FratFiles

• Save Paper

If the impulse to create art is a defining sign of humanity, the body may well have been the first canvas. Alongside paintings on cave walls visited by early people over 30,000 years ago, we find handprints, ochre deposits, and ornaments. And because the dead were often buried with valuable possessions and provisions for the afterlife, ancient burials reveal that people have been tattooing, piercing, painting, and shaping their bodies for millennia.

All of the major forms of body art known today appear in the ancient world, and there is no evidence indicating a single place of origin for particular techniques. Like people today, ancient peoples used body art to express identification with certain people and distinction from others. Through body art, members of a group could define the ideal person and highlight differences between individuals and groups. In the past, as today, body art may have been a way of communicating ideas about the afterlife and about the place of the......

View the rest of this paper...

Approximate Word Count: 600
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

Similar Essays

1. A History Of Human Art And Body Painting
   

   A History of Human Art and Body Painting If the impulse to create art is a defining sign of humanity, the body may well have been the first canvas. Alongside paintings on cave

2. Diversity In Body Art
   

   Diversity In Body Art A History of Human Art and Body Painting If the impulse to create art is a defining sign of humanity, the body may well have been the first canvas. Alongside

3. Quick History Of Art
   

   Quick History Of Art Before the portrayal of the human body can be critiqued, you must understand the artist's culture. As man evolved over centuries, his views of the body also

4. Quick History Of Art
   

   Quick History of Art Before the portrayal of the human body can be critiqued, you must understand the artist's culture. As man evolved over centuries, his views of the body also

5. Art Expression
   

   art expression paper & bibliography Before the portrayal of the human body can be critiqued, you must understand the artist's culture. As man evolved over centuries, his views of