Nancy Barnett, age 14, of Danville, Ill, for her question:
WHEN DID MAN FIRST PRODUCE ART?
The earliest known human art is called Paleolithic art. It was produced roughly between 40,000 and 10,000 B.C., during the late Paleolithic or Old Stone Age period.
The invention of sharpened flint blades by Paleolithic humans made possible the earliest art objects: small carved or incised pieces of wood, ivory and bone.
About the same time, the first drawing and painting developed. These were simple hand prints outlined in colored earth on the walls of caves.
Paleolithic art evolved from the prototypes into two principal forms: sculptural and graphic.
The sculptural form included small statuettes of animals that were symbolic of early human dependence on the hunt for food. There were also highly exaggerated, pregnant looking female figures that were symbolic of ancient preoccupation with fertility.
In the graphic form there were drawings and paintings of animals on the walls of caves.
Both kinds of art apparently played'& part in religious rituals and were believed to possess great magical power.
The small animal sculptures and fertility statuettes, such as the so called Venus of Willendorf, have been found in the region extending from eastern Europe to Siberia, but principally in present day Austria, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
The center of cave painting, on the other hand, is in southwest France and northern Spain. There, in the caves of Lascaux, France, and Altamira, Spain, among others, highly sensitive, colored figures of horses, bulls and other animals are preserved.
In one technique paints were made of colored earth and animal fat. In another technique, colored earth and charcoal were ground to fine powder and blown through hollow bone tubes into the cave walls.
In a third region, from southern Spain and North Africa to the Middle East, a number of rock engravings have been found.
No one really knows why man began to paint pictures. Perhaps he believed that the ability to make likenesses of men and animals gave him special powers. He may have felt that these powers enables him to communicate with his gods, made him a better hunter or gave him the courage and strength of the animals he hunted.
History tells us that the ancient Egyptians began painting about 3000 B.C. They developed one of the first definite traditions in the history of art.
Egyptians painted on the walls of temples and palaces, but much of their finest work appears in tombs. Like other early peoples, the Egyptians believed that art was a magical way of transporting things of this world into a world people entered after death.