These ostrich egg shells are over 60,000 years old. They were excavated from
Dieokloof rock shelter in South Africa. As you can see, someone all those years
ago went to the trouble of decorating them,
scratching lines and dot's and patterns in them. Presumably after they had eaten
a massive hard-boiled egg. This isn't the only piece of super ancient art we have
discovered. Also from South Africa, in Blombos cave,
we have unearthed a stone with ochre lines drawn across it which is dated to
around 73 thousand years ago. It might not look like much but to create such
defined lines the artist would have had to have used a very thin and sharp piece
of ochre. Basically, a pencil that maybe they had sharpened themselves and
there's much more besides these two examples as well. There's a lot of
prehistoric art found all over the world. Now obviously these drawings and
engravings are not as elaborate as the Sistine Chapel for example but I do like
to think they reveal something even more important. I didn't appreciate this when
I was a kid because basically art has nothing to do with sports and guns but
what's incredible about art is that we can derive any meaning from it at all.
These lines and scratches in the eggshell meant something to the person
that did them. However trivial that meaning may have been it was
nevertheless an act of creativity. This clearly dates back to some of the
very earliest days of our species and who knows what works of art were created
out of perishable materials that just haven't survived in the archaeological
record. We can argue until the cows come home about whether animals produce art.
I've had birdsong playing throughout this whole video and I can't really
think of a reason why that wouldn't be considered art. It's safe to say though
that we are an absolute quantum leap ahead of anything else. We can teach an
elephant to paint but left to their own devices they would certainly never ever
do it again. There's something really brilliant and
special about our ability to be creative. Even if you're of the opinion the modern
art is bollocks, just the fact that it makes you grumpy
is incredible. A snail is totally indifferent to it all. [Snail] "Actually I quite
like an Ai Weiwei". Obviously in our modern world we're
constantly surrounded by incredible visual stimuli, you know, at the touch of
a button you can view any masterpiece from anywhere in the world. It's so easy
to take our abilities for granted. So in the spirit of appreciating our innate
creative abilities, I have made the simplest possible self-portrait I could
and I challenged you all to do the same, at least those of you who follow me on
Instagram and Twitter. So, sit back, pour yourself a cup of Ribena and appreciate
the fact that we can see meaning in any of these images at all.
Uncanny! I really feel like I captured my likeness.