Why was prehistoric art mostly drawn from the side?

Question

I am studying prehistoric art for my school project and want to know why prehistoric art was mostly drawn from the side.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Drawn from the side makes it easier to identify the object.

Answer 2

Most of the time animals are seen from the side or have a view of the side.  That makes the straight on side view the most accurate rendition of what they commonly see.  It is the view that shows the entire animal.

Answer 3

I don't think that they were drawing pictures but symbols of man.  Art/language was the same thing.

Answer 4

Good question.  It's hard to know.  Why the Ancient Egyptians depicted images in their particular way is much easier to answer (they wanted to depict each part from it's best perspective, even if in reality they were mutually exclusive--almost cubism there!).

My thought is that profiles were the easiest ones to render because most animals are the most interesting from the side, have more details available for a recognizable image.

There have been some prehistoric carvings in North America which actually seem to be an attempt to present a sequence of images.  What appears to be a number of figures is just an attempt to show a single figure going through a series of postures/actions over time.

Answer 5

I'm going to go with the angle of "it had to start somewhere."  

There is a certain amount of evolution in terms of artwork.  People didn't start off knowing how to draw in perspective; it was discovered, or learned, however you care to phrase it.

Same basic principle as learning how to make tools; you find a place to start and build your way up.

That's a very, very interesting question and you had me stumped for a decent answer.  I hope this one makes sense for you.

Answer 6

If they were painted from the front there would not be much to paint, much more interesting to paint a view from the side where all legs body shape etc were visible. Also a lot of animals would only have been seen from the side by the artist, had they been seen from the front,  the artist would probably be dead. Hope this perspective helps.