Before reading this, stretch your imagination back to the earliest things made by man: shelter, spear, knife, fire. Think back to what it was like before we realized there is a wheel… we are all just going round and round…
The earliest forms of painted art depict scenes of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. These paintings, located in sacred places around the world, offer a glimpse of a common ancestral heritage shared by every person who lived on Earth for millions of years prior to the creation of the paintings. The paintings are still visible around the world, many dating back more than 100,000 years, and yet are dutifully ignored by history books around the world. Why is that? Are they hiding something?
These works of art predate religion, ideas of ancient monuments, the written word, the wheel, agriculture and every other marker of civilization, except fire, by tens of thousands of years. There’s no way for us to appreciate this scale of time using words, but to put it into perspective, had you put $.01 into a savings account back then and let it accrue at 3% interest you would have $146,000,000 today.
Whoever we want to believe created these paintings were driven by an inexplicable urge to express something in the material realm trapped in the psychic realm. Before these paintings there was a void of creative expression that went back billions of years. Then suddenly from this void erupted cave art with lush, vivid scenes of a graceful, fluid, lifestyle that still empower imagination. These inspired visionaries gave us the first great works of art that we ever created and possibly will ever see. Search “cave paintings” on Google for a sampling of these works.
Many scientists consider art to be a distinctly human achievement. Whereas many species share social structure, rituals, taboos, tool making, memory and so on, the need to create things without purpose or utility is something only we humans do.
A desire to express thoughts using the power of imagination and bring the psychic realm into material existence is a distinctly human endeavour, possibly hinting at the essence of what it means to be human. This might be why the study of art is called the humanities by the educational establishment, opening the door to the possibility that the cave painters were the first in a line of ancestors stretching back further than we dare imagine to share the same level of conscious development as us. But a closer look at a spider’s web, a snail’s shell, or wind’s fury in spiralling clouds will cause many to question this basic assumption and to them it may appear nature is the artist.
Art can be so abstract. It can have absolutely no reason, meaning, purpose or conventional role in life. This lack of conventionality plays an important function in our psyche because it helps to trigger unconventional thoughts. These thoughts help us think more deeply because they force us to use personal reasoning to make sense of things and encourage new thinking.
What the cave painters created is difficult for us to define because when they lived there were no limits to creativity—ideas to control people had yet to be developed. Although their brain was the same as ours, they thought differently because back then we had the freedom to develop ideas to the fullest extent of our imagination. Barriers to impede creativity, to block the flow of ideas and nature had yet to be developed. Our minds were free of fence posts. We were wild humans with wild imaginations, like the great herds we hunted. We had yet to be tamed, domesticated and groomed to be used as human resources to make money.
Words fail at defining artistic expression because we have no idea what motivates artists. When we interrupt the existence of cave paintings with interpretation we must remember the true meaning of art is lost when we try to divine a purpose for its creation. Interpreting the meaning of art created tens of thousands of years ago will yield little except ego satisfaction, because art is a reflection of the collective consciousness of the period it was created and since then our collective consciousness has changed dramatically.
One thing is beyond a reasonable doubt, how we live has changed incomprehensibly. Back then our lives were centred around an earthly existence, sustenance provided by harmony with nature. The whims of politicians, financial disasters and monuments built for ego manifestation of leaders had yet to cloud our psychic state. Even the most clear-minded, patient observer can have no idea what they were thinking because the simple truth holds as true today as it did back then, only the creator can know the meaning of what they created.
We can attempt to define art and divine its purpose to obtain higher cognitive and subjective abilities to learn more about our self, but that’s about it. Venturing further becomes an obtuse argument over subjective perspective distorted through time. Cave art was created long before time and religion were created. Dreamtime did exist—it was real, but now we’ve forgotten what it means.
A purpose and definition of art useful at an individual level is that it allows anyone to create something to share with everyone. Although the creation is devoid of utility it is filled with inspiration and created using only the power of imagination, when strong enough the art becomes a messenger that can transmit consciousness through time, stimulating thoughts along its journey.
When created from a purely artistic perspective, one devoid of utility, the art has no boundaries, giving it a fierce disposition because the artist has no fear of rejection or retribution. Without utility to the world at large it is created only for those who comprehend its meaning, particularly the creator. The essence of art, the source of motivation and inspiration is beyond conventional thinking, therefore beyond reproach, leaving the artist with nothing to fear because they have no need for acceptance.
The artist is motivated by a desire to express innermost feelings as metaphorical and metaphysical manifestation, a reflection of self for others to experience. Creating art requires thinking beyond raging rivers of emotional, sensual, and material pleasures, defining and, some would argue, befouling daily conscious existence. The artist must step outside the realm of daily existence with its pleasures to gain a vantage point free of distractions that create a clear perspective.
Desire must be lost and worldly existence forgotten to make way for a new perspective. Limitations that keep society in working order must be cleared from psychic space. Roles, traditions, prejudices and ideas created to maintain social working order must be forgotten—lost in a desire to achieve an artistic void. With this separate perspective the artist can see what is hidden to most, the purpose of the working order becomes clear and this revelation can cause the artist to be cast into the field of doubt.
Existence is called into question since everything believed to be real disappears for real, existing only in psychic space. The artist can see what others cannot or dare not. The working order is held together by a dynamic created by man to harness and use the flow of nature and the labour of humans. With this new perspective reality begins to appear more like a series of complicated illusions imprinted on the psyche of people for generations to keep them under control.
From the perspective of the artist, when reality breaks down some will turn back, others will go away and, propelled by a strength of will and intellectual zeal, will be driven to create theories explaining the mysteries of life. Their life will be transformed into a quest for truth through experience as experiences become answers. Life becomes fluid, experiences take them merrily, merrily, merrily down a stream that is like a dream, without routine. As more experiences come forth, the person has more revelations, cultivates greater appreciation and awareness, bringing them closer and closer to the truth.
The quest for new experiences will give life zeal and sometimes what may 
appear to outsiders as a surreal feel, can cause separation from the working order. The artist becomes a seeker, alone in the world with what is truly an individual perspective by seeking the One, or a notion of personal truth. The shift in perspective gives birth to powers of observation because the artist is looking at the social order from a different perspective, one outside of their existence. This helps them see through preconceived notions and distortions created by psychic imprinting and social conditioning.
The individual perspective unleashes an independent point of view removing the seeker from the social order, and that is what these first cave painters did for us, they were our first artists and probably gave birth to mythology, which would later be transformed into religion.
[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]Vinil is a refugee traveling between continents and couches in various remote areas throughout India, Nepal, Ceylon, Bhutan, Burma, Bollywood and Hollywood. He’s on the constant hunt for good stories, interesting characters and beautiful natural locations. He’s an avid adventurer and explorer and has been the source of numerous ideas used to create screen plays and publications in both Bollywood and Hollywood. He enjoys doing as little as possible while poking and prodding native cultures around the world to try and learn as much as possible about their way of life, culture and food before it becomes extinct. He looks to make cross cultural comparisons based on similarities and develop story lines based around a harmonious existence between humans and nature. Vinil has also spent more time with wild monkeys than 98 or 99% of the human population, he is experimenting with film, marijuana and monkeys to create new organizational and relational structures that can be replicated for human use.
photo 1 courtesy Robin Stevens (CC BY-NC-ND)
photo 2 courtesy Mauro Moroni (CC BY-NC-ND)
