ORGANIZING PATTERNS IN CAVE PAINTING?

Horse, bison and reindeer, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

From the discovery of the painted caves of Europe (and the eventual acceptance of their authenticity) people have been trying to reason out a meaning for these images. Of course, one of the first theories posited to explain them was hunting magic, the idea that creating the image of a game animal would improve one’s chances of success in the hunt. Another way of looking at this art was to attempt organizational analysis, what would be called ‘design’ in art history.

In ‘The Hunters of Prehistory’, in 1989, Andre Leroi-Gourhan wrote “it is certain that the men of the Upper Paleolithic had a highly developed system of beliefs, expressed in symbolic images related to the world of hunting. It was long believed that the animals represented prey, whose portrait was ‘killed’, and so, by magic, the animal itself. The detailed study of some one hundred ornamented caves in France and Spain revealed that, although the caves don’t follow the rules of modern composition and perspective, the positions of the images could not be explained solely by chance.” (Leroi-Gourhan 1989:137-138)

Horses and bison, Ekain, Spain. Image from Leroi-Gourhan, 1989, page 139. Image clarified by chatGPT.

When interest turned to the design of the painted panels (their patterning) relationships between various species have been posited and expressed. “The list of animals represented on walls is shorter than for those depicted on bone artifacts. On walls horse-bison plus ibex is the most widely distributed assemblage. Horse and bison (or auroch) make up the basic formula, but examples of just these two species are rare. In ond case, the figures are located face to face on two walls.” (Leroi-Gourhan 1989:140) So here is posited a relationship between animal imagery that leads to design decisions on placement.

Horse, auroch, lion and reindeer, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

Other species are assigned places in these assumed relationships as well. “The most dangerous animals – bear, large felines and rhinoceros – have positions at the edge of the engraved panels (Les Trois-Freres), in the grouping farthest away from the entrance (Lascaux), or simply at the end of the grouping (Labastide).” (Leroi-Gourhan 1989:140) In this he is leaning on a much shakier assumption, indeed, perhaps the bear, large feline and rhinoceros are the important groupings, and the other animals grouped somewhere away from them.

What seems to have been missing in these analyses is any indication of the painting style of individual animals. In some cases the hand of the artist is recognizable in a group of animals, but in other instances animals in close proximity may have been done by different hands at different times. This would make it somewhat harder to state a certain relationship between animals. Different minds and different artists may not see the supposed rules quite the same way. In other words, I might paint the bison here just because I want the bison here, irrespective of other animals in its vicinity.

Horses, aurochs, and reindeer, Lascaux Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

A new study, and statistical analysis, of painted caves in France, Spain, and Italy has come out with conclusions that re-open the arguments about intentional groupings of painted subjects.

“Taken together, the network-based results support the existence of an underlying organizational grammar governing the combination and distribution of themes in Magdalenian cave art. This structure operates at multiple, interrelated levels: through recurrent thematic associations within panels; through hierarchical differentiation, whereby certain motifs occupy structurally central positions; and through spatial patterning, expressed in the uneven distribution and reiteration of motifs across compositional units. Within this framework, large herbivores—particularly bison, horse, and ibex—emerge as key organizing themes, while other motifs appear to fulfill more contextual or articulatory roles.” (Intxaurbe 2026)

“These findings are consistent with long-standing structural interpretations of Upper Paleolithic parietal art and extend them by demonstrating their statistical robustness within an expanded, systematically documented, and partly unpublished corpus. The minimum spanning tree analysis further refines this picture by identifying bison as the primary structuring node of the thematic hierarchy. This configuration closely matches patterns previously described for both Cantabrian and Pyrenean contexts and gains particular significance in the Basque region, which occupies an intermediate geographical and cultural position between these areas. However, sensitivity analyses indicate that the precise hierarchical ordering may vary depending on the inclusion or exclusion of specific categories or assemblages, with ibex or horse occasionally occupying the most central position. This variability does not undermine the overall structure; rather, it suggests the existence of a stable triadic core—bison, horse, and ibex—whose internal ordering remains flexible. The recurrence of this triadic configuration across analytical variants supports the hypothesis of partially shared organizational principles operating within interconnected Magdalenian symbolic networks, while the shifting prominence of each element points to complementary rather than strictly hierarchical thematic roles.” (Intxaurbe 2026) This analysis has a renewed reference to Leroi-Gourhan’s bison, horse and ibex centrality.

