Palaeolithic wall and hearth art

having seen the cave paintings in Lascaux 2, Rouffignac and another whose name i forget (but the passages were narrow and you were inches away from the most wonderful paintings), i would say they were VERY sophisticated.

The lines of the animals, the correct movement of legs (forgotten in later work where legs moved like a rocking horse!)the sheer spirit of the animal in the work and the use of the form of rock to enhance the swell of a stomach or curve of a leg.

They were painted with real intellect and intent.

Whether or not they were ritualistic is conjecture as we can't know, they were obviously very important as at Rouffignac they are 7 miles underground through pitch black tunnels and caves.

There is no question to me that they are fine art.

I would say the Aurignac period represents the height of prehistoric art. As Miss Vivien cogently notes, there is a realism of form, of the depiction of motion, which is lacking in later expressions of the plastic arts, in the Nile valley, and in the valley of the Trigris and Eurphrates rivers. This exuberance and realism of expression does not occur again for millenia, when there is some approach to it in the painting of the "classical" period in Greece.

As for the alleged totemic nature of the paintings, i consider that to be pure speculation, no better founded than would be any other reasonable explanation of their significance. Funny that we would look for some deep, group psychological motive, and ignore our own experience of art and the artist, which suggests that people do this from an inner compulsion to express themselves. My personal speculation is that this was a more likely motivator than any totemic exercise.

well put as always Monsieur Setanta



lascaux website and virtual tour


the image WAS there first time - honestly!!! but thanks - it'll be interesting to see if yours disappears as well ...

Miss Vivien forgot to close her brackets, which would have yielded this:

and there's more ....

I think it was the Font de Gaumme that had that narrow caves and the paintings were sort of 2 inches in front of your nose - sheeeeer magic!

photos not allowed

Is that because of the possible deletrious effect of the light from the flash?

link to Rouffignac site



yes - and where we were going through the narrow passages at Font (Fond?) de Gaumme the guide chanted 'ne touch pas' constantly! Visits at Rouffignac and Font de Gaumme are limited to 2 parties per day so that the problems that occurred at Lascaux don't happen

how beautiful. Where are these? Europe?

I agree with the idea that too many people look for " deep " reasons someone creates a painting. People just create things out of boredom too not just ritual. I think that the prehistoric society may not want to accept the simple fact that the art could have and probally is just that.. a reflection of boredom. Now some of the ones that have been found deep in cracks and canyons and have obviously been created in a deliberatly protective place.. well.. fine art at its best.
I like to see the pictures that have the overlapping of movements in the animal. I have a picture of a Auroch that has overlapping legs as if to represent its movements. Then there are some who have over lapping hairs on thier necks or backs. It is really facinating.
I am reading a book called Journey through the ice age by Paul G Bahn. It goes into Fakes, forgeries, aging the art, and portable art. I bought it mostly for the pictures, some well known some not, but the information in this book is really good. Have either of you read it?

What problem are you referring to that happened in the caves Vi ?

I just finished reading through that site.
It is still strange to me to see things detoriorate due to things we dont even pay attention to. Simple gasses from our breath destroys things that have survived thousands of years. It is amazing that we even see anything from that time period anymore

It's difficult to believe that someone would paint animals deep in a dark cave that nobody could see without great effort just for the fun of it.

Joseph Campbell in his, "The Power of Myth" cites scholars who speculate that the caves were used for the initiation of boys into the hunt. Imagine a boy being taken deep into the darkness then getting glimpses of huge animals on the walls revealed only by torchlights. That combined with various physical mutilations would mark an irreversible rite of passage in a boy's life.

Art back then apparently had more meaning to the people than our present art does to us, just as religious ritual in paleolithic times had a greater impact that our religious rituals do today.

An odd synchronicity.

On the Abuzz thread I care about the most, there has just been a discussion of Lascaux and Rouffignac. People were speaking of their travels to the Dordogne and the cave paintings, and one of our friends (who very occasionally posts here as well) shared a bit of her work about Lascaux with us.

Must be something in the air.

Coluber, i'm not particularly convinced by Campbell. While there may have been many cases in which such art work had totemic significance, what is important to keep in mind is what is not obvious. We do know that in Europe, Asia and North America, humans lived in temperate climates, usually with an enhanced precipitation over the conditions paeleolithic and neolithic humans found in the subtropical areas in which agriculture became important. An abundance of game, especially in the endless grassy steppes below the front of the "uber"-glacier covering the top of the planet, meant relative material wealth to the humans there. We also know that these people frequently refuged under shelter bluffs--overhangs open on half or more of an arc. Scratched images and faint traces of paintings have been found there. I would suggest to you that people painted and scratched all across the landscape--but that most of that which was exposed is long lost. In Australia, under conditions in which the errosion would have been slower due to lower precipitation, such painting and etching is found in some places in profusion.

In the caves themselves, the art is often strewn across all available surfaces. Many smaller works are within six or seven feet of the floor. Just as Romans scratched or painted graffitti on walls all over Herculaeneum and Pompeii, i suggest to you that a common knowledge of human nature suggests that these people did the same. We find a profusion of cave paintings because of constant temperature and humidity, with a relatively low temperature, which preserves it. In a period lasting millenia, many millenia ago, even a small population would have left their mark throughout the landscape. Most of it no longer survives, that which was put in the caves has. The population of Europe at the time was not necessarily small, for that matter, either. All the available evidence points to a profusion of game which could have supported quite a large population. In historic times, Merriweather Lewis reported herds of elk, bison and antelope in the west which numbered in the many thousands, and which are today estimated to have existed in their millions.

