allegory of the cave

Examples of allegory of the cave in the following topics:

• Classical Greek Philosophy

  • "Platonism" is a term coined by scholars to refer to the intellectual consequences of denying, as Plato's Socrates often does, the reality of the material world.
  • Socrates says that he who sees with his eyes is blind, and this idea is most famously captured in his allegory of the cave, a paradoxical analogy wherein Socrates argues that the invisible world is the most intelligible and that the visible world is the least knowable and most obscure.
  • In the allegory, Socrates describes a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave facing a blank wall.
  • Socrates then explains that a philosopher is like a prisoner released from that cave who comes to understand the shadows on the wall are not reality.
  • He is the founder of the Peripatetic School of philosophy, which aims to glean facts from experiences and explore the "why" in all things.

• Paleolithic Cave Paintings

  • Sometimes the silhouette of the animal was incised in the rock first, and in some caves many of the images were only engraved in this fashion, taking them out of a strict definition of "cave painting."
  • The long cave consists of a series of twisting passages and chambers.
  • Human occupation was limited to the cave mouth, although paintings were created throughout the length of the cave.
  • The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in the Ardèche department of southern France is a cave that contains some of the earliest known cave paintings.
  • The most famous section of the cave is "The Great Hall of the Bulls," where bulls, equines, and stags are depicted.

• Buddhist Rock-Cut Architecture

  • The Barabar Caves in Bihar, built in the 3rd century BCE during the Mauryan period, are the oldest examples of Buddhist rock-cut architecture.
  • Made of brick or excavated from stone, the residences of monks are called viharas, while the cave shrines used for worship are called chaitya grihas.
  • Similar to the Barabar and Ajanta caves, the Ellora caves contain many frescoes, reliefs, and shrines, including carvings of the Buddha, bodhisattvas, and saints.
  • Similar to the Barabar and Ajanta caves, the Ellora caves contain many frescoes, reliefs, and shrines, including carvings of the Buddha, bodhisattvas, and saints.
  • Distinguish the features of the Ajanta, Barabar, and Ellora caves of India.

• Art in Western Europe

  • The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave (circa 30,000 BC) in the Ardèche department of southern France contains some of the earliest known paintings form the Upper Paleolithic.
  • The Chauvet Cave is uncharacteristically large and the quality, quantity, and condition of the artwork found on its walls has been called spectacular.
  • Hundreds of animal paintings have been catalogued, depicting at least 13 different species, consisting of not only the familiar herbivores that predominate in Paleolithic cave art, but also many predatory animals, such as cave lions, panthers, bears, and cave hyenas.
  • Typical of most cave art, there are no paintings of complete human figures.
  • The "Robin Hood Cave Horse" (previously known as the Ochre Horse) is a fragment of rib bone engraved with a horse's head, discovered in 1876 in the Robin Hood Cave in Creswell Crags, Derbyshire.

• African Art

  • Discovered in 1969, the Apollo 11 cave in Namibia is the site of Africa's oldest discovered art .
  • Discoveries of engraved stones in the Blombos Caves of South Africa has led some historians to believe that early Homo Sapiens were capable of symbolic art .
  • The Drakensberg has between 35000 and 40000 works of bushmen art and is the largest collection of such work in the world.
  • Engraved ochre from the Blombos Cave has led some historians to believe that early Homo Sapiens were capable of symbolic art.
  • The Apollo 11 cave in Namibia is the site of Africa's oldest discovered art.

• Paleolithic Sculpture

  • Paleolithic sculptures found in caves are some of the earliest examples of representational art.
  • The Venus of Hohle Fels, a 6 cm figure of a woman carved from a mammoth's tusk, was discovered in Germany's Hohle Fels cave in 2008 and represents one of the earliest found sculptures of this type.
  • It is also known as the "Mousterian Protofigurine," the Mask of La Roche-Cotard is an artifact from the Paleolithic period that was discovered in the entrance of a cave named La Roche-Cotard, on the banks of the Loire River in France.
  • Discoveries of engraved stones and beads in the Blombos Cave of South Africa has led some archaeologists to believe that early Homo sapiens were capable of abstraction and the production of symbolic art.
  • The Venus of Hohle Fels, a 6 cm figure of a woman carved from a mammoth's tusk, was discovered in Germany's Hohle Fels cave in 2008 and represents one of the earliest found sculptures of this type.

• Paleolithic Architecture

  • The oldest examples of Paleolithic dwellings are shelters in caves, followed by houses of wood, straw, and rock.
  • Other types of houses existed; these were more frequently campsites in caves or in the open air with little in the way of formal structure.
  • Caves are the most famous example of Paleolithic shelters, though the number of caves used by Paleolithic people is drastically small relative to the number of hominids thought to have lived on Earth at the time.
  • They often used the rear portions of the cave as middens, depositing their garbage there.
  • In the Upper Paleolithic (the latest part of the Paleolithic), caves ceased to act as houses.

• Buddhist Wall Paintings

  • The Ellora caves consist of 34 rock-cut temples and monasteries belonging to Buddhist, Hindu, and Jaina faiths, built between the 5th and 10th centuries.
  • The majority of the earlier caves were Buddhist, while caves constructed in the 9th and 10th centuries were Hindu and Jain.
  • The caves contain many different elaborately carved rooms as well as figures of gods, stupas, and decorative work, all carved in stone.
  • These frescoes, along with those of the Ajanta caves and Bagh, are considered to be the high point of Medieval Indian art.
  • An example of a painting from one of the Ajanta caves.

• The Stone Age

  • The diagnostic art of this period appears in two main forms: small sculptures and large paintings and engravings on cave walls.
  • The second main form of Paleolithic art consists of monumental cave paintings and engravings.
  • This type of rock art is typically found in European cave shelters, dating to 40,000–14,000 years ago, when the earth was largely covered in glacial ice.
  • The most common animals in cave art are the more intimidating ones, like cave lions, woolly rhinoceroses, and mammoths.
  • Paintings and engravings along the caves' walls and ceilings fall under the category of parietal art.

• Maurya Dynasty

  • He is famous for ordering that his edicts be carved into stones and caves around the empire and, later, for ordering that his edicts be carved into large sandstone pillars topped with statues of lions, known as the Pillars of Ashoka.
  • The Barabar Caves are the earliest example of Buddhist rock-cut architecture and were built during the Mauryan period.
  • Attributed to Emperor Ashoka, the caves consist of temples, stupas, and monasteries that are carved elaborately out of granite.
  • The Barabar Caves in Bihur, built in the 3rd century BCE during the Mauryan period, are the oldest examples of Buddhist rock-cut architecture.
  • Describe the Barabar Caves, the Pillars of Ashoka, and other examples of architecture and art of the Maurya dynasty.