Art History: The Lascaux Cave Paintings

The Caves at Lascaux in southwestern France, are famous the world over for the paintings on their walls. These are some of the earliest paintings found, and are dated around 15,000-17,000 BC, and were discovered by a group of teenagers in 1940. Like the Chauvet Cave Paintings, the Caves at Lascaux were protected for thousands of years by a landslide which sealed off all access.

The caves were open to the public in 1948.By 1955, some of the cave's art began to deteriorate due to all the visitors and the change in the cave's climate. Lichens and crystals and fungus appeared, which were not present before. As a result, the caves were closed in 1963, with access granted only to a few scientists. Still today, only a few scientists are permitted, and the scientific community is working to preserve and restore the paintings.

In 1983, an exact replica of the Great Hall of the Bulls and the Painted Gallery, created under Monique Peytral, was opened a short distance from the original cave, for visitors to see. This is known as “Lascaux II”.

The caves contain around 2,000 figures of animals, humans, and abstract signs. They are simply drawn, and depict humans and animals that were native to the area, including horses, stags, cattle, buffalo, cats, bears, and more, as well as abstract geometric shapes, and hand stencils. These were painted onto the walls with mineral pigments, and some were etched into the stone. This is one of the earliest examples of color painting that has been discovered.

The prehistoric artists used broad, rhythmic outlines around areas of color. The animals are depicted in a slightly twisted perspective, with heads in profile, and horns painted from the front, similarly to the perspective used in Egyptian art.

Do not think that just because these paintings are primitive, that the artists were not intelligent. On the contrary, these paintings required much preparation and forethought. The artists had to create their tools and gather resources: they had to create their painting and engraving tools and collect their painting pigments, which included charcoal and specific minerals, and grind them into powder. Preparation of the painting surfaces was necessary, so they would need to scrape and clean the cave walls and roof, as well as do the preparatory sketch. Scaffolding had to be built to reach high areas.

What is the meaning behind this art? There are a few different ideas on this. One idea is that hunters would paint the animal that they were about to hunt and kill. This painting would place the animal under a spell, and dominate it. This is called “sympathetic magic”. It was a type of visualization exercise---if they could visualize it, they they could achieve it.

Something important to note, is that each animal species painted, represents a specific period on the calendar, according to their mating habits, such as horses represent the end of winter and beginning of spring, stags represent fall, etc. The abstract signs can also be divided into twelve different groups; perhaps this cave was a type of calendar or hunting guide.

The most accepted explanation for the Lascaux Cave Paintings is that they were part of a spiritual ritual. Some type of ritualistic ceremony was performed there, whether for hunting, coming of age, or some kind of sacrifice.

Regardless of the original meaning, which we can only guess at, this remains: early man was intelligent, resourceful, and artistic. He was able to classify animals according to type as well as separate them into mating seasons. Also, he left us a pictorial record of the animals native to that area of France, as well as a simplistic beauty in the art itself.