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Cave Paintings
Cave Painting
World heritage
Levantine cave painting is one of the most exceptional examples of such art in all Prehistory. In fact it could be quite categorically stated that no other art form can compare to it. It is a totally original art form different from all other artistic circles, from the technical as well as the thematic and artistic point of view. An art form which leaves room for every type of conception, from the naturalistic to the schematic, and hence UNESCO, on the second of December 1998, at its session in Kyoto (Japan) declared these paintings World Heritage in the category of Cultural Landscape.
The collections of prehistoric art painting in Murcia take in a chronology which dates from the later Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age. During these cultural periods several different types of art developed, which are as follows: Linear-geometric, Levantine and schematic. Of the almost one hundred examples of this art form found in the region, those of relatively easy access, which are to be found on a route which runs through the north of our territory and borders the neighbouring communities of Valencia and Castile-La Mancha, are the ones we have selected. The numerous paintings which cover a good part of our rock walls and caves were painted during a period of several thousands of years by people who belonged to very different cultures. It is for this reason that they have been formally grouped into different commonly accepted styles. In the Region of Murcia, we have examples of all of these styles and, in order of antiquity, they are as follows:
Palaeolithic Art, the name assigned to the most ancient phase of prehistoric art, is a collection of styles from the later Palaeolithic Age (30,000 - 8,000 BC). This type of art originally seemed to be absent from our Region, but recently, in Cieza, several cavities have been discovered with magnificent illustrations of horses with a Solutrense chronology which dates from about 15,000 years ago.
Linear-geometric Art developed right at the end of the Palaeolithic Age. They are figures found beneath those of the Levantine period and are characterised by rectilinear motifs. As far as some researchers are concerned this would have been present in the Cantos de la Visera in Yecla.
Levantine Art is the name successfully proposed by the teacher A. Beltran for the most common stylistic type found within our Region. It shows images of a narrative and naturalistic yet dynamic character, an art form belonging to a people whose economy was principally based on hunting, which pertain to an age of between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago at the most. Both human and animal figures are painted in red and, very occasionally, in black. This is carried out by first drawing an outline with a fine brush and then later colouring it in.
Schematic Art, like the Levantine, consists of a fine layer showing human and animal figures as well as symmetrical and geometrical shapes. They are drawn in red paint which is applied in thick strokes. Both the human and animal shapes are reduced to their most conceptual levels, bordering on the abstract. Historical Art comprises the different parietal art forms from the Roman era until the Middle Ages.
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