but stare at each other.
Two kinds of art emerged at this point. Cave drawings and carvings of animals that they hunted, and symbols of fertility. Which tells me they thought about food as they ran out of it, and spent a lot of time having sex to pass the time. (I am of course making lots of supposition about that) It's what I think most people would do all cooped up alone in a cave for 3 months. (grin)
Now, here comes my point. What an immense amount of passion they must have been feeling to create something that had never been in existence before. Think about it! There was no art before them. We take it for granted, that impulse to create, but early man didn't have it already there to draw from, no example to follow to give them ideas or inspiration on how to go about the thing. It must have taken some magical kind of passion to inspire a man to pick up a bit of rock and scrap it onto a wall. The earliest art was of lines and I think this reveals someone thinking, very, very hard about what that line could do. Then a sudden spattering of attempts to draw what they see. The impulse to create, the same way they were creating babies. That passion made art. This is no small thinking man. This is a complex mind in motion.
Someone took a chance and made some marks on a wall. They looked at the marks and liked what they saw, they did more and shared it with others. Suddenly cave drawings showed up more and more. The very first fad? It must have been very exciting learning to make something inside them show up outside them, and having others actually understand and encourage that to grow.
Primitive man, was not so primitive at all I am thinking, simply new and untried. Look what came from him? This thing we love, Art. We owe primitive man a debt of thanks. He was the very first artist and he was not simple in any way, shape, or form.
Source: The Creative Impulse: An introduction to the arts. by Dennis J. Sporre.
Basis for my theory:
page 24-32 Sex and fertility, cave drawings, two-dimensional art, early sculptures, animal carvings.
The thoughts I express are my own thoughts on this subject. I am pulling ideas from what I have read, the source listed is in no way in support of these thoughts, merely the inspiration for them.
