Drawing Animals in the Paleolithic: The Effect of Perspective and Abbreviation on Animal Recognition and Aesthetic Appreciation.

Abstract

The majority of Pleistocene figurative cave art in Western Europe consists of line drawings depicting large herbivores from the side view, and outlines were sometimes abbreviated to the head-neck-dorsal line. It is often assumed that the side view was used because it facilitates animal recognition compared to other views, and that abbreviated outlines were used as an economic mode of representation compared to complete outlines. To investigate these claims, we present an ecological approach to picture perception and discuss its implications for the study of cave art. We then report an experiment conducted to examine the roles of perspective and abbreviation in cave art in relation to two roles: communicating about specific animals and inducing aesthetic appreciation. Participants were shown outlines of animals (bison, horse, hind, and ibex), which varied in terms of perspective (frontal, fronto-oblique, side, rear-oblique, or rear view) and abbreviation (complete or abbreviated). They were instructed to quickly identify them and to rate their aesthetic value. We found that side and oblique views provide equivalent information, equally facilitating recognition and inducing aesthetic appreciation; and that the information from the side and oblique views is richer than the frontal and rear views. We also found that complete outlines facilitate recognition and induce more aesthetic appreciation compared to abbreviated outlines. Contrary to common assumptions, side views are not simply motivated by ease of recognition. Facts of ecological optics, production effort, and available drawing techniques must also be considered. Abbreviation may also be contingent on participation in a shared history of communicative practices and on production effort, as its possible prevalence further from cave entrances might partly be motivated by the need to draw quickly, as the light was scarce. Our experimental results point to a complex interplay of perceptual, technical, and cultural factors in the development of early figurative art and show how an ecological approach to (picture) perception can bring new insights to inform these discussions.