Cave Paintings from the Paleolithic time period are truly amazing to look at. To think that some of these cave paintings were painted in 32,000BC is incredible. In the painting Rhino and the Wounded Man, there are many interesting facts that show us that something happened. In this case I believe this painting was done to document history. A man is lying next to a large bull creature with his intestines hanging out, and a look of anger. In my opinoin this seems as though the man did something to the bull which made him angry, and therefore this painting is a story that documents history. Alot of the cave paintings were of animals and such, but I guess that was really all there was to paint back then!
Learning about Egyptian paintings is interesting in the fact that most of their paintings were telling a story. The Egyptians spent most of their lives preparing for the afterlife. Most of their paintings were related to the afterlife in some way. A lot of paintings that I have studied were of Osiris, the leader and god of the underworld. The Egyptians believed that when they died they were to be judged by Osiris in order to continue in the afterlife. Many paintings also include what the egyptians thought of their souls. They had the ka, the ba, and another part of their soul, that in paintings are represented in some way. Its very interesting also to see the heiroglyphics along with the paintings. Cave paintings survived because they were in deep in caves, and the Egyptian paintings survived because of the very dry climate.