To honor their dead in the Roman period, Egyptians painted images of the deceased on wood and other materials. These painted mummy portraits both include the Greco-Roman style and anticipate medieval artistic trends.

These cave works — discussion of their great artistic sophistication aside for now — were likely not "art for art's sake." The 600 paintings and nearly 1500 engravings featuring animals and scenes from hunting may have been associated with religious practices or magic, or created for purely pragmatic reasons.

Yet the cave pictures are singular works of art, too. They are not stick figures or squiggles. Lines are clear and filled with tints. The animals are vibrant. By utilizing cave features, some of the renderings even have perspective. The paintings force reconsideration of the commonly held stereotype that Cro-Magnons — human ancestors — were merely club-wielding mammoth hunters who dressed like Fred Flintstone. Some of our ancestors proved to be skilled artists. Their 17,000-year-old creations blur the line between artifact and art.

The accuracy and attention to detail are astounding in this painting from the Niaux cave in southern France. However, scholars are not fully sure why people began to paint thousands of years ago.

Prehistoric cave paintings required specific artistic skills, but they also served practical purposes. In fact, most paintings prior to 1300 C.E. were needed for a reason, such as to explain hunting techniques or religious ceremonies. An elaborately painted Egyptian tomb featuring a gilded mummy mask served primarily to facilitate the corpse's journey from life on earth to the hereafter. It was decorative, yet practical. Like the Egyptian tomb paintings, most ancient art was left on coffins, walls, wood, and pottery. Not until the Middle Ages (500-1500 C.E.) did anyone think to paint a canvas and frame it.

Most painters in the ancient world were craftsmen, similar to goldsmiths, and worked through a royal commission. They did not occupy the same place in society as today's artists, who are often considered daring freethinkers beholden to neither royal rules nor government conventions. In the past, those in charge, rather than the artists themselves, often determined artistic styles.

Red-figure painting was done with a brush and paint rather than by engraving and allowed Greek artists greater freedom and precision in their illustration.

A Survey of Ancient Painting

Archaeologists have discovered few paintings from the 20,000 years beginning with the creation of the earliest known cave paintings and concluding with the end of prehistory. Beginning in the 4^th century B.C.E., however, early civilizations in the Mediterranean and Europe produced several paintings that have survived until today. In fact, there are so many that art historians and archaeologists have been able to identify styles associated with specific cultures.

Remains of enormous sculptures and buildings abound in the ancient world, but the Egyptian civilization was really the first to demonstrate a consistent style in painting. As the longest-running artistic act in the ancient world, the Egyptians sustained a highly recognizable and rigid artistic style for almost 3000 years.

Some Egyptian writings and illustrations on papyrus survive today. Most of their paintings, however, can be found only by prying into tombs and temples for a look at the walls. These paintings were often used to decorate and preserve the known world for the afterlife.

Beginning around 2800 B.C.E., the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations in mainland Greece and the Aegean Sea developed another style and purpose for art. Remarkably lively wall paintings, known more commonly as frescoes, survive from c. 1600-1400 B.C.E. in the remains of their palaces and homes. While Egyptian artwork is highly detailed, their figures are still and appear rigid. Minoan art, on the other hand, is extraordinary for its sense of movement and its emphasis on the living world.

Out of the Minoan tradition came the development of Greek painting (c. 600-100 B.C.E.), which ancient texts describe as unsurpassed in skillful execution. The remains of Greek painting from around 700-500 B.C.E. are scarce and fragmentary. Many works that were painted on wood rotted away, and those on wall frescoes were shattered when the buildings they decorated were destroyed. Indisputably, however, the Greeks of this period made more innovations in painting than any previous civilization and were unchallenged in that respect until the Renaissance.

This 14th-century B.C.E. painted carving -- known as a stele -- features Ipi, a royal scribe, worshiping the Egyptian god of the deceased, Anubis. Anubis is shown seated on his throne, holding a sign of life.

Just as Minoan art inspired Greek art, Greek art strongly shaped Roman art. Roman paintings, mosaics, and manuscripts continued Greek artistic traditions and carried them to the far reaches of the Roman Empire, influencing the Middle East, North Africa, and eventually medieval Europe.

With the advent of Christianity, both the Roman Empire and the artistic tendencies of the era underwent a major transformation. Christianity shifted religious emphasis from the body to the soul. Likewise, the emphasis in art moved from the corporeal to the spiritual. The illustration of the Gospels was also necessary in order to spread the beliefs to the new converts, most of whom were illiterate.

After the Roman Empire collapsed, Europe's greatest inheritance was the Roman-Christian tradition, which was heavily infused with classical ideas and Christian artistic styles. Despite some scholarly belief that the Middle Ages was a period of artistic decline, the existence of beautiful painted manuscripts and glowing altars from that period suggests otherwise.

Painting before 1300 C.E. did not develop in a single, steady progression. Shifting cultural needs and ideas fostered different ideas about what should be painted and how subjects should be rendered.

Dabbles on a cave wall or illustrations in a manuscript. These are art. Ancient painting is a reminder that since the beginning of human existence people everywhere feel a need to depict their world.