Prehistoric Art

As I'm sure everyone does, I did know people drew on cave walls, but I had never got into it in depth. I never really thought about how little these people had to work with, and they still made amazing works of art. The project we did today, with the crumpled paper bag paper and the watercolors, pastels, and chalk, put it into perspective, and it was much harder than I expected. I always draw with something to look at. I had completely forgotten these people had only memory to work off of, and my memory is bad. They signed their names by imprints of their hands, which is so personal, not many would know who did a form of art, if any knew, except the person. They obviously did not create art for recognition, materials, or fame. It's cool how these caves were discovered by accident, how splendid it would be if we could stumble into a whole cave full of history, adventure, art. It was surprising how the drawings were in very hard-to-reach places, and how much detail was depicted. It just shows how intense their beliefs of religion and power were, based on nothing. Nowadays everyone needs facts to believe, then it was based on faith. Artwork expresses so much about the artist, they must have had so much patience, memory, and a busy schedule to spend hunting, cooking, eating, sleeping, finding shelter, and on top of that creating art. It is odd how they color in the top of the animal in some pictures and leave the bottom of the belly open. Maybe that was the part they wanted to eat? Who knows. I love how the work keeps the viewer guessing to answer why, intrigued to answer when, and stunned to answer how.
One picture I remembered the most and liked the best was an owl in the Cave of Chauvet because most did not draw the owl. Also, it was etched into the rock instead of on it, where the majority was on the rock.