The author noted, “Giedion had suggested that prehistoric humans had a unique vision of time and space.” Reflecting the contents of this article, How are cave painting and cinema similar or different in the experience for time and space? Please answer this question(max. 500 words) on your blog.
The article purposes a new perspective in viewing cave arts: to view its visages in time. Different from traditional paintings that focuses on the image of objects in only one instant (modern photography as well), the cave arts depict the overlapped “moving” images of the same object. For example, a deer is being carved with two heads, which under a flickering light due to the unpredictability of the shape and angles of rock only one head is visible and so appears to be moving. The author further challenges the perception of time of the Paleolithic people, as time is depicted not as separated, but integral in their pictures. In a sense, all of the “Past, Present and Future” exists in their painting as an inseparable “Now”. I find this viewpoint very interesting. It coincides with the religious saying that the essence of beings are like a river – the past is the water that flows behind, the present what we see now, the future where is goes, yet the whole river is the real thing, each part inseparable to itself. And here is also where cave arts differ from modern cinema. In modern cinema, although we are presented a sequence of images and get to experience them in time, they do not appear overlapped – that is, they do not exist all “at the same time”, as an integral whole. As the result, it still reflects time as linear happenings. Yet in cave art, time only exists when the fire is moving and the story is being told, the carved “truth” is the compilation of all of them together, inseparable. There appears to be no beginnings nor endings, no cause or effect.
The similarity between cave art and movie is more apparent: when the light is lit, it is possible to experience the carvings as “moving image”, just like modern cinema. There is a sense of motion, and an expression of time in the viewing experience.