Today I was reading about prehistoric art. An interesting book from Emmanuel Anati: "Aux origines de l'art". He studied prehistoric Art world wide and developped an interesting view point connecting diet, living conditions and the content of the art.
He discriminates between different types of societies. The hunter gatheres, are divided in the more early ones who didn't have a bow and arrow and later ones with those weapons, and then there are pasturalists who travel around with their cattle and agricultural groups. They all have different images in their art. But the description of one group gave me goose bumps. There are some socities who are mainly gatheres, living on a vegetarian diet in forest areas, luxuriant green environments with plenty of food, fruits and edible plants in abundance. Their lives are not dictated by economic necessities. Their natural environment is so abundant that they don't have to spend much time on collecting food, most of their time goes to singing, dancing, painting and dreaming. they make ellaborate stories and include a lot of "other-dimensional" beings. Beings who don't have a known physical form and that is what they paint. They don't paint that many animals but do paint plants and trees, and most of all they paint groups of human beings or semi human beings, mythological creatures in all kind of interactions. Reading this description gave me goose bumps. I have been looking for that kind of a life all my life. That is what I would call HOME for me. That is how I feel I am and how my life should be lived. But where is my luxuriant forest and wehre is my tribe to sing together and share our dreamtimes?
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AuthorGerdi Fonk; Categories |