Question

Art history discussion
We begin this course considering cave paintings from the Paleolithic Period as a prehistoric form of art. You will watch the film, “The Day the Pictures were Born” for your first assignment. The film discusses early humans’ desire to record the visions in their heads that result from altered states of consciousness. Let’s extend this idea to think about ways we get out of our “here and now” mundane day-to-day material existence and ESCAPE into a daydream, movie, song, dance, physical activity, artwork, video game, nature, etc.

WHEN YOU WANT TO ESCAPE FROM REALITY FOR A LITTLE WHILE, WHAT DO YOU DO AND HOW DOES IT ALTER YOUR MINDSET? Feel free to post an image reflecting your form of escapism.

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary.

(Answer) The man-bison cave-paintings of El Castillo in the Cantabria region of Spain are the oldest known cave paintings in Europe. Some researchers believe that it might be the oldest in the world since it possibly came from the Homo neanderthalensis.

This painting becomes something marvelous when one considers the context of the painting. This was painted nearly 40,000 years ago or more. It was painted by a very primitive man who perhaps wanted to be as expressive as Leonardo Da Vinci or Picasso. Just like artists today tend to paint about the current events and express it through exaggeration, satire or vivid colours, this cave-man also expressed an element of the environment around him for no particular reason other than to express oneself.

Similarly, we might assume that our own art forms, creative writing, for instance, are a similar escape. It is not an escape because we dislike this reality but, it is an escape from instances that stop us from experiencing this reality in the way we want. A creative writer may love the world. However, she may like the world a little more if world governments were egalitarian, travel was cheap and there was no crime. Accordingly, she can write about a place that possesses all of those factors that make reality perfect for her. In this way, she creates a reality of her own through her work and perhaps momentarily escapes into in through writing stories.

This is how art as a medium helps human beings be more than they are and strive to create more than what reality is able to offer them.