Prehistoric and Primitive Man

Fülszöveg

primitive cultures survive ín many parts of tht world. The unswerving traditionalísm of their art goes back not to fumbling beginnings, but to the masterpieces of cave painting, twelve thousand years before Christ, which still enthralJ us today. The sculpturc, painting, and ornarncnts which havc come down to us from our primeval an-cestors are a massive rccord of the images, obsessions and triurnphs of the early, heroic stages of humán development. They are of the deepest interest to modern civilised man for in them he can recognise reflections of his own innermost instincts and urges.
The very survival of early man—as of primitive man in all ages—depended on the animals he hunted or the fertility of his crops. At the mercy of nature, he channelled his desperate hopes and fears into magic rites and ceremonies which he believed would safeguard and improve his ex-istence. The magnificent animal paintings of the hunters were a means of'capturing' the spirits of their prey. The... Tovább

Fülszöveg

primitive cultures survive ín many parts of tht world. The unswerving traditionalísm of their art goes back not to fumbling beginnings, but to the masterpieces of cave painting, twelve thousand years before Christ, which still enthralJ us today. The sculpturc, painting, and ornarncnts which havc come down to us from our primeval an-cestors are a massive rccord of the images, obsessions and triurnphs of the early, heroic stages of humán development. They are of the deepest interest to modern civilised man for in them he can recognise reflections of his own innermost instincts and urges.
The very survival of early man—as of primitive man in all ages—depended on the animals he hunted or the fertility of his crops. At the mercy of nature, he channelled his desperate hopes and fears into magic rites and ceremonies which he believed would safeguard and improve his ex-istence. The magnificent animal paintings of the hunters were a means of'capturing' the spirits of their prey. The religion of the earliest farming peoples demanded the making of majestic images of the ancestors they worshipped. Their ritual danc.es required the fantastic masks with which they placated the spirits of the dead.
Dr Lömmel opens our eyes to the meaning of strange signs and symbols, mysterious deities and practices depicted in primitive art which occur again and again on the objects of tribes and cultures of widely difFering countries and centu-ries. He charts an incredible journey across the continents of the world and pieces together the absorbing puzzle of their history.
The figure of a squatting ancestor and its varia-tions, for example, spread across the Pacific to America and across the Indián Ocean to Africa where it became the basis of Negro sculpture. The intriguing spirals and scrolls—often trans-formed into snakes and dragons—in early Chinese ornamentation were introduced from Central Asia and carried by nomads and immigrant tribes both westwards into Europe and eastwards into Indonesia. Crossing the South Seas, they reappear in the patterns of Peruvian textiles.
This enthralling volume—vividly illustrated with over ioo colour plates as well as ioo black and white illustrations—draws us into the strange and fascinating world of primitive art, at once remote yet part of our heritage, and still relevant to primitive peoples today.
The subjects illustrated on this jacket are front: Prow ornament from die Solomon Islands, Melanesia. Museum fúr Völkerkunde, Munich. Photograph: Michael Holford. back: Rock painting of cattle from the Jabbaren rock shelter, Tassili-n-Ajjer, Algéria. Photograph: J.-D. La-joux, from the book Tassili-n-Ajjer, published by Les Nouvelles Editions du Chéne. Vissza