The paleolithic cave artist was apparently a shaman who existed in a sense-rich world which he took for granted. Like a very young child, we was apparently only dimly aware that this world could be experienced as separate from himself. He did not understand many natural events, particularly since he had no control over them. Indeed, it is likely that art was one of man’s first efforts to control the forces of nature. For the shaman-artist to reproduce an image of something may have been his first step in gaining control over it. If this is true, each painting was a separate creative act to bring power and good hunting but was not seen as art with a capital A. This would explain why figures of the deer and the bison of Altamira, while well drawn, are not related to each other, but rather to the topography of the surface of the cave. Later these same magic images were reduced to symbols, which were reproduced again and again, like prayer beads, to multiply the magical effect.
— Edward T. Hall. The Hidden Dimension: An anthropologist examines man’s use of space in public and in private. 1969.
