Rock art and cave paintings today occupy a significant position and can be seen today as well. Rock art and cave paintings are the most effective visual practices and artistic work, give an insight into the beliefs and certain ritual practices of a clan or people. In the last decades of the 19th century, the foremost discoveries of rock art were seen in India. The history of paintings in Karnataka can be traced back to the earliest man belonging to the Megalithic age in the 1st Millenium B.C. These boorish paintings were mostly animal figures designed on the cave walls.

Karnataka is one of the richest rock art zones in India. It was Fawcett who reported rock art evidence, of the Bellary region around 1892. Hubert Knox in Karnataka at Kigali, Archibald Carlyle, and John Cocksure in Aimer ranges, Madhya Pradesh, found the rock engravings and cave paintings. Later, in Karnataka, in 1915, Leonard Munn, an English officer was moving about in Hire Benkal (Gangavati taluk, Raichur district, now in Koppal district) forested hill ranges, he happened to discover three caves with paintings. He published a note on them in the annual reports of the archaeological department of the former Nizam’s Dominion of Hyderabad. Occasional discoveries were being made and no further studies were carried on as late as the 1960s. Also, during the 6th century, the Chalukya rulers encouraged paintings and artforms and many murals were engraved on walls and ceilings. In Badami inspired by Buddhism, cave paintings and other art forms were seen. The Vijaynagar dynasty in the 15th -16th century took up the patronage of painting and art.

Religion theme-based art forms are usually seen in the paintings of Karnataka. Also, geometric designs are commonly used by villagers to cure horn diseases of cattle even today. The geometric designs were believed to have some magical powers by rural folk.

In geometrical designs, the colourful mandalas are usually found in cave paintings and engravings. Besides that, double-lined two squares, diagonally intersecting with loops at the corners are the most common as found at Hire Benkal, Chik Rampur in painting, Sonda (Uttara Kannada district), and Gavali near Kundapura (Dakshina Kannada) in engraving.

In a single shelter/cave one can see pictures of animals of wild species, humans drawings in a peculiar way, geometrical designs, and scenes of some significant social performances such as hunting, group dance, burying the dead, etc. which are less frequent. The pictures are executed in mineral colours and in either outline or silhouette.

Variations in the form of rock art too are often seen due to the prevailing rock conditions. In the Ghat-coastal region, cattle such as bulls, cows, and geometrical designs are common. Human representation is barely seen. In the Badami area, paintings only of wild animals such as pigs, animals with stripes on the body, to be identified, and depictions of stick-like humans with an exaggerated trunk with an end, have seen in the other parts of Karnataka and the South. In southern Karnataka, we find mostly engravings. Similarly, in the Eastern part of North Karnataka all three forms of art i.e. bruisings, engravings, paintings, and some traditions of society such as group dance, burial hunting rituals, etc. have found commonly. With regard to painted humans in the eastern part especially in Narayanapur near Hampi, there are varieties of singles, large and small, in pairs or multiples hand in hand, etc. Rock art sites, in the Kaladgi basin, North Karnataka, with new discoveries in the Aihole-Badami-Kutakanakeri Series have found.