Parietal Art

Examples of Parietal Art in the following topics:

• Art in Western Europe

  • Western Europe was particularly bountiful for archeological discoveries (especially southern France and northern Spain), with numerous caves and open-air sites containing spectacular parietal (cave art) and portable (small sculpture) artworks being found that are among the earliest undisputed examples of image making.
  • Typical of most cave art, there are no paintings of complete human figures.
  • Altamira (circa 18,000 BC) is a large, winding cave in northern Spain famous for its Upper Paleolithic rock-art featuring polychrome rock paintings of wild mammals and human hands.
  • The art at this location is either carved, incised, picked, or a combination of these various techniques, but it is rarely painted.
  • It is the only piece of Upper Paleolithc portable art depicting an animal found in Britain.

• The Stone Age

  • The second main form of Paleolithic art consists of monumental cave paintings and engravings.
  • Paintings and engravings along the caves' walls and ceilings fall under the category of parietal art.
  • Early rock art also first appeared in the Neolithic period.
  • The advent of metalworking in the Bronze Age brought additional media available for use in making art, an increase in stylistic diversity, and the creation of objects that did not have any obvious function other than art.
  • Also the oldest known, undisputed depiction of a human being in prehistoric art.

• Paleolithic Cave Paintings

  • Paintings and engravings along the caves' walls and ceilings fall under the category of parietal art.
  • As is typical of most cave art, there are no paintings of complete human figures in Chauvet.
  • The artists who produced these unique paintings used techniques rarely found in other cave art.
  • The art also includes scenes that were complex for its time—animals interacting with each other.
  • Like all prehistoric art, the purpose of these paintings remains obscure.

• Cerebral Lobes

  • The cortex is divided into four main lobes: frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal.
  • Several portions of the parietal lobe are also important in language processing.
  • Portions of the parietal lobe are involved with visuospatial processing.
  • The four lobes (frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal) of the human brain are depicted.
  • Distinguish between the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes of the cerebral cortex

• Fontanels

  • The cranium of a newborn consists of five main bones: two frontal bones, two parietal bones, and one occipital bone.
  • At birth, the skull features a small posterior fontanelle (an open area covered by a tough membrane) where the two parietal bones adjoin the occipital bone (at the lambda).
  • The much larger, diamond-shaped anterior fontanelle where the two frontal and two parietal bones join generally remains open until the child is about two years of age.
  • The more anterior one is the sphenoidal (between the sphenoid, parietal, temporal, and frontal bones), while the more posterior one is the mastoid (between the temporal, occipital, and parietal bones) .

• Cranial Bones

  • The neurocranium is comprised of eight bones: occipital, two temporal bones, two parietal bones, sphenoid, ethmoid, and the frontal bone.
  • The squamosal suture separating the parietal bone and squama portion of temporal bone.
  • The two large parietal bones are connected and make up part of the roof and sides of the human skull.
  • To the front the parietal bones form the coronal suture with the frontal bone, and to the rear the lambdoid suture with the occipital bone.
  • Finally, the squamosal suture separates the parietal and temporal bones.

• Cerebral Hemispheres and Lobes of the Brain

  • The brain is separated into four lobes: the frontal, temporal, occipital, and parietal lobes.
  • The parietal lobe is associated with sensory skills.
  • The parietal lobe is comprised of the somatosensory cortex and part of the visual system.
  • Several portions of the parietal lobe are important to language and visuospatial processing; the left parietal lobe is involved in symbolic functions in language and mathematics, while the right parietal lobe is specialized to process images and interpretation of maps (i.e., spatial relationships).
  • The Broca's area is at the back of the frontal lobe, and the Wernicke's area is roughly where the temporal lobe and parietal lobe meet.

• Sutures

• Art History Methodology

• Paleolithic Art