Horses, aurochs, lion and reindeer, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

“Beyond these substantive results, this study highlights the methodological importance of grounding statistical analyses of Paleolithic art in empirically controlled and taphonomically assessed datasets. By integrating geoarcheological evaluation, detailed spatial documentation, and an open, reproducible computational workflow, the approach aims to minimize interpretative biases previously identified in the reuse of fragmentary or insufficiently contextualised corpora. At the same time, we deliberately refrain from advancing speculative interpretations concerning symbolic meaning or narrative content. While the analyses demonstrate structured organization and relational regularities, they do not—and cannot—provide direct access to the social meanings or underlying symbolic intentions.” (Intxaurbe 2026) The organizational and relational regularities mentioned may be as much an artifact of the viewer than the creator. ‘I will keep looking until I find what I want to see.’ So Intxaurbe may have covered more aspects of the subject than I am aware of. For instance, has he considered things like ratios of size of images to distances apart? Or, did he look at colors in his relational analysis?

Horses, aurochs and reindeer, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

With an admirable lack of hubris, Intxaurbe offers his work as a tool or an approach to aid others. He is not claiming to have solved everything.

“Rather than offering definitive interpretations, this work should be understood as a methodological contribution and an invitation to further comparative research. More broadly, the approach offers a formal tool for investigating the internal organization of symbolic systems and is therefore potentially relevant to adjacent fields such as epigraphy, paleography, or historical linguistics, where co-occurrence and combinatorial structure play a central role. The accumulation of comparable, well-documented datasets and the adoption of shared analytical frameworks represent the most promising path toward refining our understanding of Paleolithic graphic systems.” (Intxaurbe 2026) There is, indeed, much truth to this. There are great portions of the paper by Intxaurbe that are based upon mathematics and statistical analysis, and I confess that I cannot understand much of that. An education in traditional art history does not include any of these concepts. I point this out to say that he may cover certain aspects of this subject that my reading of his study did not give me insight to.

I will not argue with these findings because, to a certain extent, I can believe that this may be true for certain cave artists, at certain times and in a certain place. My objection is the old one that having found something that works in interpreting or analyzing an example of rock art it becomes the only explanation considered. I have also frequently referred to my skepticism about analyses proven by statistics, especially when the data has to be massaged to get to the end result sought for – ‘I want to find this so I will keep massaging the data until I do.’ This is, to me, analogous to Laurenty Beria’s answer to Joseph Stalin, “show me the person and I will find the crime.”

Horses, aurochs, reindeer and rhinoceros, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

As someone who has studied art history for sixty years I am just unable to accept any ‘one answer fits all’ theory. I see no reason not to assume that one artist painted a horse on the cave wall, and fifteen years later another artist wanted to paint a bison and found a convenient spot. In such a case it would be hard for me to agree that they are there in a mutual relationship. Intxaurbe has, however, produced a piece of work that deserves serious consideration. Read his paper, and who knows, you may agree with him.

NOTE: Some images in this column were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on this you should read the original report listed below.

REFERENCES:

Intxaurbe, Iñaki, 2026, Mapping the Symbolic Structure of Palaeolithic Rock Art Using Co‑occurrence Network Analysis, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 33:4. doi:10.1007/s10816-026-09796-y. Accessed online 12 August 2026.

Leroi-Gourhan, Andre, 1989, The Hunters of Prehistory, translated byClaire Jacobson, Atheneum, New York.

CAVE ART AS A REPOSITORY FOR THE SPIRITS OF HUNTED ANIMALS:

Animal frieze from Chauvet Cave, France. Online image, public domain.

An approach that turns the old idea of cave art as ‘hunting magic’ on its head imagining the art after the fact instead of before the hunt.

“During the first half of the twentieth century Abbé Breuil’s interpretation of cave paintings as simple hunting magic prevailed. His idea was that the paintings tried to bewitch the animals to ensure success in hunting. According to French archaeologist André Leroi-Gourhan, this idea originated from some extremely rare paintings depicting wounded or speared animals in European caves. Some prehistorians believed that the depicted animals were painted to encourage fertility of the game.” (Ijäs 2017:72)

Horses and rhinoceros, Chauvet Cave, France. Online image, public domain.

