It’s not much of a drawing, just some tiny criss-crosses in ochre on a broken bit of grindstone.

Patterns of this kind are better known from engravings found in the same vicinity and many other places, some older than this stone.

The world’s oldest drawing might be easy for a casual observer to miss: a 38.6mm (1.52 inch) long flake of silcrete (a fine-grained cement of sand and gravel) with a few faint reddish lines drawn on one smooth, curved face using an iron-rich pigment called ocher. The lines would have been bolder and brighter when the drawing was new, according to University of Bergen archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood and his colleagues, but over time they’ve lost pigment to rinsing and wear, leaving them faint and patchy. But an archaeologist working at Blombos Cave, about 300km (186 miles) east of Cape Town, South Africa, noticed the markings while analyzing stone flakes and debris excavated from a 73,000-year-old layer of the site.

The design features six nearly parallel lines, with three curved lines cutting across them at an oblique angle, but it hints at a more complex piece of work. All the lines cut off abruptly at the edges of the flake, which suggests that the pattern archaeologists see today is just a fragment of something originally drawn on a larger surface and later broken.

“The pattern was probably more complex and structured in its entirety than in this truncated form,” wrote Henshilwood and his colleague. Modern viewers will likely never know what the rest of the drawing looked like—or what it meant to people 73,000 years ago.

Full Report

Bubblecar said:

It’s not much of a drawing, just some tiny criss-crosses in ochre on a broken bit of grindstone.

Patterns of this kind are better known from engravings found in the same vicinity and many other places, some older than this stone.

The world’s oldest drawing might be easy for a casual observer to miss: a 38.6mm (1.52 inch) long flake of silcrete (a fine-grained cement of sand and gravel) with a few faint reddish lines drawn on one smooth, curved face using an iron-rich pigment called ocher. The lines would have been bolder and brighter when the drawing was new, according to University of Bergen archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood and his colleagues, but over time they’ve lost pigment to rinsing and wear, leaving them faint and patchy. But an archaeologist working at Blombos Cave, about 300km (186 miles) east of Cape Town, South Africa, noticed the markings while analyzing stone flakes and debris excavated from a 73,000-year-old layer of the site.

The design features six nearly parallel lines, with three curved lines cutting across them at an oblique angle, but it hints at a more complex piece of work. All the lines cut off abruptly at the edges of the flake, which suggests that the pattern archaeologists see today is just a fragment of something originally drawn on a larger surface and later broken.

“The pattern was probably more complex and structured in its entirety than in this truncated form,” wrote Henshilwood and his colleague. Modern viewers will likely never know what the rest of the drawing looked like—or what it meant to people 73,000 years ago.

Full Report

73,000 years ago. Recent enough to be Homo sapiens.

Could that be a pencil sharpener? Or to put it another way, testing out a makeup pencil before using it?

“But an archaeologist working at Blombos Cave, about 300km (186 miles) east of Cape Town, South Africa, noticed the markings while analyzing stone flakes and debris excavated from a 73,000-year-old layer of the site.”

This one is similar to the new one. Also from Blombos Cave in South Africa circa 70,000 years ago. Ochre again but this time engraved lines on ochre. Perhaps Blombos cave could be considered the ancestor of human use of ochre.

—

Oldest stone tools 3.3 million years ago.

540,000-Year-Old Shell Carvings May Be Human Ancestor’s Oldest Art
May not be art, may be some ape trying to open a stubborn shell, as chimpanzees and sea otters are known to do.

Maybe it’s a drawing of a long bow.

Maybe its waves ?

Shell fish, beach, waves.

Peak Warming Man said:

Maybe it’s a drawing of a long bow.

LYW, Mr Man. :) :)

Peak Warming Man said:

Maybe it’s a drawing of a long bow.

…….or a pigment of someone’s imagination.

Woodie said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Maybe it’s a drawing of a long bow.

…….or a pigment of someone’s imagination.

People do see colors slightly differently to each other.

Woodie said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Maybe it’s a drawing of a long bow.

…….or a pigment of someone’s imagination.

