Carbon black is the primary pigment in these Paleolithic horses from the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc cave in southeast France (over 30,000 years old). Notice the impression of quantity and the perspective emphasised by the progressive curvilinear bending of the heads. The shaping of the lower jaws is made with a stump and the line of the nostrils is finely outlined by scraping.
(Go to an exhibit of the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc from French Ministry of Culture & Communication.)
Painting techniques
The first paintings were cave paintings. Ancient peoples would decorate walls of protected caves with paint made from dirt or charcoal mixed with spit or animal fat. In cave paintings, the pigments stick to the wall partially because the pigment gets trapped in the porous wall, and partially because the binding media (the spit or fat) dries and adheres the pigment to the wall. Historians hypothesize that paint was applied by brushing, smearing, dabbing and spraying techniques. Large areas were covered with fingertips or pads of lichen or moss. Twigs produced drawn or linear marks, while feathers blended areas of color. Brushes made from horse hair were used for paint application and outlining. Paint spraying, accomplished by blowing paint through hollow bones, yielded a finely grained distribution of pigment, like airbrush. The oxides of iron dug right out of the ground in the form of lumps were presumably rich in clay. This consistency was conducive to the formation of crayon sticks and also could be made into a liquid paste more closely resembling paint. It is believed the lumps were ground into a fine powder on the cave’s natural stone hollows where stains were observed. Shoulder and other bones of large animals, stained with color, were discovered in the caves and presumed to be used as mortars for pigment grinding. The pigment was made into a paste with various binders, including water, vegetable juices, urine, animal fat, bone marrow, blood and albumen.
The palette
Prehistoric painters used the pigments available in the vicinity, these were the so-called earth pigments, (minerals limonite and hematite, red ochre, yellow ochre and umber), charcoal from the fire (carbon black), burnt bones (bone black) and white from grounded calcite (lime white). Indeed, Prehistoric dwellers may have discovered that unlike the dye colors they were using and which were derived from animal and vegetable sources, the color that came from iron oxides deposits in the earth would not fade with the changing environment. For this reason, it is estimated that men traveled long and far to maintain a steady supply of earth pigments. In every locality where prehistoric sites were discovered, from Texas to South Africa, trails lead to near and far hematite deposits where man mined. It has even been deduced that the impetus behind all mining activities was sparked by prehistoric man’s need for ochre pigments. Excavations in the Lascaux area prompted speculation that cave dwellers traveled as far as 25 miles to obtain iron oxide pigments.