Christian Callaghan - Interpretation of Others

 In class today we discussed cave markings that were done thousands of years ago in which depicted various animals on the walls. However, what we did not know was what those marking actually meant to the people who made those depictions on the wall. They could be the predators that they must watch out for or the food they ate or spirits that they prayed to which is why they were placed on the wall to worship. 

This connects closely to The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists by Gregory Curtis which is a fascinating dive into prehistoric cave art, focusing on the paintings found in the caves of France and Spain. Curtis writes about the lives of the Cro-Magnon people, who, around 40,000 years ago, created these pieces of artwork. He discusses theories about the purpose of these paintings, such as their roles in fertility or hunting rituals, religious practices, or clan mythology. The book also highlights the rediscovery of these artworks in the 19th and 20th centuries and the debates among scholars regarding their interpretations.

How we interpret other people's artwork can be substantially different given the various perspectives on the piece that we have. The Cave Painters book highlights this theory from class as we cannot exactly pinpoint what the interpretations mean but we do understand that they are intended to convey an outlook on some societal aspect that revolved around the time of the cave man.

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