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Horst Bredekamp considers what prehistoric objects can contribute to the history of art and to accounts of human creativity. Delivered as the twentieth Horst Gerson Lecture in Groningen, the work asks how the ability to recognise differences in materials, shape objects and employ visual signs belongs within a broader understanding of human development.
The discussion connects early sculptures, hand axes and other material traces with later ideas about the making of images. Bredekamp returns to Leon Battista Alberti's account of how a natural form can invite human intervention, using that historical perspective to question divisions between objects of practical use and objects understood as art.
Illustrations accompany the argument and allow readers to follow its comparisons between particular artefacts and aesthetic concepts. The concluding questions concern the relationship between art history, archaeology and anthropology, and the possibility of renewed collaboration among those fields. This complete English-language lecture edition retains its original images, notes and references, offering a focused introduction to a substantial question about the beginnings of artistic activity.