The document discusses the history and characteristics of art from the Paleolithic era through Ancient Greek art. It describes how Paleolithic art primarily depicted animals and fertility figures to address themes of survival. Near Eastern art began traditions of sculpture and painting humans with precision and grandeur as civilizations developed. Egyptian art was highly symbolic and intended to preserve the past, maintaining consistent styles for thousands of years. Aegean art was produced by the Cycladic, Minoan, and Mycenaean cultures, focusing on small sculptures and rarely depicting faces frontally in paintings until Greek influence. Greek art is generally defined as occurring from 1000 BC to 100 BC, excluding earlier Minoan and Mycenaean works, and focused

1. 1. The Paleolithic era marks the beginning of artistic
representation. Early humans carved and modeled stone and
clay relief sculpture, and made mural paintings deep within
their cave shelters. Paleolithic artists also created portable full-
round sculptures from bone and stone
Paleolithic images address the themes that affected human
survival, such as fertility and animal populations. Faceless
female figures, for example, display exaggerated breasts and
genitals to emphasize their fecundity. The few Paleolithic male
figures have animal heads, but their meaning has yet to be
determined. Positive and negative handprints and other abstract
signs also testify to the human presence. Most Paleolithic art,
however, represents animals, although the exact meaning of
these creatures is unknown.
Painted Paleolithic humans and animals are represented
primarily in profile, but the artists’ approach is descriptive
rather than strictly optical. In addition to revealing the artists’
familiarity with and observation of the animals, the images
show all of the essential visual information required to identify
the creatures. For example, most painters employed twisted
perspective to join a profile head and frontal horns. The
paintings exhibit no attempt to compose animals into groups or
narratives, or to show them in a shared space or from a single
viewpoint.
2 .The ancient near East consisted of five notable civilizations:
the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Babylonians, the Hittites, and
the Persians. It's a well known fact that this, for lack of a better
term, is where everything basically began. Writing, cities,
organized religion and government, law, and even the wheel just
to name a few of the Near East's achievements. It's difficult to
argue the fact that this ancient civilization gave the world, and

2. humanity, more then any other
Innovations to sculpture also arose greatly. Comparing
prehistoric life and Near Eastern life again, humans were not
the central focus in prehistoric art. But more often then not,
humans were depicted in Near Eastern art. Remembering Venus
of Willendorf, prehistoric art exposed the human body with
exaggerated sexual organs and no shame in nudity. Near Eastern
sculptures were more likely to portray clothed humans with
great anatomical precision. On top of that, prehistoric people
were travelers, nomadic groups unable to carry heavy, over
sized objects with them. But as the people of the Near East
civilized and settled into land, the larger and grander the
sculpture, the greater the sign of permanence
Near Eastern art began a new tradition with painting as well.
Representation of animals with human like body parts and
emotions began emerging everywhere. The Sumerians began the
tradition with the Lyre. It was continued by theEgyptian
Sphinx and the Greek Minotaur
2.Ancient Egyptian art is five thousand years old. It emerged
and took shape in the ancient Egypt, the civilization of the Nile
Valley. Expressed in paintings and sculptures, it was highly
symbolic and fascinating - this art form revolves round the past
and was intended to keep history alive.
In a narrow sense, Ancient Egyptian art refers to the canonical
2D and 3D art developed in Egypt from 3000 BC and used until
the 3rd century. It is to be noted that most elements of Egyptian
art remained remarkably stable over the 3000 year period that
represents the ancient civilization without strong outside
influence. The same basic conventions and quality of
observation started at a high level and remained near that level
over the period.
Ancient Egyptian art forms are characterized by regularity and
detailed depiction of human beings and the nature, and, were
intended to provide company to the deceased in the 'other
world'. Artists' endeavored to preserve everything of the present

3. time as clearly and permanently as possible. Completeness took
precedence over prettiness. Some art forms present an
extraordinarily vivid representation of the time and the life, as
the ancient Egyptian life was lived thousand of years before.
Egyptian art in all forms obeyed one law: the mode of
representing man, nature and the environment remained almost
the same for thousands of years and the most admired artists
were those who replicated most admired styles of the past.
3. The Aegean age (ca. 3000-1200 BC) featured three major
cultures: Cycladic, Minoan, and Mycenaean. The Minoan and
Mycenaean cultures (which were much larger than the Cycladic
culture) are responsible for most Aegean artistic production.
The chief exception lies in the Pre-Palace age (ca. 3000-2000
BC), during which the Cycladianswere the most accomplished
sculptors of the Aegean.
All Aegean cultures worked mainly in small sculpture (e.g.
figurines, vessels). Large-scale sculpture (e.g. statues,
architectural sculpture) only became common in Europe under
the ancient Greeks, who drew inspiration from the great
sculpted works of Egypt and Mesopotamia
Aegean art hardly shows the human face en face in painting
except on the representation of beads of the jewel fresco and
humans in a more diversified manner.
4Art historians generally define Ancient Greek art as the art
produced in the Greek-speaking world from about 1000 BC to
about 100 BC. They generally exclude the art of the Mycenaean
and Minoan civilizations, which flourished from about 1500 to
about 1200 BC. Despite the fact that these were Greek-speaking
cultures, there is little or no continuity between the art of these
civilizations and later Greek art.
At the other end of the time-scale, art historians generally hold
that Ancient Greek art as a distinct culture ended with the

4. establishment of Roman rule over the Greek-speaking world in
about 100 BC.
After this date they argue, Greco-Roman art, though often
impressive in scale, was largely derivative of earlier Greek
models, and declined steadily in quality until the advent of
Christianity brought the classical tradition to an end in the 5th
century AD.
There is also a question relating to the word "art" in Ancient
Greece.
And in this period, human figures, usually representing the gods
or the heroes of Greek history and mythology.