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This painting of a Bison is part of the wall at a cave called the Font-de-Gaume, near Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sirieuil, in the Dordogne Valley France. The most famous cave in the region, Lascaux, was closed off for thousands by dirt and rock for years After it was discovered, the flood of visitors damaged the paintings, and eventually it was infected with mold and completely closed. In a nearby public cave there is an excellent reproduction, right down to the shaping of the walls to reinforce the paintings of the animals.
The Font-de-Gaume was open for those thousands of years, and once it was found, people came and went with little damage to the cave. That lasted for a long time, but now it too is closed off and visitors are limited.
The entrance to the Font-de-Gaume is up the side of a cliff maybe half a mile. The artists didn’t go far back into the cave; it isn’t that deep. It is dark, however, so they carved out ledges and scooped out depressions in those ledges to hold oil and juniper wicks for light. The artist worked the wall, which is already rough, into the shape of the Bison, so that as painted, it is anatomically accurate. Its muscles bulge out at you, and its horns seem real. The colors are a bit washed out in this picture, and the color of the rock predominates. In the soft light of the guide’s flashlight they seem warmer, the polychrome tints are stronger.
This painting is from the Magdalenian culture. The people moved north as the glaciers retreated. There is a lot of flint in this area, and they were masters at shaping that flint. The museum is full of knives, scrapers, spear points and other tools. There are also carved stones, vaguely shaped like humans.
The people didn’t live in the caves, they lived in abri, hollowed out places in the cliffs, which they closed off with animal skins in the winter. This is a beautiful place to live, a river brimming with fish, wild asparagus, walnut trees, and plenty of animals like the ones in this cave. Hunting and gathering must have been pretty easy, leaving plenty of time to paint. Well, it is France.
The artist was one of us, a human, homo sapiens sapiens. I’m quite sure of this. Some of the paint was applied by blowing it through a tube. Under one of the ledges is a hand outlined in paint: one of the artists put his hand on the ledge and blew paint around his hand. It was probably a teen-ager showing off for friends. A human teen-ager.
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Here is a link to the wonderful Prehistoric Museum at Les-Eyzies-de-Tayzc. It is built into an abri, so you can walk out and see for yourself.
So cool!
We have come a long way technologically, but what we were as humans has always been there. Thanks for this!
My thanks as well. Fantastic!
Cantabrian Spain is home to a number of like caves, the most notable is Altamira by Santillana del Mar (a notably preserved medieval town). A number of images from Altamira may be found here:
http://images.google.es/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=altamira+cave&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=4ySlS8CpL4X44AaJ-5CVCg&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CBgQsAQwAw
As a world heritage site, a duplicate cave has been constructed and endowed with copies of the original in situ for the public to experience. An experience not to be missed.
Great find as per usual, thanks masaccio.
I’ve been to Lascaux– it is pretty life-changing even if it’s just a replica (and you can’t tell it is!). The whole Dordogne valley is a superb place to visit: castles, medieval towns, many cave sites and cliff dwellings… and foie gras and wine. The valley looks like the setting for Clan of the Cave Bear, that movie with Daryl Hannah. You can feel the ancient-ness of the place; the feeling of having been here before almost overwhelmed me.
At the gift shop at Lascaux, there’s a DVD played on a loop which shows actors reenacting the cave-dwellers. Very hairy men with their jaws jutted forward in pretend underbites, poke (also pretend) at a bear with long spears. This video shook me– the image of mankind as something so other was hard for me to process. (This was a very well-done, realistic production.) We were animals ourselves, fighting to survive.
It is beautiful, isn’t it? We canoed down the Dordogne and the Vezere, both were wonderful rides. We stayed at La Rosarie in Montignac, and we loved it.
At the Prehistoric Museum, there were videos of these people who figured out how to make the tools, and then use them to skin a deer. It was really cool.
Ultimately art is all that we leave of our ourselves.
What is the origin of this wonderful magical aspect of man, the appreciation of beauty and the desire to create it?
I think Keats had it right. The magic in it is truth.
Wow! Thanks again, masaccio. (And what does your name mean?)
Masaccio was the first important painter of the Renaissance. His fresco, The Expulsion From the Garden of Eden on the wall of the Brancacci Chapel at Santa Maria Della Carmine in Florence is one of my favorite paintings. My avatar is from a related painting by Masolino, a buddy of Masaccio.