CBSE Class 11 Painting And Sculpture Pre Historic Rock Paintings Worksheet

Pre-Historic Rock Paintings

What is prehistoric?

The distant past when there was no paper or language or the written word, and hence no books or written documents, is called prehistory, or, as we often say, prehistoric times. How people lived in those times was difficult to surmise until scholars began to discover the places where prehistoric people lived. Excavation at these places brought to light old tools, pottery, habitats, bones of ancient human beings and animals, and drawings on cave walls. By piecing together the information deduced from these objects and the cave drawings, scholars have constructed fairly accurate knowledge about what happened and how people lived in prehistoric times.

When the basic needs of food, water, clothing and shelter were fulfilled people felt the need to express themselves. Painting and drawing were the oldest art forms practiced by human beings to express themselves, using the cave walls as their canvas. They may have drawn and painted to make their homes more colourful and beautiful or to keep a visual record of their day-to-day life,

Classification of Prehistoric Period

• Palaeolithic Age
• Mesolithic Age
• Chalcolithic Age (Aeneolitithic ,Neolithic) – Copper Age

Palaeolithic Age: The prehistoric period in the early development of human beings is commonly known as the Old Stone Age or the Palaeolithic Age.
Mesolithic Age: The largest number of paintings belongs to Period II that covers the Mesolithic paintings. During this period the themes multiply but the paintings are smaller in size. Hunting scenes predominate.

Bimbetka

• Known as Shelter of Pandavas
• 133 Caves
• 1500 Years Back
• From Mesolithic Age

A sand stone rock shelters with in a hundred-mile radius of the city Bhopal, Biyapura village in Raisin Dist., MP. It is interesting to know that the first discovery of rock paintings was made in India in 1867–68 by an archaeologist, Archibold Carlleyle, twelve years before the discovery of Altamira in Spain. Cockburn, Anderson, Mitra and Ghosh were the early archaeologists who discovered a large number of sites in the Indian sub-continent.

The caves of Bhimbetka were discovered in 1957–58 by eminent archaeologist V.S. Wakankar and later on many more were discovered. Wakankar spent several years in surveying these inaccessible hills and jungles to study these paintings.

Themes Of Bimbtka

The themes of paintings found here are of great variety, ranging from mundane events of daily life in those times to sacred and royal images. These include hunting, dancing, music, horse and elephant riders, animal fighting, honey collection, decoration of bodies, and other household scenes.

Colours of Bimbetka

The artists of Bhimbetka used many colours, including various shades of white, yellow, orange, red ochre, purple, brown, green and black. But white and red were their favourite colours. The paints were made by grinding various rocks and minerals.

Red - Hematite (known as geru in India)
Green - Chalcedony-Stone
White - Lime stone
Resin - From animal fat, from Tree and mix with water
Brush - Plant fibber

RORING ANIMAL

• Medium-Soft Stone
• Mixed with Animal fat
• On the ceiling and also of semi open rock shelters
• Drawn without any preparation
• 20 cm length and9.85 MT height
• Large bore like animal with two crescentic horn a large Animal is mithetacal with two horns
• Two Human figures here its fore legs
• Animal looking like in pain

Description: In this painting, a bison in red has been shown in big size and a group of people in small size has been shown hunting that bison. In this process, some injured people have also been depicted lying scattered on the ground and a few people watching them helplessly

THE WIZARD DANCE

(A man who has mythical power)

• Medium –Wooden Charcoal
• Period -1500 BC
• The emotional experience of fear, worship and propitiation
• The animal will be decorated before sacrifice
• The wizard had an important roles in community
• The wizards are wearing different types of heard masks
• Horn Mask
• Fathered horn mask

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