Reply To: Prehistoric Abstraction

[Jess]

When I think of abstract art, these prehistoric paintings and sculptures are a far cry from the definition of abstract. Abstract art is essentialy art that you cant immediately look at and say, yeah thats a dog or look at those cats. However, that is exactly what we see happening here. We see the image that the creator was going for. We can see that the sculptures are of women and that there are 13 different animals on the cave wall. These art pieces are by all means, not abstract. I would however, say that Stonehenge in the Neolithic art may be abstract. I say this because to most it seems like a bunch of rocks that are just out in a field. Was it a building at one point? Is it really an intentional piece of artwork? Since we know that it is artwork, what is it designed to be? I believe Stonehenge to be abstract because I know I am looking at art, I just don’t know WHAT I am looking at.