•Paul Bahn (1998) argues that the aesthetic urge in man is not some recent refinement of civilization, but part of an ancient deep seated need of our species.
Bahn, P, G. (1998) The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
•In 1878 Nietzsche said “everything essential in human development occurred in primeval times, long before those four thousand years with which we are more or less familiar. Man probably hasn’t changed much more in these years” (Nietzsche 2008:12).
Nietzsche, F. (2008) Nietzsche: Human, all too Human and Beyond Good and Evil. Ware: Wordsworth Editions Limited.
•Griselda Pollock (2006) in Psychoanalysis and the image suggests that although the artworks of ancient cultures may be perceived as infantile and compared with childhood formations which are counted as immature, “the psychoanalytic study of the pre-history of individuals or what we might call ancient human cultures is always a study of the self, not the other, of the pre-shaped present not the superseded past” (Pollock 2006:12).
Pollock, G. (ed) (2006) Psychoanalysis and the Image: Transdisciplinary Perspectives. Maiden, USA: Blackwell Publishing.
•The markings in much contemporary art are comparable to the markings in ancient works of art.
•Of course the world has changed a lot since we lived in caves. We now have advances in technology and capitalist consumerism requires a constant state of progress.
•As Jean-Francois Lyotard predicted, in the western world many of us live in a comfort zone experiencing life through the television.
Lyotard,J-F. (1986) ‘Defining the Postmodern’ In Postmodernism. London: Institute of contemporary Arts.
•Edward Smith and John Grande (2004) state that, new technological innovations are increasingly pulling us away from direct experience with nature into a virtual world.
Smith, E, L and Grande, J, K (2004) Art Nature Dialogues: Interviews with Environmental Artists. Albany: State University of New York Press.
•Lucy, R Lippard (1983) suggests that the contemporary notions are of novelty and obsolescence whereas prehistoric notions were of natural growth and cycles.
Lippard, L, R. (1983) Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory. New York: The New Press.
