Prehistoric and Ancient Art
Prehistoric and ancient art spans Upper Palaeolithic image-making to the late Roman Empire. The exam tests chronological ordering, identification from formal description, materials and techniques, and the relation between function and style.
Core framework
- Palaeolithic caves: Chauvet (c. 30,000 BCE), Lascaux (c. 17,000 BCE), Altamira; charcoal and ochre; animals, hand stencils; interpretations include ritual, shamanic and hunting-magic, not simple decoration.
- Neolithic and megalithic: Jericho and Çatalhöyük; menhir, dolmen, passage grave; Stonehenge uses sarsen trilithons and lintels.
- Ancient Near East and Egypt: ziggurat, stele, lamassu; Egyptian mastaba, step pyramid, Giza pyramids, pylon temple, hypostyle hall; the Egyptian canon uses a proportional grid and composite view; Amarna breaks it.
- Aegean: Cycladic marble figurines; Minoan fresco; Mycenaean citadels.
- Greek: Geometric, Archaic kouros/kore, Classical contrapposto, Doric/Ionic/Corinthian orders, Hellenistic drama.
- Roman: arch, vault, concrete; Pantheon, Colosseum; veristic portraiture; Pompeian wall-painting styles.
Worked example
A marble nude male stands frontally, left foot advanced, arms at his sides, hair in braided locks, with an Archaic smile. Identify and date. Answer: Greek Archaic kouros, c. 600–480 BCE. Reasoning: freestanding nude male and frontal pose fit the kouros type; the weight remains evenly distributed, so there is no contrapposto; the Archaic smile and stylised hair are period markers. An Egyptian statue would normally be clothed or royal, with a back pillar and canonical rigidity; a Roman copy would usually show more naturalistic anatomy and often a support.
Traps
Lascaux is not the oldest cave; prehistoric means before writing, not before art. Do not call the Egyptian composite view childish: it is a conceptual canon. Greek originals are rare; many Greek marbles are Roman copies. Cycladic is not Minoan.