LOL

Peak Warming Man said:

Maybe it’s a drawing of a long bow.

:)

Eminently reasonable.

Woodie said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Maybe it’s a drawing of a long bow.

…….or a pigment of someone’s imagination.

:)

It’s really not clear to me that that’s a drawing, rather than just a random scratching.

dv said:

It’s really not clear to me that that’s a drawing, rather than just a random scratching.

It could be worth a lot of money if you got it scanned at the Newsagents.

dv said:

It’s really not clear to me that that’s a drawing, rather than just a random scratching.

Looks more than random to me. Ancient depictions last well because they are usually a mixture of animal fat and ochers so even partially water repellent. Unfixed they would eventually flake off walls with contraction and expansions of rock and wind.

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

It’s really not clear to me that that’s a drawing, rather than just a random scratching.

It could be worth a lot of money if you got it scanned at the Newsagents.

:)

I think it’s just testing an eyeliner pencil on a piece of random rock to make sure it didn’t have any hidden sharp lumps.

The cross-hatching on the piece of ochre from the same cave looks like a deliberate design to me.

dv said:

It’s really not clear to me that that’s a drawing, rather than just a random scratching.

Well it’s not a scratching (engraving), it’s an application of ochre.

As I said, there’s not much to it but it does resemble the cross-hatched designs that were once common and can be seen on the engraved piece of ochre that moll posted an image of.

mollwollfumble said:

I think it’s just testing an eyeliner pencil on a piece of random rock to make sure it didn’t have any hidden sharp lumps.

The cross-hatching on the piece of ochre from the same cave looks like a deliberate design to me.

Okay, fine, but to my mind, “drawing” implies it is a representation of a specific thing.

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

I think it’s just testing an eyeliner pencil on a piece of random rock to make sure it didn’t have any hidden sharp lumps.

The cross-hatching on the piece of ochre from the same cave looks like a deliberate design to me.

Okay, fine, but to my mind, “drawing” implies it is a representation of a specific thing.

Oh, you have to jump another 30,000 years forward for that.

dv said:

It’s really not clear to me that that’s a drawing, rather than just a random scratching.

P’raps they had a random itch at the time.

Spiritual drawings were mostly very simple, at times only thick lines of varying length.

Magna Carta – Lord of the Ages

wookiemeister said:

Blue poles?

Peak Warming Man said:

wookiemeister said:

Blue poles?

350 million

wookiemeister said:

Peak Warming Man said:

wookiemeister said:

Blue poles?

350 million

350 million squiggle lines of paint ?

wookiemeister said:

Peak Warming Man said:

wookiemeister said:

Blue poles?

350 million

How come I have never noticed that it spells out WOOKIE?

PermeateFree said:

Spiritual drawings were mostly very simple, at times only thick lines of varying length.

Much later Australian symbolic examples.

Witty Rejoinder said:

wookiemeister said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Blue poles?

350 million

How come I have never noticed that it spells out WOOKIE?

The best art purchase Australia ever made. Now worth more than the rest of Australian-owned art put together, including that in private collections.

mollwollfumble said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

wookiemeister said:

350 million

How come I have never noticed that it spells out WOOKIE?

The best art purchase Australia ever made. Now worth more than the rest of Australian-owned art put together, including that in private collections.

Which is bloody ridiculous.

sibeen said:

mollwollfumble said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

How come I have never noticed that it spells out WOOKIE?

The best art purchase Australia ever made. Now worth more than the rest of Australian-owned art put together, including that in private collections.

Which is bloody ridiculous.

Agree.

It looks kitsch to me.

stupid squiggles

wookiemeister said:

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/abstract-exp-nyschool/abstract-expressionism/v/moma-painting-technique-pollock

Ogmog said:

wookiemeister said:

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/abstract-exp-nyschool/abstract-expressionism/v/moma-painting-technique-pollock

Article on blue poles

Here’s looking at: Blue poles by Jackson Pollock
http://theconversation.com/heres-looking-at-blue-poles-by-jackson-pollock-51655

from the article

Others have also considered different and interesting aspects of Blue poles. Richard Taylor, Director of the Materials Science Institute at The University of Oregon, has studied the painting as an example of chaos theory and fractals.