Many groups of indigenous hunters feel that the animals they harvest are willingly sacrificing themselves to the hunter to provide food and raw materials for his well-being, and they have customs of thanking the animal for giving itself up. For instance there are records of Inuit hunters not only thanking the dead game animal for sacrificing itself, but also pouring a little water in its mouth to give it a drink. “When Inuit kill an animal in the traditional way, they give it a drink of water or, if there is no water, they melt snow with their mouths.” (Laugrand and Oosten 2015:210) This act is a way of giving back to the animal who gave itself up to the Inuit hunter.

Such an act of giving back illustrates the attitude of honor, respect, even kinship that an indigenous hunter feels toward his quarry. “For hunter-gatherers, occupying environments where animal protein is essential to subsist, the hunt is an act of necessity. Such events, however destructive and aggressive as they tend to be, are commonly associated not with the hunter’s sense of malice, disdain, or even casual disinterest, but an abiding sense of respect and honor for his prey.” (Buckner 2020)

Horses, Chauvet Cave, France. Online image, public domain.

“Respect for animals was organized by many rules that varied for each animal. Some basic principles applied to all animals. An animal should not be abused, or ridiculed. Unnecessary suffering should be avoided.” (Laugrand and Oosten 2015:66) They did not need a local chapter of the SPCA, basic human decency was apparently enough.

Among indigenous cultures, hunting is more than just a way to procure meat. Hunting also has deeply meaningful cultural and spiritual significance governing the relationships of the hunter to the animals he is pursuing.

Horse, Axial Gallery, Lascaux, Image from Lewis-Williams, 2002, The Mind in the Cave, Fig. 23.

“Hunting is not just a means of survival for indigenous peoples; it also plays a significant role in their cultural and spiritual practices. Many hunting rituals are deeply intertwined with indigenous ceremonies and belief systems. These rituals often involve prayers, songs, and offerings to show gratitude to the animals for their sacrifice. The animals are seen as kin and are honored accordingly.” (Thomas 2023) This is pretty much at the core of their culture; their ceremonies and rites are often centered on hunting success and the relationship with the animals.

The interaction of the hunter and the hunted is seen as a reciprocal relationship. “Among the Cree Indians of northern Canada, it is believed that animals intentionally present themselves to the hunters to be killed. The hunter consumes the meat, but the soul of the animal is released to be reclothed with flesh. Hunting there, as among many northern peoples, is conceived as a rite of regeneration: consumption follows killing as birth follows intercourse, and both acts are integral to the reproductive cycles, respectively, of animals and humans. However, animals will not return to hunters who have treated them badly in the past. One treats an animal badly by failing to observe the proper, respectful procedures in the process of butchering, consumption and disposal of the bones, or by causing undue pain and suffering to the animal in killing it.” (Ingold 1994:9) So, the hunter not only has to behave correctly in respect to the animal he is hunting, the animal’s soul also has to be given due respect in order for the compact between hunter and prey to be properly fulfilled.

Auroch, horses and deer, Lascaux Cave, France, Online image, public domain.

“The animals in the environment of the hunter do not simply go their own way, but are supposed to act with the hunter in mind. They are not just ‘there’ for the hunter to find and take as he will, rather they present themselves to him. The encounter, then, is a moment in the unfolding of a continuing – even lifelong – relationship between the hunter and the animal kind (of which every particular individual encountered is a specific instance). The hunter hopes that by being good to animals, they in turn will be good to him.” (Ingold 1994:14-15) In other words, it is a reciprocal relationship with both human society and the animals having roles to play, and if the roles are played well success is expected to follow.

“For many Native Americans, the act of hunting was about more than just acquiring food. It was a way to connect with the natural world and to show respect for the animals that were being hunted. Hunting was also a way to teach young people about the ways of their culture and to instill in them the values of their people. ‘We should be grateful for the gift of the animals because they were created to feed the Anishnaabe people, giving them strength.’ It was important for hunters to pray and express gratitude when they took the life of an animal, as taking that life would allow them to feed their own families.” (Mika 2023)

For the Anishnaabe people “They believed that the animals were created to feed the Anishnaabe people, to give us strength, and we should be thankful for that gift. It was very important for the hunter to pray and give thanks when taking the life of an animal, as taking that life meant that he could feed his own family. It was also said that if we stopped hunting and fishing, that we were no longer grateful for the gifts that the creator had given us – therefore it is an act of cultural tradition to not only hunt and fish, but to give thanks by placing sacred medicines when an animal life has been taken for the survival of the tribe.” (Tribal Trade Co. 2020)

Aurochs, horses and deer, Lascaux Cave, France, Online image, public domain.

