The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

October, 1945 Page 299 SCHOOL MADE MOTION PICTURES By HARDY R. FINCH Head of the English Department Greenwich High School, Greenwich, Conn. Film Presents the Evolution of Art THE first of a projected series of films telling the story of the evolution of art through the ages has l)eeii completed at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. It is The Daivn of Art, a one-reel 16mm silent color film, produced under the direction of Raymond S. Stites, Chairman of the Department of Art and Aesthetics of the College, and photographed by H. Lee Jones. The film is available for showing. Ad- dress all inquiries regarding rental to Mr. Raymond Stites. Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. The Dawn of Art indicates at the start that art is complex, arising from many cultural needs. Cro- Magnon men and women are seen working in a rock- shelter near Font-de-Gaume, France. They sew or scrape skins, make hunting tools, decorate a lamp, gather nuts for the winter. Food is scarce, so the men who have returned from the hunt empty handed consult a medicine man who tells them he will make powerful hunting magic. By tallow lamplight they go to a chamber deep in the cave. After a ceremonial dance they prepare their colors and paint the famous deer of Font-de-Gaume. one of man's first artistic compositions. The men appear by the stream where one spears a fish. Then they see the deer and stalk it. They throw their javelins and the deer is brought down. The hunters return with their game and have a feast, after which one of the men takes up a bone and en- graves his story. A commentary to be given while the film is being shown has been written by Mr. Stites. Excerpts from it follow: Commentary for "The Dawn of Art" ".Ml the evidence shows that the art of the cave men came from diverse needs. Note that Narration and Communication merit special attention. The most inclusive function of art is to communicate thought with emotion. As the artist engraved the deer, fish and spear heads around this bone he made the first documentary motion picture of cultural history." "The Cro-Magnons lived in huts and in the en- trances to caves on the Magdalenian culture level fourteen thousand years ago Stone scrapers and bone needles are used" to clean and sew skins which keep men warm. Men and women enjoy making orna- ments which take their design from the sewing tech- nique. When she engraves the ibex on the back of this stone lamp, it may have been for play. This doll was either a gift for a child or a magic fetish." "A hunter shapes his javelin with a stone scraper. His shaft straightener of elk horn is carved to show an animal. So he hopes to get magical control over nature. Skill and idea unite in this carved throwstick. With a question box on the making of school film productions, conducted by DONALD A. ELDRIDGE, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. It is a true work of art, both decorative and useful. See how he holds it to propel the spear." "A magician is seated by his altar in the ante-room to a dark cave. Hungry hunters come to ask his help. He will make magic for some strings of beads. He puts on his deer skin coat and mask. Tattooing or other kinds of decoration have magic in them. Hundreds of yards underground they go to magic picture gal- leries where the spells are made. Fire and lamplight alone could make this work possible. So man the in- ventor grows along with man the artist." "Once they found a fresh bank of clay. Its shape suggests a bison. So they begin to model, first a female, then the male. The herds were dying out, the buffaloes retreating with the glaciers. By pictured prayers they call back the herds." "Deeper and deeper in the caves the magician dances a charm dance for ghosts of animals long vanished. Flickering lamps reveal many paintings, drawings made thousands of years before. They take out the tools of their craft. The outline is carved with a burin, engraver of stone. Painter and sculptor are one. But man is first a chemist. He holds the lamp to the stalactite, then scrapes off the lampblack into the tube. The painter fills the carved lines with black.- He pours out light ocherous earth. He grinds it with a muller or grinding stone. A palette is made of a reindeer bone. The brush is made of plant fibres or boars' bristles. (Hollow bones are found today with paint still in them.) With yellow and brown and rich red paint he models male and female deer. Bright red is the color of blood and life. At last with black Antioch students paint a set for their art film.