Did women invent Art?

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When you think of artists what first comes to mind?

Is it people like Michealangelo, Divinci, Picasso, Van Gogh, etc ? That is what first came to my mind. Now, I have always done art on the side as a hobby, took classes in school, etc. And at least in my experience the classes were made up by a definate majority of women. I am not sure about in the professional world, but in passing thought women at least equally involved, numbers-wise.

Anyway I just read an interesting article in National Geographic that tells about a new study that strongly suggests 75% of cave art was done by women.

This is just throwing out ideas here. I haven't really had time to absorb the information. But I think it significant and a real correction in the historical record. Any representations of cave artists up to now (that I have seen) were cavemen not cavewomen. It was just assumed.



Heres the article:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... -cave-art/

When I ask if women invented art, I don't mean like today when someone invents a sticky notepad or something. Art is the kind of thing that would be 'invented' many places at once independantly, but did they as a gender embrace and develop the skill into an art?

But why then is there this 'man-stamp'?

There's a "man-stamp" because some people assume that anything of significance that was achieved by the human race was achieved by males.

The famous cave paintings of Paleolithic southwest europe are the oldest well known specatcular examples of art. But they may not be the first art.

They may not even be the only art of their culture.

But the notion that cave paintings were made by males is not just an assumption. The same culture that produced the cave paintings also produced 'the Venus figurines" which were small stone statues of what we now suppose were fertility goddesses. These figurines were semi-pornographic renderings of the curvatious female body. Its hard for me to believe that they were carved by people who were not males .

And the cave paintings themselves were focused on big game,and seemed to be concerned with hunting magic which wouldve been in the male domain.


But in the same culture, for all we know, women may have been weaving basket designs that have all vanished. So both genders may have been making art but only the cave paintings and venus figurines survive.

I think whoever had the talent did the art,female or male.They were maybe the Shamans,visual symbols would be used in ceremonies,since there was no written language at that time.

The oldest sculptures did come to mind too. I wonder if there was some natural tendency for men to go into 3D (sculptural) and women 2D (drawing, painting, weavings, etc), that has to do with differences in how the minds operate? This would fall more into a joint male & female development of art scenerio.

Again this is early spectulation, as I thought I noted in my observations a tendency for men to prefer the 3D and women the 2D forms. That is what happened to me at least & I think I see it in others. I am speaking of the fine arts because the area of crafts doesn't seem to follow the same pattern. Not a rule, just a tendency.

I would think that some women did hunt,if you had hungry kids,you would do more than gather a few berries.The children most likely grew up hunting small rodents,any food contribution would be valued.You would not need tremendous upper arm strength to get birds and rabbits.A girl with a good aim would be encouraged to hunt.And in big game hunts the whole group might do that together,maybe the women and bigger children running the animals towards the males.

Not convinced it was exclusively women. We need more than just speculations controlled by an agenda.

That is a interesting thought, about women and children driving animals as part of the hunt. You would have to look at hunting techniques but few I believe involve grappling the larger animals in hand to hand combat. It was more about driving into traps, off cliffs, or slaying/slowing down with missle weapons (arrows, spears, darts), etc.

A side thought on cave art is the development of painting materials (pigments). This is chemistry and was that more within the women's skill set (or role)? (ie. were they already dominant in dyes, herbs, foods, medicines,) Or conversely did the develpment of art encourage their further exploration of chemistry? Were they primarily involved in the development of cosmetics and poisons (also developed mostly for hunting)?

They may have been the first to eat the "special"mushrooms when foraging,then they went and painted what they saw

... So what they usually chalk up as 'believed to have mystical or spiritual significance' may have been just psychodelic doodles?

Well I guess its easier to believe that, then the helmeted humanoid figure being proof of ancient astronauts.

hang on, hang on; this study, while interesting, is based on finger length ratios. Had I made one of those paintings, my hand would have been recorded as 'male' because my ring fingers are slightly longer than my index fingers. All we really know is that cave paintings were made by people exposed to less testosterone in utero - which is usually, but not always, women.

As for the venus figurines, if one looks at them as celebrating 'fertility' (childbirth and lactation) as opposed to 'sex,' it's easy to think of them as having been created by women. The vast majority of the people who work in obstetrics and gynecology these days are women.
edit: It is bimodal, but note that there's a hell of a lot of overlap.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Digit ... ,_2005.png

True, and in light of that I have taken pains to try and make my language specific. For instance not stating it's a fact but 'strongly suggestive'. But if even partially true, it still alters the common perception and possibly a whole chain of perceptions. Which is what makes it so interesting.

Something to keep in mind is that we only have recorded history to base much of our perceptions and guesswork on. And that 3500 or so years is a fraction of the time Modern Humans (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) has been around. Did archeologists expect that female cave artists would only have drawn cave kids playing ring-around-the rosy? Most of the story of the human race is still unknown.

My index and ring fingers are the same length.
Maybe the earliest home decorating attempt,it would brighten the cave up in winter.