Lascaux Caves: Art Analysis

Situated on the Vézère River in France is a little town called Montignac. A short distance from its city limits rests a series of hills and caves that holds the beginnings of Human culture as we know it. The caves are called the “Lascaux Caves,” and within their labyrinthine halls are paintings detailing the worries and woes, the triumphs and victories of a group of people who lived tens of thousands of years ago. The people are called the Magdalenian Culture. They flourished throughout central Europe roughly fifteen thousand years ago, leaving their genetic and artistic lineage in every region from what is now Spain, all the way north-east into Poland and Russia. My trip will be a simple one, that of few luxuries. I have come to understand that I am descended from the people who occupied this area in that time, based on my genealogy. A good portion of people of European descent are, as well. The

Some of these paintings are on the ceiling, blending the ground level and ceiling above into an amphitheater-like experience. Multitudes of species lay superimposed over each other. While this was originally thought by researchers to be a way for the artist to express movement of the pack, has been shown to be the work of different artists. Radiocarbon dating has shown a change in the age of the pigment going back hundreds of years from the earliest painting. It appears that people traveled to this site repeatedly through the generations to apply new coats and new images (Noxon 34). In the main cave, there is a large outcropping of limestone that circled near the ceiling of the cave. The artists have used where this outcropping and the upper wall meet as an implied line. This line serves as the ground on which the animals run. The animals are layer upon one another in multiple scenes, also indicative of the generational use of the caves (Noxon