This work is trying to convey the excitement one may feel when studying the oldest art, the 10 - 35 thousand year old cave art of south Western Europe.

 

Produced through the last great glaciations, [the cave art, not this painting] through what must have been difficult times, our forebearers made the creative leap from fashioning exquisite stone tools, far more sophisticated than the job warranted, to full blown modern artistic expression.

 

It is still a puzzle as to why they should do this? Or perhaps the question should be, - ‘How can people be human for so long with out making art’? It is a species defining characteristic.

 

215 thousand years after Homo sapiens became identifiable in the fossil record we made no art, then 35 thousand years ago we do; suddenly becoming almost immediately modern in our concern with our selves in the world.

 

This is interesting. What to an artist is exciting though, is the immediate connection one feels with them through 30,000 years: the terms of the discipline of art are shared exactly.

 

J D Allman. 2010.