I want to know about the cave paintings?

Answer 1

Broad question. I'm not sure of the history so much, but aside from north american and spanish caves, you may want to look up the "wandjinas" of Australia. They were the first cave paintings to indicate that humans were thinking of supernatural beings.

Some historians believe that cave paintings were done by placing a dye or pigment liquid in one's mouth, and spitting/spraying it at the wall whilst stenciling off the area with their hands. Some of the earliest paintings are just this. Hand prints outlined by the pigment.

Answer 2

There were famous cave painting in Lascaux, France that depict people and large animals in hunt scenes, and have read about that in a few books. Those were pictographs, and have seen some in caves in North America that are side by side with petroglyphs---images pecked out of the rock rather than painted onto the rock.

Some I have seen out in the wilds are of masted sailing ships, whale hunts, wedding parties, owls, bulls, snakes, fictitious figures, maps of the terrain, and basically it is thought that some are early graffiti of travelers, saying "I was here".

Other famous cave paintings were found in Africa and Australia. One word to NOT use when evaluating those pictures is "primitive", as that is supposing the artists lived primitively, which may not be the case---and that is a relative term! I made that mistake when evaluating the art of Africa done on ostrich eggs for an anthropology class.

Answer 3

Get the book "color. a natural history of the Palette by Victoria Finlay. She has the entire history of cave paintings, where colors came from and an entire chapter of new information about cave art that is different from what was known up until recently.