He argues that Blue poles is an example of a fractal pattern – that if we examine the drips closely, we see the basic form of the whole repeated.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Ogmog said:

wookiemeister said:

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/abstract-exp-nyschool/abstract-expressionism/v/moma-painting-technique-pollock

Article on blue poles

Here’s looking at: Blue poles by Jackson Pollock
http://theconversation.com/heres-looking-at-blue-poles-by-jackson-pollock-51655

from the article

Others have also considered different and interesting aspects of Blue poles. Richard Taylor, Director of the Materials Science Institute at The University of Oregon, has studied the painting as an example of chaos theory and fractals.

He argues that Blue poles is an example of a fractal pattern – that if we examine the drips closely, we see the basic form of the whole repeated.

Personally, I like it, but if I had the money to purchase it, there are many other things I would rather spend it on.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Ogmog said:

wookiemeister said:

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/abstract-exp-nyschool/abstract-expressionism/v/moma-painting-technique-pollock

Article on blue poles

Here’s looking at: Blue poles by Jackson Pollock
http://theconversation.com/heres-looking-at-blue-poles-by-jackson-pollock-51655

from the article

Others have also considered different and interesting aspects of Blue poles. Richard Taylor, Director of the Materials Science Institute at The University of Oregon, has studied the painting as an example of chaos theory and fractals.

He argues that Blue poles is an example of a fractal pattern – that if we examine the drips closely, we see the basic form of the whole repeated.

I wonder what Blue poles would look like if you averaged out all the thousands of squiggle drips into one squiggle drip.

Then make that one squiggle drip into a tea shirt.

No, I dont like it, I would wear the teashirt though

looks like a bunch of network cables

or

the floor of a paint shop

some floors of art studios can look a bit like that

Drawing room TAFE Ballarat university 2011

one of the art boards

the floor of the Drawing room

Tau.Neutrino said:

Drawing room TAFE Ballarat university 2011

one of the art boards

the floor of the Drawing room

Not quite the same or even similar.

>>>Not quite the same or even similar.

Not supposed to be, its an art room

I took around ten random photos

One day I will layer them in photoshop and merge them one one image.

Looking out across Ballarat from the Art room towards Mount Warrenheip

mollwollfumble said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

wookiemeister said:

350 million

How come I have never noticed that it spells out WOOKIE?

The best art purchase Australia ever made. Now worth more than the rest of Australian-owned art put together, including that in private collections.

That is not even remotely true. The NGV alone has Van Goghs, Rembrandts, Picassos, a Rothco etc each alone worth in excess of $150m.

sibeen said:

mollwollfumble said:

Witty Rejoinder said:

How come I have never noticed that it spells out WOOKIE?

The best art purchase Australia ever made. Now worth more than the rest of Australian-owned art put together, including that in private collections.

Which is bloody ridiculous.

The price of art has nothing to do with quality. It only has to do with controversy.

And Blue Poles is one of the most controversial paintings of all time. Therefore highly successful.

> No, I dont like it, I would wear the teashirt though

I enjoyed doing it as a jigsaw puzzle, actually my favourite jigsaw puzzle ever.

Tau.Neutrino said:

the floor of the Drawing room

That’s it. An almost perfect match for:

An even better match if rotated 90 degrees and flipped horizontally.

Whatever it is worth and for what it is worth, it is art. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder and as such so is the esteemed value.

roughbarked said:

Whatever it is worth and for what it is worth, it is art. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder and as such so is the esteemed value.

Which is art?
We’ve had at least six different pictures on this thread so far.

mollwollfumble said:

roughbarked said:

Whatever it is worth and for what it is worth, it is art. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder and as such so is the esteemed value.

Which is art?
We’ve had at least six different pictures on this thread so far.

The original.

roughbarked said:

mollwollfumble said:

roughbarked said:

Whatever it is worth and for what it is worth, it is art. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder and as such so is the esteemed value.

Which is art?
We’ve had at least six different pictures on this thread so far.

The original.

The others all followed.