Mesolithic art encompasses all arts and crafts produced between the end of the Palaeolithic Ice Age (10,000 BCE) and the advent of agriculture, i.e., the Neolithic period.
Mesolithic art, in the form of painting and petroglyphs, is a vivid reflection of the cultural life as well as an imprint of the fine aesthetic sense of the mesolithic artists. The representations include animals, birds, stylized human figures, weapons and instruments, etc. The paintings depict numerous scenes - hunting, war, dance, burial - which provide us with an insight into the ethos and traditions of the society. That these artworks possess aesthetic value is clear if we look at the use of colors and the tendency to depict the objects in a natural way. The choice of themes as well as the location of paintings vouch for the symbolic value contained in the artworks.
However, one must be careful while drawing radical comparisons. Modern painting was cordially attached to a philosophy, shaped by the emergence of an industrial world. Modernism consisted of multiple and dynamic art movements, sometimes complementing while sometimes in dialectical opposition to others. The defining zeal of modern art was not representation but innovation. There was a movement towards abstraction. Art, thus, apart from expression, also became an escape. The symbolic complex too transformed accordingly.
Thus, while mesolithic art does depict the cultural life as well as carries an aesthetic value, it is not comparable to modern painting because of three reasons:
- We don’t know the philosophy and the purpose associated with the mesolithic art.
- Modern art carries a rich history, as well as a legacy of evolution, which for mesolithic, is rather obscure and vague.
- Comparison between two historical cultures requires some common ground. It would be unjust to compare the two distinct achievements of artists separated by thousands of years. Any such attempt would be reductive, and thus, a disgrace.