Ice Age art : arrival of the modern mind

This unique book explores the extraordinary sculpture and drawings created during the last European Ice Age, between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago - the oldest known figurative art in the world.

Over 100 objects are featured alongside stunning illustrations, including small but exquisite sculptures made from mammoth ivory, engraved drawings, and jewellery from the age of the great painted caves, in addition to celebrated masterpieces.

Featured are the Swimming Reindeer (13,000 years old), the so-called Willendorf Venus (25,000 years old) and the Vogelherd horse (32,000 years old), examining them in a new light.

This compelling narrative is also illustrated with a wealth of contextual images, from classical sculpture to twentieth-century painting and even contemporary advertising campaigns, which demonstrate surprising aesthetic parallels between these ancient works and familiar modern pieces.

In this way, Ice Age Art will bring home the point that the minds that created these objects in all their diversity and inventiveness were modern minds like our own, capable of highly sophisticated thought and expression.