Long story short:
The Craft's history of
visual storytelling

Warty Pigs

~ 51,200 BCE

Members of the same archaeological team who discovered the ‘warty pig’ painting in Sulawesi, Indonesia, recently found an even earlier example on the same island. It shows human figures around a wild pig. “There is something happening between these figures,” says Griffith University archaeologist Adam Brumm, “a story is being told.”^[1]

Warty pig — the previous record holder — is tipped to be around 40,000 to 45,000 years old. Though Maxime Aubert, a Griffith University professor involved in both archaeological finds, said, “The rock art in this region could very well be 60,000 to 65,000 years old.”^[2]

Paintings are, of course, only part of the puzzle. It’s hard to pick a moment to jump to next, but at the risk of skipping much, let us go to Sumerian cuneiform.

Cuneiform

~ 3200 BCE

Cuneiform is the earliest known form of writing. Used by the Sumerians in Uruq, today Iraq, it is a series of cone-shaped arrows pressed into clay. It was mostly used to tally things like grain transactions, though discoveries made in 2016 suggest cuneiform was also used by Babylonian astronomers.^[3]

Egyptian Hieroglyphics

~ 3100 BCE

This writing system uses images that each represent a single word. The Ancient Egyptians called them ‘Gods’ Words’, which translates to ‘sacred carvings’ by the Ancient Greeks, giving us ‘Hiero glyphs’.

The earliest examples found remain undeciphered; however, between 2650 and 2575 BCE, they are regularised, with around 700 signs that would be used for 2000 years, surviving the Persian and Greek conquests of Egypt, and only becoming extinct with the rise of Christianity, which outlawed their use between 400 and 500 CE.^[4]

Ancient Greece

~480-323 BCE

The Ancient Greeks are inspired by Plato’s idea that art imitates things and events from life, and Aristotle’s view that art seeks to represent the inner essence of its subject. Artists and sculptors take a methodical approach in their works — working with things like balance, symmetry and proportion — and achieve an unprecedented realism in their painting, sculpture, pottery and craft.^[4]

They depict their gods and deities but, unlike predecessors, give them human form, and also record human achievements such as victory at the Olympics or heroism in battle.^[6]

Camera Obscura

~400 BCE

Chinese philosopher Mo-tzu writes about light passing from an illuminated object through a pinhole into a dark room, creating an inverted image of the object. It’s the earliest record of a ‘camera obscura’, which later gives us the concept for the pinhole camera and all of photography.^[7]

The camera obscura has practical uses even before early photography. Eleventh century mathematician, physicist and astronomer Ibn al-Haytham uses the camera obscura to demonstrate how light travels in a straight line, and to safely observe eclipses.^[8]

Later, In the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci describes camera obscura technology in his Codex Atlanticus, and may have used it as a drawing aid.

The Fall of Rome

476 CE

The Ancient Romans continue the Greek traditions of realism and humanism in their art, and invest heavily in it. During the fall of the Western Roman Empire, however, these funds dry up. This is the end of the age of classical antiquity, and artists move to more commercially viable and portable forms.

The Eastern Roman Empire survives the split, and keeps many of the traditions alive, though this Byzantine art eventually takes on its own style, “a continuation of cherished Roman artistic traditions that were infused with distinct Eastern influences”.^[9]

The Middle Ages

500 CE-1300 CE

The ‘dark ages’ misnomer fails to recognise the many creative and intricate visual works that are created in this period in the West. Pagan worshippers tell their stories with ornate stone works, jewellery, wood carvings, and tapestries. All the while, Christianity is growing its wealth and influence, and the Gothic cathedrals, with their stained glass, decadent decor and illuminated texts, pay tribute to their saints, their gods, and their kings and queens.

The Renaissance

~1300 - ~1527

The Renaissance marks a departure from the tenets of mediaeval life. Beginning in Florence and spreading through Europe, the Renaissance is driven in part by an obsession with the wisdom and creativity of antiquity. There’s a return to a focus on form, balance and realism, similar to the art of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, with an added emphasis on perspective. Renaissance paintings are recognisable by their detail, depth and dimension.^[10]

Creatives and thinkers continue to depict gods and divinity, but add cosmopolitan life, and detailed explorations of anatomy, science and technology, to their work.

Before Gutenberg

1377

Gutenberg is credited with the invention of the printing press around 1440. The oldest preserved piece of storytelling made with metal movable type, however, is the Korean book Jikji, printed in 1377. Mass printing has existed in the region for centuries, with China and Korea recording their histories on wood block type. The addition of movable metal means they can print different works quickly.^[11]

Leaps forward, such as movable type and the printing press, are touted as sparking the dissemination of information and mass literacy, though these will take hundreds of years, and even today are by no means universal.

The Nuremberg Chronicle

1493

This German text is a history of the world as it is known at the time, from the Garden of Eden and Noah’s Ark, right through to the bustling Renaissance cities of Europe. It is one of the earliest books to mass publish illustrations with text. With more than 1800 woodcut illustrations, and a large print run, it is no surprise that copies have been treasured and preserved.^[12]

Kibyōshi

1775

Japanese books from the Edo period, kibyōshi are considered to be one of the original forms of graphic novels or comic books. Peaking as a genre between 1775 and 1806, the short booklets are written and printed by authors and woodblock artists. They feature black and white cartoons and text, often of a satirical nature.^[13]