Along the way to our change in camp from Périgueux to Souillac, we stopped off at Lascaux to look at cave paintings... by Cro-Magnon (very early homosapian people)... competed some 17,000 years ago... just the blink of an eye in the Palaeolithic time frame.
Our aboriginal artists (including the Bradshaw masterpieces) hark back to times twice as early as the paintings at Lascaux. Both were completed by very early homosapians... Lascaux credits its works to Cro-Magnon people... Australia has yet to sort out the lineage of the first aboriginals to reach our shores. Australian aboriginal art can be traced through the ages to current time... Cro-Magnon art did not continue much after the galleries at Lascaux were completed.
Lascaux art was performed using rock pigments... with no charcoal... so carbon dating had to be obtained from associated items... sheep fat used to fasten the scaffolding in the galleries... not as reliable dating technique as that used in Australian rock art... where charcoal was used as a painting material.
Cro-Magnon people were reportedly 'brutes'... built for tough fighting... and leaving skeletons sporting multiple fractures in limbs and cranium to evidence their violence. I think it remarkable that such' brutes' could have produced art of such technical quality. Perhaps, like some of our most current 'brutes', they are misunderstood.
We did not see the original galleries... the crowds in the 1950's warmed the cave to such an extent that new fungi and mosses grew that were spoiling the paintings. Over a 7 year period, the folks of Lascaux built a replica... reproducing exactly the dimensions, placement and artist techniques of the original galleries. Our viewing of the replica site was only with a guided tour... and delivered very, very well... our guide knew his topic and retained his enthusiasm for what the community had to offer.
Every 'ology' imaginable has analysed the paintings and theorised as to their purpose and message... right down to locating each dot and mapping it against the heavenly stars in early Palaeolithic times. Animals have been grouped... the ice-age animals are separated from the 'Mediterranean' animals. Animals to be feared (bears, cave lions, etc) are shown as shadows behind more revered animals. The cave contains nearly 2,000 figures, representing three main categories: animals... human figures (very few... and very primitive).. and abstract signs. The paintings contain no images of the surrounding landscape or the vegetation of the time. While most of the major images have been painted onto the walls using mineral pigments, some designs have also been incised into the stone. Many images are too faint to discern, and others have deteriorated entirely.
The Lascaux gallery is devoted primarily to horses... 364 of the paintings are of horses... and horses are used to guide your gaze from one painting to another... on one side of the gallery, horses face in one direction... and face the opposite direction on the other side of the gallery. There are a few different breeds of horses.. all grouped in painting clusters. The biggest drawings were of bulls... often in outline only and placed on top of other drawings. The drawings causing most discussion were... a unicorn... and an upside-down horse.
Nearly all the animals have been identified to be living in the area 17,000 years ago.
The technique to obtain clear edges to curved parts of drawings has been traced back to using the shape of the curve made by spreading the thumb and the pointer-finger of the hand. These galleries were not for Joe Blow who wanted to while away a few hours doodling... these galleries were reserved for the professional artists in the tribe. There are no mistakes in the drawings... no rub-outs and start again. You learned your skill in other caves... and if you made the grade, you could start painting in this gallery... down the back where no one would see. The layout of the whole cave was orchestrated to convey a message... its entrance was 'guarded' by this mythical unicorn... intended to scare the living daylights out of the young boys entering for the first time... culminating at the far end of the cave in a kaleidoscope of animals racing towards you.
If you want a genuine artistic experience, forget Le Louvre ... forget Picasso's museum... forget the Tate... go to Lascaux and see what Cro-Magnon has to offer.
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