![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lionkingcmslSome idle thoughts popped into my head while messing around on the 'puter.
It has been said that the human "animal" has not really changed for a couple of millenia. We were just as smart then as we are now. It's just our knowledge of things has expanded since then. This appies if you believe in either of the two "dogmas": Creationism or Evolution.
That being said, one has to wonder if there was a "cave man" or woman that could do really astounding "photorealstic" art. If they did it, was it eroded over time, erased, or just not found?
Also, was that person frustrated in the knowledge that they could do better, but did not have the tools to do so?
This line of thinking brings me to one of the greatest minds, and artists, of all time, Leonardo da Vinci. I wonder what he could of done if he had today's tools for art and science. The same could be said for all the "Great Masters".
If you remember that Leonardo had designed workable airplanes, helicopters, automobiles in his time, and he did it in the late 15th and early 16th centuries!
The same could also be said for some of the other earlier scientists and musicians.
Were they frustrated in the knowledge that they could do more, but were limited by the techonology of their times? We may never know.
As I said, just some idle thoughts from this lion.
You wonder what my personal dogma is? I believe that both are true. God created everything, but not as we see things today. It is said in the Bible that a day to a man may be a thousand years to God, and a day to God may be a thousand years to man. We do not know what "time scale" God was using and whether or not he kept the same scale in place through out the 7 "days". So I hold that both are equally valid views on how everything came about. It is said that God created the animals before man, so why could he not have created the single cell plankton and let evolution take its course before starting a new family, or giving a certain mammalian species a "nudge" in a certain direction.
One thing if for sure, we will not know until the end.
It has been said that the universe in not wilder than we can imagine, it is wilder than we cannot imagine (or words to that effect)!
It has been said that the human "animal" has not really changed for a couple of millenia. We were just as smart then as we are now. It's just our knowledge of things has expanded since then. This appies if you believe in either of the two "dogmas": Creationism or Evolution.
That being said, one has to wonder if there was a "cave man" or woman that could do really astounding "photorealstic" art. If they did it, was it eroded over time, erased, or just not found?
Also, was that person frustrated in the knowledge that they could do better, but did not have the tools to do so?
This line of thinking brings me to one of the greatest minds, and artists, of all time, Leonardo da Vinci. I wonder what he could of done if he had today's tools for art and science. The same could be said for all the "Great Masters".
If you remember that Leonardo had designed workable airplanes, helicopters, automobiles in his time, and he did it in the late 15th and early 16th centuries!
The same could also be said for some of the other earlier scientists and musicians.
Were they frustrated in the knowledge that they could do more, but were limited by the techonology of their times? We may never know.
As I said, just some idle thoughts from this lion.
You wonder what my personal dogma is? I believe that both are true. God created everything, but not as we see things today. It is said in the Bible that a day to a man may be a thousand years to God, and a day to God may be a thousand years to man. We do not know what "time scale" God was using and whether or not he kept the same scale in place through out the 7 "days". So I hold that both are equally valid views on how everything came about. It is said that God created the animals before man, so why could he not have created the single cell plankton and let evolution take its course before starting a new family, or giving a certain mammalian species a "nudge" in a certain direction.
One thing if for sure, we will not know until the end.
It has been said that the universe in not wilder than we can imagine, it is wilder than we cannot imagine (or words to that effect)!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-05-14 03:39 pm (UTC)Would he have done the same now? The growth curve was much less dramatic at this point. A technological advancement of the same degree of discovery might take a few years to develop, instead of a few centuries.
The discovery would seem significantly less significant now.
Or would he discover something four centuries ahead of our current growth curve? Like interstellar travel? Or perhaps portalling? We shall never know. But it'd make for some great science fiction, to be sure!
-=TK
hmmmmmm....
Date: 2003-05-14 03:40 pm (UTC)Artwork was NOT a past-time or a hobby. It was a very sacred and extremely expensive labor. Oh, sure, anybody can grind up some ochre, mix it with water and make a spatter-print of their hand. But these paintings that we've found are carefully located to make sure they endure, and they are drawn with great attention to detail.
Unfortunately, you didn't get to practice the way we can today. There was no going to the Longs Drugstore to pick up a sketchbook. Doing artwork meant a long trek into a dangerous cave, carrying precious paints, brushes and torches. So you learned how to paint/draw by watching someone else do it, and then you take it up yourself.
Painting/drawing was sacred, and reserved for the hunters or holy people of the culture. This is because the images are very powerful things. The spiritual power in an image is self-evident, even today. Think about that photo from 1990 or so, of the Ethiopian child curled up on the ground, crying helplessly as the vulture waits patiently.
The more accurate a painting or picture is, the more power it contains. And the more power it contains, the more valuable it becomes. And also much more dangerous to the creator, or especially the subject. If you make an accurate image of a person, that person will be in terrible danger from enemies and/or malicious spirits who will seek to harm them through that image, or to induce them into doing evil.
Accurate images of animals and spirits are good, because you can offer them prayers and gifts that will be conveyed to their spirits, making them happy. Imagine the horror and terror that could be caused if a rival tribe were to find the sacred cache of paintings and destroy or deface them? The animals and spirits depicted would be furious, and the tribe would perish when the living animals all go away.
So, bearing all this in mind, it's hardly surprising that we don't see anything approaching photo-realistic until much farther along the evolutionary scale, when spiritual beliefs began to change towards more cosmopolitan religions.