Woman From Willendorf, image credit: Art History (6th Edition) by Marilyn Stockstad and Michael W. Cothren

As I type away, I look out the window to the cold, dreary, and rain-soaked Seattle sky and think to myself: Ah, Fall!

It’s fall, which means pumpkin spice, the song This is Halloween serving as audio for every single Instagram reel, cold rain for Seattleites, and a fresh school year! For my senior year, my curriculum has sent me all the way back to the roots of history. At home, in social studies, my coursework has flown across the Atlantic from classical and medieval Europe to pre-contact Americas. At my local college, my Running Start art history class also swapped out Renaissance Mannerism with the works of prehistoric Eurasia. 

It’s rather funny going all the way back in time. What I’ve learned can be applied to these works, but the artistic productions of the era seem at first glance so different from what I’ve grown accustomed to studying. Some might say that prehistoric cave paintings and figurines are limiting, but as a highly-amateur art historian I find it both a nice change of pace and a fun challenge. All the meaning and symbolism humans have imprinted into Renaissance masterpieces are still coursing through the rocky veins of Lascaux and other caves, but it isn’t as apparent. Instead of being handed a metaphorical composition to marvel at, you must forensically scour every available morsel of evidence and craft a meaning yourself. No written testimonials, no Medicis commissioning a painting, no Medicis stealing a painting, and no Dutch merchants hiring a painter to document their bowls of fruit, just simple and down to earth artifacts!

Recently, in an art history class at my local college, I was assigned a discussion post regarding the concepts of death in Paleolithic art along with a contemporary equivalent. My first instinct was to draft a write-up on Catalhoyuk in Turkey. After all, the residents of this community buried the dead in the floors of their homes. However, I missed discussing allegory and hoped to replicate my experiences from earlier this year with prehistoric art. I chose to write my piece on a small female figurine: Woman From Willendorf. Maybe I went too far, subscribing an overarching philosophical meaning to a stone statue, or maybe there is metaphorical value to something so ancient? To figure out more, just keep reading!

The world of prehistoric times was vastly different from our own. In a land of disconnected clans living through tough conditions, connections were crucial for humanity’s survival. In this world, the concept of death would have been close and omnipresent. By being able to self-analyze, humans would certainly have been aware of their own lives and deaths.

This dyad can be seen in the era’s art. One of the most famous examples is the Woman From Willendorf. While not explicitly mentioning death, this roughly 26,000-year-old figurine potentially addresses the concept of life, fertility, and humans’ symbolic interpretations of it. Life and death are fundamentally paired, and a creation representing life also reckons with death. Through the artist’s use of “pendulous breasts, a big belly, wide hips, and dimpled knees and buttocks,” the figurine has been theorized at times to present an image of overall health, possible fertility, and subsequent survival. This hypothesis suggests that the figure may have been an endearing act towards the role of reproduction in the survival of a clan. Although recent research has redirected social emphasis towards the statues being more “subtle forms of nonverbal communication,” according to the textbook, meant to convey alliance, trust, common identity, and mating opportunity, there is still room for the interpreted symbolic significance of the Woman From Willendorf’s form to remain pertinent and valid. Through the figurine’s visibly exaggerated, and sometimes abstract, shapes and forms, there is still underlying symbolism regarding health and fertility, likely providing visual cues in the communication with other groups of prehistoric humans.

By actively seeking out connections and mating opportunities, possibly through the use of female figurines, prehistoric clans were self-aware of their own survival. In this era, the climate was harsh and the humans of the period would have depended on mutual connections. Therefore, they were most-likely aware of their own precarious position in the world, and the subsequent importance of fertility. Furthermore, according to the text, humans can be defined by our ability to “think symbolically” and to “create representational analogies […] and to recognize and remember those analogies.” Through this reasoning, it can be deduced that the Woman From Willendorf, along with its use as a form of universal communication, also served as a symbolic representation of fertility, life, and death. Without healthy reproduction, which is paid homage to via the exaggerated form of the figurine, humankind would not survive.

While the Woman From Willendorf may contrast its modern day equivalents physically, modern humans’ analysis on life and death can be found in the form of the popular mantra: live everyday like it’s your last. Compared to its Paleolithic figurine counterpart, this commonplace quote addresses our tentative place in the world, our respect for life, and life’s direct pairing: death. 26,000 years ago, the Woman From Willendorf symbolically addressed what it was that kept clans alive. It is an optimistic and grateful outlook on life and fertility whilst directly pairing the concept with the notion of death. Without the healthy body of individuals that the figurine modeled, humans wouldn’t survive. Today, we still contemplate life and death just like our descendants millennia before us. However, instead of carving figurines, we post motivational quotes on social media. 

Let me know what you think! Is metaphor and allegory universal in humans, regardless of time and artistic ability?