异域文化 How Art Made The World 人、艺术、世界 04

And then came an even more exciting find, in a cave called Lascaux, a gallery of pictures of breathtaking beauty. As more and more paintings came to light, they revealed prehistoric artists had painted with a confidence and skill that matched almost anything from the modern world. Pablo Picasso himself said, on first setting eyes on these pictures, we have learnt nothing.

And when experts began dating these paintings, there was another surprise. They found that we started creating images comparatively late in our human story. Let me show you what I mean. Let's imagine that the entire length of time that modern humans have been around on the planet is represented by these steps. People like you and me, the species known as Homo sapiens, we've been around for about 150,000 years. That's where I am now.

Biologically from then onwards, human beings didn't change. We had exactly the same brain as we have today. And yet, for more than 100,000 years, we didn't create any images. It wasn't until here, that's about 35,000 years ago, that something began to change.

Archeologists call it the Creative Explosion, the moment in time when people first began to create pictures.

So, what happened back then? Why did people suddenly decide to start creating images of the world around them?

Experts began searching for an answer, and their first explanation seems the obvious one. Today one of the main reasons that we make pictures is to create representations of things in the world around us. Surely, the experts said, thousands of years ago, prehistoric humans also had painted to create representations of things around them. But as more and more cave art was discovered, it became clear that this explanation was wrong. Because today artists create images of every aspect of the world that they live in. But back then, they created images of mostly one thing. Prehistoric artists were obsessed by animals, and not just any animals, but some in particular, like horses, bison and reindeer.But why? What was it about these animals that so fixated the minds of our ancient ancestors?

Homo sapiens

(n.) The modern species of humans, the only extant species of the primate family Hominidae 智人(现代人的学名)

obsess

(v.) To preoccupy the mind of excessively. 迷住, 使困扰

fixate

(vt.) To make fixed, stable, or stationary. 使固定，使不动