Yellow Ochre Cave Paintings

25 000 years old and the cave of altamira in spain ca.

Yellow ochre cave paintings.

Paintings of animals made with red and yellow ochre pigments have been found in paleolithic sites at pech merle in france ca. Photo provided by local archaeological authorities on jan. An artificial substitute for yellow ochre was found in the 1920s and it is still used today. Ochre is the earliest known pigment used by humans to paint our world perhaps as long ago as 300 000 years.

Red and yellow ochre are examples commonly seen in prehistoric cave paintings. For cave pictures pottery the human body and various artifacts. Prehistoric people mined these from the earth and probably traveled significant distances to get the right pigments. Yellow and red ochre pigments have been found in the caves at pech merle altamira and lascaux to name but a few examples.

For example the ochre used in the famous cave paintings at lascaux probably came from 25 miles away. Because it was widely available yellow ochre pigment was one of the first colors used in art. Yellow ochre has been in use since prehistoric times until the present day. Yellow ochre is one of the oldest pigments in existence.

The following graph gives the frequency of its use in the paintings of the schack collection in the bavarian state art collections in munich 1. The cave of lascaux has an image of a horse coloured with yellow ochre estimated to be 17 300 years old. The lascaux cave in france has a painting of a yellow horse 17 000 years old. Natural iron rich oxides provided red yellow brown paints and dyes for a wide range of prehistoric uses including but in no way limited to rock art paintings pottery wall paintings and cave art and human tattoos.