SMART Day 1

In our first lesson of Scholars Making Art, we went back to prehistoric time and learned about cave art. Cave art comes from the paleolithic and neolithic eras of prehistory. We looked at everything from sculptures such as the Venus of Willendorf to the more commonly known cave paintings. We discussed the subject matter of the paintings; they would often include scenes of animals and nature, a reflection of their interests and the world around them.

We used the Venus of Willendorf to explore the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or in this case, the society. Though today she would probably be written off as morbidly obese, at the time of her creation the Venus of Willendorf epitomized the ideal prehistoric woman. Finally, we dove into why prehistoric man created art. Even the experts don't know why exactly this happened, but we explored a lot of possibilities. One such possibility was that they created art simply because it was personally rewarding, fun, and something to pass the time. Another was that perhaps they used art to teach their children about the world they live in. There are so many possible reasons that we'll probably never know exactly why it was created.