Comparison of prehistoric paintings

The key to understanding any people is in its art: its writing, painting, sculpture.― Louis L'Amour, Education of a Wandering Man

Its true that art reveals a community's culture. Culture and art go hand in hand, they have evolved together. The human mind, the ever thinking machine, with its audio-visual inputs, churned out what we call art.. drawings, paintings, sculptures, music, dance, literature and what not. Humans imitated Nature with a twist of imagination and created beautiful things. Here's a quote by a Colombian artist named Fernando Botero: A painted landscape is always more beautiful than a real one, because there's more there. Everything is more sensual, and one takes refuge in its beauty. And man needs spiritual expression and nourishing. It's why even in the prehistoric era, people would scrawl pictures of bison on the walls of caves. Man needs music, literature, and painting-all those oases of perfection that make up art-to compensate for the rudeness and materialism of life.

I'm trying to imagine how paintings evolved.. humans must have drawn on sand or dirt using their fingers or twigs or stones. Probably random lines and curves in the beginning. Plants and hills might have been next because they were stationary. So man learns to draw leaves and flowers. Then came human themselves because they lived together. Humans drew individual humans, then couples, and groups. Then came animals pictures.. the animal figures had to be remembered and then drawn.. not as easy as plants or human. Sand drawings would fade out soon. Some one tried drawing with animal blood on a rock with fingers.. blood dried up and remained on stone for longer time. Or some herbs or minerals were discovered whose color was similar to blood. The ever thinking human mind experimented with blood, herbs pigment and minerals pigment, did some mixing and discovered paint. On the other hand, man found better ways to apply paint.. they must have tried feathers, twigs, leaves, animal hair among other things. With passing of time, rock painting became prehistoric diaries. A tribute to some brave huntsman or a warrior or in memory of a dance ritual. Humans had reared cattle and hunting dogs, they must have drawn pictures of the largest bull or the most shrewd canine... So here we have a painting of oxen, dogs and a bird too.

Onake Kindi near Anegundi - oxen and dogs

The first four pictures are all from Onake Kindi, a rock fort created by Mother Nature. Onake Kindi is near Anegundi, the place with a very long history. At the spot are several paintings of human figures, oxen, dogs, birds, a large serpent, a tiger, a hunting scene showing men on horse back, a life-size anthropomorphic painting and a diagram which I'm yet to understand.

Onake Kindi near Anegundi - unknown

Artists who had painted these not only knew how to draw but also knew how to prepare the stone surface and how to prepare the paint itself. Drawing on a horizontal surface is one thing but drawing on a vertical surface is something else. The liquid had to be a particular viscosity so that we wouldn't run off. We found a small pit in one of the rocks close by which might have been used to crush all the ingredients to obtain a consistent fluid. Probably some shells were used to carry paint from here to the canvas.

As you see these drawings are made of fine lines. Especially the oxen's horns in the first picture. The artists has a fine hand but the paint brush had to be convenient too. I guess paintings were made during a certain time of year.. when the air had the right balance of moisture in it at the right temperature so that the liquid dries over certain period of time. If the paint dries too quickly it might turn brittle and crumble. So humans understood the chemistry and physics of paints. 

Onake Kindi near Anegundi - tiger hunting

Here we have a unique painting. This life-size human figure is painted on the ceiling of a rock shelter. The rock is about 16' from the ground level. Wondering how the painter was positioned that high. Did the painter lie down on some sort of scaffolding? Coming to human figure, why are its arms disproportionate. There's a small bull close to his feet. Does this painting depict some sort of gigantic figure?  

Onake Kindi near Anegundi - anthropomorphic

During my journeys, I cam across six sites with ancient rock paintings spread around Bellary, Koppal, Raichur and Bagalkot. There are many more known sites and God knows how many unknown sites. Hampi is also known for rock paintings.

Here are paintings seen at other sites.. starting with Kutkankeri. The most predominant pattern seen here are zig-zag lines of the striped hyena which are local to this region. 

Kutkankeri - pattern of Indian striped hyena

Here's a lovely painting of a hyena. Kannada name for a hyena is Kattekirba. Katte means donkey; since hyena has large ears resembles donkey ears hence the name. Hyenas dwell in caverns and rock shelters which are plenty in rocky hills of Badami and surrounding area. Their dens usually stink because of their habit of feeding on highly decomposed carcasses.

Kutkankeri - Indian striped hyena

Close to the hyena is a human-like figure with slender limbs and giraffe like head. Does this depict some type of alien creature?

Kutkankeri - unknown creature resembling a human

On the same hill, at a different rock shelter are two small paintings. This is one of them. This seems like a battle scene; the two warriors are wielding swords and shields. The horse's features are nicely drawn- upright hair on its neck, its eye is clearly visible, its four legs, one of the fore legs hoof is predominant and its tail is long. Such a sweet little drawing. I have a feeling this has been created by a very young artists.. may be 8 or 9 year old.

Kutkankeri - battle scene

Next are small paintings we discovered at a rock shelter in Mudgal fort. The contrast between rock and paint is not much, hence they are barely visible.

rock shelter at Mudgal fort

Human figures and some geometric figures.

rock shelter at Mudgal fort - human forms

Gudekote is another historic spot with a shelters on its hills. One of the rock shelters close to the fort entrance has a large group of painting of human figures and few animals like oxen.

Gudekote hill

Gudekote hill - pair of oxen

Also, about 4 kms from Gudekote, right next to the road is a boulder with a small overhang. Under the overhang was a small painting. I think the rocky hills around Gudekote are many a rock shelters with rock paintings. It would be interesting to explore the hills & plains and see the paintings.
Next here are paintings of Beerappa Rock Shelter near Sanganakallu and Kappagallu villages of Bellary. This seems like a peacock. In fact one of the peaks of Hiregudda resembles a peacock head and its called Peacock hill. Probably the plains surrounding the hills were covered with woods, making it an ideal terrain for peacocks.

Beerappa Rock Shelter - Peacock

On the same rock is a creature with forked horns.. it has to be a deer. These paintings are at a height of 10' to 12' above the ground level. I remember there were images of fish as well.

Beerappa Rock Shelter - Deer

Now we are at the Chitra Gundu (picture boulder) of Hire Benekal hill. These drawings are slightly different.. human figures have long curvy arms. In fact this is one place I've seen a human couple, probably a married couple, leader of a group. The larger group of drawings shows scenes of hunting, men on horse back wielding spears.

Hire Benkal's  Chitra Gundu - hunting scenes

More four legged creatures.. ox and horses.

Hire Benkal's  Chitra Gundu - deer

All the while we saw humans, oxen, horses, dogs, peacock, serpent, and other creatures of our planet. Coming to the next set of paintings of Hiregudda of Badami.. these are completely different. The creatures seen here are similar but different. What seems like pigs, cows and humans are not exactly the ones we see now. These creature look outlandish.

Badami Hiregudda - strange looking animals

Then we have human like creatures but humans were never depicted this way in any of the scientific articles. Except for the structure of body, head and limbs, these creatures are completely different than the human figures of other sites. Humanoids from some other planet? Mars?

Badami Hiregudda - strange looking anthropomorphic figures

In fact the presence of this astronaut like creature gives a feeling these might be alien creatures. The objects behind the astronaut's head seems like a spaceship. Pretty mysterious set of paintings there are.

Badami Hiregudda - astronaut? 

One thing common in all these paintings is the color - ochre. Ochre, a shade of red. red is the most visible color, the color of blood, the color of life. These pictures, tell us stories, they give us a glimpse of past life, they have enough details for us to imagine how life might have been back then.

There are many more such sites.. places which I wish to visit, which I wish to discover.

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