Ancient Cave Paintings. Cave paintings are paintings found on cave walls and ceilings, and especially refer to those of prehistoric origin. The earliest such art in Europe dates back to the Aurignacian period, approximately 40,000 years ago, and is found in the El Castillo cave in Cantabria, Spain.he exact purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known. Evidence suggests that they were not merely decorations of living areas, since the caves in which they have been found do not have signs of ongoing habitation. They are also often located in areas of caves that are not easily accessible.
View the main page for this artwork. The term âaction paintingâ was coined by Harold Rosenberg in his groundbreaking article The American Action Painters published in ARTnews in December 1952. Rosenberg was referring to artists such as Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock. 1  Look at action painting in Tateâs collection.
Art historians, at the time, coined this kind of painting, action painting, because of this very idea that you could imagine quite viscerally the actions that went into the making of the painting. Now, specifically, we're talking about the actions of almost a dancer.