A Lascaux Cave Painting

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Introduction and Objective

So, there are two types of art that predominate in Paleolithic cave art: drawing and engraving. At Lascaux, however, it is painting that dominates the artwork. These 2,000 or so images divide into two main categories: animals and symbols. The animals consist of species that Magdalenian cavemen would have hunted and eaten (like aurochs, deer, musk-oxen, horses, and bison), as well as dangerous predators that they would have feared (like bears, lions, and wolves).

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cave_painting,_Anthropos_(2).jpeg

Let’s delve into the specifics about how and why these animals were the focus for the cave artists.

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Today’s lesson objective is: The student will analyze the images found within the Lascaux Cave, identify specific images, and hypothesize the interpretation of the images.

Take a moment to think about this objective. What learning skills will you use to achieve this goal? Why do you think animals were so important to the Lascaux artists? What did they feel was conveyed through these paintings that they wanted to share with the world?

Open your digital notebook and describe your strategy and the learning skills you will use to succeed in this lesson.

Instruction, Modeling, and Student Activities

So, why animals?

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Well, research has established that each animal species pictorialized at Lascaux represents a specific period of the calendar, according to their mating habits.

For Example:

Horses represent the end of winter or the beginning of spring; aurochs high summer.

Stags mark the onset of autumn.

Animals played an important role in the everyday life of the Lascaux artists, and art is often a depiction of life. Speaking of which, Lascaux’s artists were also extremely adept at capturing the life of the animals depicted.

For Example:

They used broad, rhythmic outlines around areas of soft coloring.

Animals are depicted with their heads shown in profile but with their horns or antlers
painted from the front.

By focusing on the animals they knew and interacted with, Lascaux’s cave paintings were interactive and realistic.

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So, what does all this “animal art” say about the Lascaux artists?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lascaux-diverticule-félins.jpg

Well, according to the research done in the past, the cave art at Lascaux conveys a specific story or message, rather than simply created because it looks beautiful. To figure out what that message is, we need to ask ourselves some questions about the artists’ choices:

1. Why are only animals shown?

2. Why not trees and mountains?

3. Why ignore certain very common animals, like reindeer?

4. Why are certain areas of the cave more heavily decorated than others?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lascaux,_replica_02.JPG

Remember, artists often portray what they know. So, let’s take another look at these questions.

Why are only animals shown? Well, animals were an inextricable part of daily life—they were hunted and eaten, they were seen every day. Animals were both scenery and characters in the story of these artist’s

lives.

Why not trees and mountains? Again, this is based on the topography that these artists are most familiar with—and that includes valleys and caves.

Why ignore certain very common animals, like reindeer? This one is a little harder. We can only assume that there was some kind of ranking with animals and that perhaps reindeer weren’t as high on the rank of respected animal species in the lives of the Lascaux artists.

Why are certain areas of the cave more heavily decorated than others? Again, this involves a little bit of guesswork, but we can assume that access to the cave itself, along with light and materials probably dictated which parts of the cave were more decorated than others.

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Other theories of why animals were so important to the artists certainly exist.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lascaus,_Megaloceros.JPG

One theory that is important to consider about the representation of animals in the Lascaux caves is what is known as the “sympathetic magic theory.” This theory suggests that Lascaux artists created their drawings and paintings of animals in an attempt to put them under a spell and achieve dominance over them.

How would that work?

It means artists would have painted pictures of wounded bison in the hope that this type of “visualization” might make the imagined scene actually happen.

Is this theory possible?

Unfortunately, this interpretation of Lascaux’s cave art is not very convincing. There are many images that have no obvious link to hunting and very few if any of the animal pictures relate to animals that were hunted.

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For most people, the most convincing explanation for the cave paintings at Lascaux is that they were created as part of some spiritual ritual.

How would it work?

Lascaux was a religious sanctuary used for initiation ceremonies and its seclusion and isolation would make it an ideal place to conduct this type of ritualistic ceremony.

Is this theory possible?

Well, it’s supported by a number of footprint studies, showing that virtually all the footprints in the cave were left by adolescents: a typical category of initiates. So it is certainly a possible explanation.

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Summary

For a wide variety of reasons, only a tiny handful of people are permitted inside Lascaux for a few days each year in order to help prevent the magnificent paintings, drawings, and engravings from joining their creators and vanishing entirely. Regardless of this, the focus on animals and the research of what they stand for continues.