Not all art within historical times has been of a totemic character--the profane in art i would suggest to you, far exceeds the sacred. In some periods such as the "christian" middle ages of Europe, a religious institution might dominate culture for a while. Anything which mitigates against clerical authority, however, is always accompanied by an explosion of expression as the power to control is lessened--witness the art of the Renaissance, and the move away form sacred themes to "classical" themes as the art world of Europe moved into the Baroque and then the Rocco.

I posit that art and shamanism do not necessarily go hand in hand, and that was more likely that the shaman was not an artist, than that he or she was. The artist is motivated by a need for self-expression from within--the shaman might see the potential of the symbolism and try to harness it. But the ability of the shaman to control the meaning and content, and the amount of work of the artist will necessarily be no greater than the extent of the shaman's authority within the band. Additionally, the shaman can't be everywhere at once, and even if in a position to belabor the casual artist at the cliff face, how less likely would she be able to keep an eye on any other artists or would-be artists?

Therefore i suggest that this artistic expression, which was so bold, imaginative, colorful and present in riotous profusion where erosion has been kept at bay--was one of those types of human behavior which is always with us. Consider human nature from your own experience. If this art were imbued with totemic power by shamanism, how long before some canny scribbler sidles up the the big, dumb, master hunter of the band, and says: "Hey, what would you give me to do an aurochs painting for you before the next big hunt?" Consider also that many of these artists "signed" their art with hand prints, which are definitely redolent of self-expression and not of subordination to any totemic value. The artist who signs a work is expressing the self rather than the group, or the "deity."

Certainly, a single artist could account for hundreds or even thousands of the paintings which survive--but we have no idea of what the proportion of the surviving art to all that was done over these dozens and dozens of generations. It is my conclusion then, that there would be as many impulses to the creation of such art as are likely to be found among contemporary communities--which is to say, one unique impulse per artist. That they could take on totemic significance, or were created for totemic reasons i don't doubt. That every last bit of pigment or clay sculpture was always and only ever for totemic purposes, i do seriously doubt.

well put Setanta and i totally agree - all this talk of initiation rights is pure speculation and like you I am sure that there was a wealth of work above ground as well that has long since been eroded. It is fine art and as you say, i too feel the artist made if for the same reasons as artists make work today

There are fantastic caves at Le Roque St Christophe where people lived and I am sure they too would have been decorated but are more open to weather and have also been lived in right up to medieval times so any art work would have been destroyed over time.

The climate was much cooler but animals were plentiful, the people who painted the images were not nomads and did not follow the herds (the historians believe)

Where animals overlap and appear to move, we were told that they were simply overpaintings, re-using the same space over long periods of time.

The Dordogne has millions of caves riddling its limestone cliffs and escarpments and there are probably more to be discovered.

I like the intro page to the Lascaux site with its circle of torchlight that you can move about - imagine being the first to discover something like that

So..some places were used like....a chalkboard so to speak? Basically.. a place to draw, rub off, and draw again sometimes years later? And that is why some have the ' overlapping ' images? I never thought of it that way. That makes great sence espically if they were not nomadic, the tribe / clan what ever they were called , would be using and re-using a certain space for generations. Maybe that is why some of the art that is found is so concentrated in some places and less in others? Aside from the fact that time has taken a tremendous toll..

yes shewolf - that is how the guide explained it. The time period was immensely long that they worked over

It is interesting that the human figure very very rarely appears and when it does it is a sort of stick figure with a stylised animal head - whereas the animals are so incredibly alive and lifelike.

There a lot of hands

The hands were often done by holding the hand against the wall and blowing powdered pigment so that they are a stencil, a negative shape against the colour.

Reproductions of the drawings just don't do them justice as they don't show how the artists used the natural swell and form of the rock to enhance the shapes of the animals. In the Font de Gaumme there is a bison who has a stalactite for one of its legs and the rock formation creates the swell of its stomach - it is just beautiful.

Setana, spoken exacly like one of my favorite art teachers. You -don't- teach at the University of Texas, do you?

Not that i recall . . . i've had some lost weekends, but i don't think it's ever gotten that bad . . .

I will check the payroll dept Setanta....and see if you wandered into UT. haha! :-)

I was just reading another book about the speculations of the art deep into caves and I had a moment of """ Well...DUH""
Alot of the cave formations we see today were nowhere near as long or as deep as they then . Time, weather, ice, water..etc all have made thier mark on the shape of these caves. And one of the most simple answers to alot of the questions of " why here... there "etc.. can be answered with -erosion-. What may seem like a deep and impassable cave to us may have just been a simple over hang 10,000 years ago. Earthquakes create and demolish caves constantly. So it is COMPLETELY possible that the ones we see today were just in a diffrent location when they were created and not intentionaly placed deep into a cavern for noone to find and only have shamanic uses for those who knew where they were.
Sometimes..... I like having what I call " duh " moments. ;-)