Reflection of Climate Conditions in Painting Art from the Late Pleistocene to the Little Ice Age

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of History and Archaeology, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Art, which is the product of human thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and experiences, is strongly influenced by the artist’s quality of life and environmental conditions. Therefore, considering that any environmental change can affect the living conditions of human beings, especially human dependent on the environment, it can be claimed that art has always been directly and indirectly influenced by the environmental conditions of the artist. An example of this statement can be seen in prehistoric and historical art. Climate change, which affects the environment, overshadows the living patterns of societies and causes cultural change. From these transformations, new artistic themes are created; For this reason, the motif of the farmer man in the Chalcolithic Age has replaced the hunter man in the Upper-Paleolithic Age. In this study, by looking at the cave paintings of the Upper-Paleolithic Age of western Europe, the pottery motifs of the Chalcolithic Age of North Central Iran, and the paintings of the modern European era, the relationship between art and climatic and environmental conditions is examined. It is assumed that climate change has had an extensive and profound impact on art. This fact is clearly visible by the adaptation of the results of paleoclimate research to the artistic themes of painters in different cultural periods.

Keywords

Main Subjects


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