Cavemen better at drawing animal movement: study by journal PLoS ONE

Boar painted 20,000 years ago in Spain by cavemen to 
indicate motion shown on Jan. 24, 1945. AP Photo.



The experts of animal locomotion well know the characteristics of quadruped walking since the pioneering work of Eadweard Muybridge in the 1880s. Most of the quadrupeds advance their legs in the same lateral sequence when walking, and only the timing of their supporting feet differ more or less. How did this scientific knowledge influence the correctness of quadruped walking depictions in the fine arts? Did the proportion of erroneous quadruped walking illustrations relative to their total number (i.e. error rate) decrease after Muybridge? How correctly have cavemen (upper palaeolithic Homo sapiens) illustrated the walking of their quadruped prey in prehistoric times? The aim of this work is to answer these questions. We have analyzed 1000 prehistoric and modern artistic quadruped walking depictions and determined whether they are correct or not in respect of the limb attitudes presented, assuming that the other aspects of depictions used to determine the animals gait are illustrated correctly. The error rate of modern pre-Muybridgean quadruped walking illustrations was 83.5%, much more than the error rate of 73.3% of mere chance. It decreased to 57.9% after 1887, that is in the post-Muybridgean period. Most surprisingly, the prehistoric quadruped walking depictions had the lowest error rate of 46.2%. All these differences were statistically significant. Thus, cavemen were more keenly aware of the slower motion of their prey animals and illustrated quadruped walking more precisely than later artists.

http://www.plosone.org/home.action

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0049786

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Copyright © artdaily.orgWASHINGTON (AFP).- Cavemen were better at drawing four-legged animals in motion in their art than modern artists, a study said Wednesday. Most four-legged animals have a similar sequence in which they move each limb. These sequences were studied in the early 1880s by British photographer Eadweard Muybridge. The authors of the study published in the open access journal PLoS ONE evaluated prehistoric and modern artwork from cave paintings of cows and elephants. They also looked at statues and paintings of horses, elephants and other animals in motion to see how well artistic depictions reflected scientific observations of animal motion. Gabor Horvath and colleagues from Eotvos University in Budapest found that animals drawn or painted walking or trotting often had their legs in the wrong place, scientifically speaking. But prehistopric paintings had a much lower rate of error -- 46.2 percent -- compared to "modern pre-Muybridgean art" that showed animal motion incorrectly 83.5 percent of the time. That error rate dropped off to 57.9 percent after 1887. It was not clear what improved man's portrayals of animal movement, the authors said. js/mdl/oh © 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse

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Copyright © artdaily.orgWASHINGTON (AFP).- Cavemen were better at drawing four-legged animals in motion in their art than modern artists, a study said Wednesday. Most four-legged animals have a similar sequence in which they move each limb. These sequences were studied in the early 1880s by British photographer Eadweard Muybridge. The authors of the study published in the open access journal PLoS ONE evaluated prehistoric and modern artwork from cave paintings of cows and elephants. They also looked at statues and paintings of horses, elephants and other animals in motion to see how well artistic depictions reflected scientific observations of animal motion. Gabor Horvath and colleagues from Eotvos University in Budapest found that animals drawn or painted walking or trotting often had their legs in the wrong place, scientifically speaking. But prehistopric paintings had a much lower rate of error -- 46.2 percent -- compared to "modern pre-Muybridgean art" that showed animal motion incorrectly 83.5 percent of the time. That error rate dropped off to 57.9 percent after 1887. It was not clear what improved man's portrayals of animal movement, the authors said. js/mdl/oh © 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse

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