{"id":1134,"date":"2010-02-18T04:25:55","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T09:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fredhatt.com\/blog\/?p=1134"},"modified":"2014-12-15T00:25:10","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T05:25:10","slug":"womb-of-art-paleo-masterpieces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fredhatt.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/18\/womb-of-art-paleo-masterpieces\/","title":{"rendered":"Womb of Art: Paleolithic Masterpieces"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Detail of the Lion Panel of Chauvet Cave, France, fig. 84 from "Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave" by Chauvet, Deschamps & Hillaire<\/p><\/div>\n

These lions look so full of life they might at any moment pounce on their prey.\u00a0 This is a small detail from the “Lion Panel”, an expansive composition featuring dozens of animals, discovered in 1994 in a cave in southeastern France<\/a>.\u00a0 Across a huge cave wall with a niche in the center, the lions appear to be stalking herds of rhinos, mammoths and bulls.\u00a0 The realism is classical, the scale and energy modern, yet radiocarbon dating has proven this magnificent work is approximately thirty thousand years old!\u00a0 The mastery displayed here makes a mockery of the concept of “primitive” art.<\/p>\n

It has been barely a hundred years since scientists have agreed that the paintings in certain caves are the work of artists of the paleolithic<\/a> or old stone age, the end of the last glacial period<\/a>, when homo sapiens coexisted with Neanderthal<\/a> people and the kind of herds we associate with the African veldt roamed Europe.\u00a0 In 1879 the nine year old daughter of amateur Spanish archaeologist Sautuola<\/a> discovered the magnificent murals of Altamira<\/a> cave, but it took over twenty years before the scholarly establishment accepted the prehistoric origin of the paintings.<\/p>\n

Since then, academics have disputed about the meaning and motivation of these works.\u00a0 In The Mind in the Cave:\u00a0 Consciousness and the Origins of Art<\/em>, David Lewis-Williams<\/a>, a scholar specializing in ancient rock art, argues that the paintings in the paleolithic caves are the product of shamanic vision quests<\/a>.\u00a0 These are not the kind of caves some people lived in, but deep caverns requiring significant effort to penetrate.\u00a0 Inside these spaces there is no external light or sound.\u00a0 The paintings may record visions arising from ordeal and sensory deprivation.\u00a0 Ancient footprints found in the caves show that children accompanied adults into the caves, so the exhibition of the artwork by dim and flickering lamplight may have been a kind of initiation.<\/p>\n

Most visual art associated with present-day hunting and gathering cultures<\/a> is highly stylized, relying on abstract conventions that represent things conceptually rather than accurately following their appearance.\u00a0 In contrast, the paleolithic art is remarkable for its realism.\u00a0 Obviously those animals were not posing for the artists inside the caves, but the confident rendering of lifelike animal contours convinces me that these artists were well practiced in observational drawing.\u00a0 The caves may be significant not as the place of origin of art, but as the place of its preservation, as there must have been an abundance of art outside the caves that did not survive.<\/p>\n

I’ll refrain from engaging the scholarly arguments here, and just share a few samples of visual art of the European Paleolithic that speak to me across the millennia, revealing the timeless qualities of great work.\u00a0 These images come from books in my personal library, and I hope the copyright holders will not mind my sharing them with you.\u00a0 Altamira, mentioned above, is the source of this exuberant galloping horse:<\/p>\n

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Galloping Horse, original painting in red, copied by Abb\u00e9 Henri Breuil, fig. 130 from "Art in the Ice Age" by Maringer and Bandi<\/p><\/div>\n

This painting has the lightness and simplicity of the loose brushwork of Asian painters grounded in calligraphy and taoism or zen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This back-biting bison carving, from Trois-Fr\u00e8res<\/a> Cave in France could be mistaken for a Picasso<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Bison sculpture in reindeer antler, from La Madeleine, France, fig. 44 from "Art in the Ice Age" by Maringer and Bandi <\/p><\/div>\n

The Cave of Trois-Fr\u00e8res in France is famous for a human-animal hybrid image known as “The Sorcerer<\/a>“.\u00a0 It also has a magnificent complex herd scene with at least forty-five animals, densely overlapping, all of them individually expressed in different lifelike positions.\u00a0 Is the figure on the right in the detail shown below a hunter disguised in a bison’s skin, a shamanic summoner of animal spirits, or a bison god?<\/p>\n

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Detail from a mural engraving at the Cave of Trois-Fr\u00e8res, France, copied by Abb\u00e9 Henri Breuil, p. 135 from "La Peinture Prehistorique: Lascaux ou la Naissance de l'Art" by Georges Bataille<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s another detail from the same cave:<\/p>\n

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Bison, engraving at the Cave of Trois-Fr\u00e8res, France, copied by Abb\u00e9 Henri Breuil, fig. 121a from "The Roots of Civilization" by Alexander Marshack<\/p><\/div>\n

These vigorous drawings burst with vitality, conveying the power of the looming beasts and the fury of the hunt.<\/p>\n

You may notice that I’ve chosen to show many of these works in copies made by the Abb\u00e9 Breuil<\/a>, one of the early 20th century’s foremost specialists in European cave art.\u00a0 His beautifully rendered copies clarify images that are often hard to read in photographs, painted or engraved on rough and mottled stone surfaces.\u00a0 It’s difficult for photographs to capture the qualities of cave art, which is not flat and not intended to be seen in harsh bright light.\u00a0 Many of the original paintings incorporate the bulges of the stone walls as the bulges of the animal bodies.\u00a0 In other places, paintings continue from walls up to vaulted ceilings, as in this image from the most famous painted cave of all, Lascaux<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Ceiling of the Axial Gallery, Lascaux Cave, p. 111 from "The Cave of Lascaux: The Final Photographs" by Mario Ruspoli<\/p><\/div>\n

Depictions of animals are far more numerous, and usually more detailed, than depictions of the human form in paleolithic art, but the human figures can be strikingly sensual:<\/p>\n

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Reclining female figures from Cave of La Madeleine, France, relief carvings above with copy drawings below, fig. 111 from "The Way of the Animal Powers" by Joseph Campbell<\/p><\/div>\n

Those remind me of Matisse<\/a>.\u00a0 The carved “Venus” figurines<\/a>, a selection of which are shown below, prefigure the styles of Brancusi<\/a> and Gaudier-Brzeska<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Small paleolithic figurines, from left to right, vitreous rock from the Riviera, hematite from Moravia, mammoth ivory from Ukraine, and mammoth bone from Russia, figs. 121 thru 124 from "The Way of the Animal Powers" by Joseph Campbell<\/p><\/div>\n

From a slightly later period, after the invention of the bow and arrow, we have silhouetted figures like this one, similar in style to South African rock art<\/a>, but this is from Spain<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Archer with compound bow, rock painting in black from the Spanish Levant, fig. 177 from "Art in the Ice Age" by Maringer and Bandi<\/p><\/div>\n

This is just a small sampling from an incredible wealth of prehistoric masterpieces.<\/p>\n

New note added April 21, 2010:\u00a0 Get a great feeling for the art in context with the navigable CGI reproduction of the art in context in the cave of Lascaux<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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