Paragraph on “What made man want to paint?” complete paragraph for Class 9, Class 10, Class 11 and Class 12
What made man want to paint?
The earliest forms of art by primitive man were an expression of his feelings about life. He was essentially a hunter and he believed that by drawing images of animals such as bison, mammoth or reindeer, and the weapons he used to slay these animals, he was symbolically giving strength to his ability to kill them. He considered his pictures had a spiritual force and could therefore work magic.
Paintings and engravings showing these images on cave walls, done 15,000 years ago, have been discovered in Western Europe. The first was at Altamira in Spain, there are two known in Italy, and later more were found in France, at Lascaux in the Dordogne.
The artists worked with pointed stone gravers and the colours were made from red, yellow and brown earths, and with lamp-black and charcoal. The colours were mixed with animal fat and stored in hollow bones, or worked into rough crayons.
The animals drawn all represent the wild herds or individual beasts of the time and as well as bison, mammoth and reindeer there are other deer, horses, woolly rhinoceroses, cave bears, boars, wolves and a few fish and birds and, though rarely, men and women. There is one well-known drawing showing a man dancing, but disguised as a fantastic animal with reindeer horns.