“The Native American Hunting Practices are based on the unity of nature and humans. They recognize that nature is not only a sustainer of life, but it is also an essential part of human beings. Also, hunting is a way of life and a sacred act of honoring the animal’s spirit. However, with the encroachment of colonization, these practices were misunderstood, exploited, and became a pain point for Native Americans.The primary aim of Native American Hunting Practices was to provide food for the community while ensuring that every part of the animal was utilized to avoid wastage. The practice was done in reverence for the animal’s life and the understanding that its sacrifice would provide for the community.” (Justo 2023)

To the north Inuit beliefs were much the same. “Many Inuit believed that animals offered themselves to the hunter in order to be killed. If the animals were hunted they would multiply; if they were not hunted, they would feel neglected and disappear. - Animals were thus often described as giving themselves to the hunters who would make good use of their meat.” (Laugrand and Oosten 2015:41)

Among the Inuit again “When departing from a hunting area the heads of the caribou must always face in the direction in which the party is setting out. The soul of the animals slain will then follow the same course and good hunting will result.” (Laugrand and Oosten 2015:241)

The Inuit believe that the game animals want to give themselves to the hunter. By doing so their soul is released to be, in effect, reborn. A hunter who passes up an opportunity to harvest a game animal risks insulting it and being shunned by all game thereafter. “Killing game is not only a necessity to survive, it is also an obligation placed upon the hunter by the animals themselves. Hunting is not a matter of choice, but a moral obligation one cannot escape. Only by hunting can the Inuit as well as the animals prosper. (Laugrand and Oosten 2015:343)

While most of the examples I have cited refer to Native American or Inuit peoples, the situation is essentially the same among indigenous people worldwide. The relationship between hunter and hunted is one of respect, often even courtesy. And, if the proper attitude and rituals are maintained, the soul of the animal is freed to be reborn, to come back to the hunter again in the future. In the Inuit belief, the soul of a sea mammal such as seal or walrus that is killed returns to Sedna, the ‘Sea Woman’ to wait for its rebirth.

So, to return to the proposition that the cave art might have been produced after the successful hunt instead of before it, there could be a couple of motives involved. The first, of course, might be bragging rights, to commemorate the success of a difficult hunt. The cave picture might have been the visual equivalent of a fisherman’s tale. The second might well have been to serve as a repository for the soul of that animal until it can be reborn. In a number of ways this would seem to make more sense than the “Increase Theory” of hunting magic, that multiplying images of a certain animal would result in the increase of the numbers of the actual animal in the landscape.  Keeping in mind that for many indigenous peoples the soul of an animal taken by a hunter will recycle, will be reborn as a new animal if treated properly and with respect. What if, after a successful hunt, the hunter returned and produced the picture of the animal on a cave or cliff wall to provide a repository for the soul of his dead prey until it could be reborn. In the same way that the soul of an Inuit hunter’s sea mammal victim returned to Sedna to await rebirth, then, the animals, knowing their souls would be provided for, would be more likely to be willing to give themselves to him in the future. The artist would then be part of the natural recycling of the soul of this animal. This could also an explanation for the palimpsests of large numbers of some animal images, each soul would need a new representation. Finally, this also might explain the spiritual and ritual nature of cave art.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on this subject you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Buckner, William, 2020, The Psychic Toll of Severing the Hunter-Prey Relationship, 14 October 2020, Nautilus, https://nautil.us. Accessed online 20 April 2024.

Ijäs, Mikko, 2017, Fragments of the Hunt, Persistence Hunting, Tracking and Prehistoric Art, Doctoral Thesis, School of Arts, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland.

Ingold, Tim, 1994, From Trust to Donimation, An alternative history of human-animal relations, pp.1-22, in Animals and Human Society, Changing Perspectives, Audrey Manning and James Serpell (editors), 1994 Rutledge, New York.

Justo, 2023, Exploring Traditional Native American Hunting Practices: A Cultural Legacy, 31August 2023, https://nativetribe.info. Accessed online 20 April 2024.

Laugrand, Frederic, and Jarich Oosten, 2015, Hunters, Predators and Prey, Inuit Perceptions of Animals, Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford.

