and fifty years, and the colours are yet unfaded where the rock has not crumbled away.[1]
In point of artistic merit, however, the paintings were seldom superior to the drawings on slates made by European children eight or nine years of age, though there were occasional instances of game being delineated not only in a fairly correct but in a graceful manner, showing that some of the workmen possessed more skill than others. In none of them was any knowledge of perspective, and in only one or two of the very best any attempt at shading displayed. Two or more colours were sometimes used, for instance, the head or legs of an animal might be white, and the remainder of the body brown, but—with extremely rare exceptions—each colour was evenly laid on as far as it went. In short, the paintings might be mistaken for the work of children, but for the high positions of many of them on the rocks, and the scenes being chiefly those of the chase. A peculiarity in them is that the human form is almost invariably grotesquely outlined. The lion also is never represented perfectly, probably from a superstitious fear of offending the formidable animal that often furnished food by leaving parts of the large antelopes uneaten, and that could when provoked do so much harm. In only a few of the paintings are the feet of the animals shown. Sometimes disguises are represented, usually a man's body with an animal's head, though these are rare.[2]
In some places, where the rock was very smooth and hard, the Bushman drew an outline of a figure, and then
- ↑ I have seen pictures made by Bushmen on the banks of the Keiskama which in 1878 looked as fresh as if painted the day before. The Xosa chief Rarabe crossed the Kei about 1745, and shortly afterwards destroyed all the Bushmen along the Keiskana, so that the paintings must have been made before that date. But that is only a short time compared with the age of those recently discovered by Mr. R. N. Hall in Rhodesia, which must be over a thousand years old.
- ↑ Copies of many of these paintings have been published in different books. In 1909 a large volume entitled Bushman Paintings, collected by Miss Helen Tongue and Miss Dorothy Bleek, was published at Oxford.