Mika, 2023, The Sacredness of Hunting in Native American Culture, 1 March 2023, https://www.indiancountryextension.org. Accessed online 17 April 2024.

Thomas, Connor, 2023, Exploring Hunting Traditions of Indigenous Peoples, 11 September 2023, https://www.findahunt.com. Accessed online 15 October 2023.

Tribal Trade Co., 2020, Cultural Traditions of Native American Hunting & Gathering, April 2020, https://tribaltradeco.com. Accessed online 17 April 2024.

ARE SHADOWS PORTRAYED IN ROCK ART? THEY ARE CERTAINLY IMPLIED IN CAVE ART:

The philosophical search for shadows and the question of their existence in rock art:

Aurochs, horse and deer, Lascaux Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

The idea for this began with an article from the online site JSTOR Daily dated 1 December 2021, by Roy Sorensen titled "Do We Actually See Shadows?"

Sorensen approached this as a philosophical question beginning with Fridugisus of Tours in the 8th century who wrote "a short treatise which deals with the nature of nothing and darkness. The epistle was written probably during the author's residence at Tours. It is addressed "to all the faithful and to those who dwell in the Sacred Palace of the most serene prince Charles (Charlemagne). It dealt with the question, are nothing and darkness real things? (Some suggest that this was inspired by the Biblical use of the words in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis). If the Bible uses the words 'nothing' and 'darkness', it seemed that there must be things corresponding to those words. Fridugisus accepts this answer and defends it both by arguments from authority and by arguments from reason." (Wikipedia)  Is nothing or nothingness a real thing, and is darkness a real thing in and of itself"

Sorensen, in effect, was asking that if a shadow is composed of the absence of light, how can we see the presence of the absence of something? In other words, we see because of the light illuminating the things around us. How can we see something it is not illuminating? He goes to considerable historical detail referencing, among others, Plato's "Allegory of the Cave." He brings in the Metaphysical with the question if you spin a ball does the shadow of the ball spin?" Some say "yes." but can you see the shadow spinning?

Sorensen gets deeper with this but what drew my attention was his reference to Medieval artists who did not paint shadows. He stated "Shadows were fringe phenomena in the Dark Ages. They are rarely depicted in the era's paintings. Perhaps the artists portrayed only what they believed to be visible." (Sorensen 2021)  This can be checked and I did so, searching online for public domain medieval paintings.

The Trinity (detail) in Saint Augustine’s City of God”, about 1440–50, Master of the Oxford Hours. Tempera colors, gold and silver paint, and ink on parchment, 14 ¼ x 10 ¾ in. (36.2 x 27.3 cm). The J. Paul Getty Museum.

A few, very faint traces of shadows beneath the figures. Shading on the figures, yes, but they cast no shadows in their environment.

“Saint Martin Dividing His Cloak” in the Prayer Book of Charles the Bold, 1469, Lieven van Lathem, made in Ghent and Antwerp. The J. Paul Getty Museum.

Likewise, shading within the elements of the painting, but no cast shadows.

Medieval women hunting. Internet image, public domain.

And again, no shadows cast by the women and their dogs in the environment.

Now since I warp everything toward the question of how it applies to rock art I began looking for examples of rock art that somehow portrayed shadows. I looked at examples from literally all over the world (my photos, books, online) but could find no instances of what can be identified as a shadow. Then I remembered that I had done a column on counter-shading on the images of horses in European Cave Art back in January 2022, so I went back to my own notes.

Torch illuminating a cave. Image from Medina-Alcaide et al., 16 June 2021.

In looking at my file for that article I found the paper by a team of Spanish researchers on cave lighting. This simple, but clever, experiment used a variety of sources of fire to illuminate a cave, one of which was a hand-held torch. Others were things like small fires on the floor of the cave and animal fat lamps. To my way of thinking the hand-held torch would give the most dramatic effect.

I started looking at the Paleolithic paintings of animals in European Caves, such at Lascaux, Chauvette, Les Trois-Freres, and Tito Bustillo and found shadows under the animals, but not shadows painted by the cave artists. Now the nature of torch light is that it acts much like a point source and, depending on how high you hold it, the irregularities of the stone wall in a cave will have shadows of their own underneath any change of contour in the surface.

Horses and Aurochs, Lascaux Cave, France. Early Magdanenian period (17,000 BCE). Internet image, public domain.

The first image I noticed this effect on is this one from Lascaux. The small horse on the left and the Aurochs have their hooves approximately on the upper edge of the shadow on the cave wall. And once I saw this, examples started jumping out at me all over the place. It must be remembered, these are not shadows created by the artist or image maker, they are shadows on the cave wall created by the angle the light of the torch is falling from, but the image maker has used them cleverly to create the desired effect. Other effects that visually approximate shadows under animals painted on cave walls can be color change in the stone wall, and/or other sources of discoloration. And not all are done this way, indeed most panels also have animals that are not standing on shadows, but it turned out a surprising number are.

Aurochs, Horses, and Deer, Lascaux Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

There were a great number of examples from Lascaux Cave in France. In this one we see horses, aurochs, and a deer with their feet on the top edge of the shadow on the cave wall.

Aurochs, Lascaux Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

Horse, Lascaux Cave, France. Internet image, public domain.

In some examples the shadow seems to be the result of a color change in the stone surface. Also, we need to keep in mind that these modern photographs were made in lighting that is as even as possible to show up the images, not to accentuate shadows underneath them.

 

Horse and two superimposed mammoths, Chauvet Cave, France. Illustration from Jean-Marie Chauvet, et al., 1996, “Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave.

Although this is not a strong example we can see the break in the cave wall underneath thehorse and mammoths and it would be shadow under the right lighting conditions.

Mammoth, Chauvet Cave, France. Illustration from Jean-Marie Chauvet, et al., 1996, “Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave, p. 58.

Owl, Les Trois Freres Cave, France. 15k BP. Illustration from Paul Bahn and Jean Vertut, “Journey Through the Ice Age,” fig. 10.24, p. 155.

Horse, Tito Bustillo Cave, Spain. Ca. 25k BP. Bahn, Paul, and Jean Vertut, 1997, “Journey Through The Ice Age,” University of California Press, Berkley, California.

From these various illustrations, and from various ages and locations, we see that this design factor was used across a large geographic area and for a very long time. The fact that it is associated with a large number of different animals also is a strong suggestion that it is not just associated stylistically with aurochs, or horses, etc., but that it may indeed have been the simulation of the creature's shadow that was the goal.

So, is this a real phenomenon? Well yes, it is real in that we have seen it exists. But was the placement of animals so that they are standing on a shadow, or an area of color change in the stone intentional, or a coincidence? That is to be decided in the future, probably with a whole lot of arguing involved. But, I will end with this, the cave artists were certainly intelligent and sophisticated enough to have done this intentionally.

NOTE 1: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

NOTE 2: This paper was presented at the 2023 IFRAO (International Federation of Rock Art Organizations) Rock Art Symposium, Valcamonica, Italy, by the author on 27 May 2023.

REFERENCES:

Medina-Alcaide et al., 16 June 2021, “The conquest of the dark spaces: An experimental approach to lighting systems in Paleolithic caves”, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0250497 (Public Library of Science)

Sorenson, Roy, 1 December 2021, “Do We Actually See Shadows?”, https://daily.jstor.org/ (short for Journal Storage).

Illustration credits:

Illustrations 1 – 9 are Public Domain images from online.

Illustrations 10 – 11: Jean-Marie Chauvet, et al., 1996, “Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave (The Oldest Known Paintings in the World)”, H. N. Abrams, New York.  

Illustrations 12 - 13: Bahn, Paul, and Jean Vertut, 1997, “Journey Through The Ice Age,” University of California Press, Berkley, California.

ROCK ART APPRECIATION:

Horses, aurochs, and rhinoceroses, Chauvet Cave, France. Photograph worldhistory.org.

As an Art Historian, the subject of Art Appreciation is always there, part of the consideration for any creative construct. Of course, in order to appreciate art we have to have art and a great deal of nonsense is presented about how rock art is not really art. I have addressed that question numerous times and will not rehash my previous arguments. Instead, I will quote from the great anthropologist Ashley Montagu, whose 1957 book “Man: His First Million Years” addressed the question beautifully. “Those pursuits in which the imagination is chiefly engaged, in giving form and meaning to materials with which one works, are known as arts. In this sense arts are probably very old. There is no known people that is without them – drawing, painting, carving, sculpture, music, poetry, storytelling, and the dance.” (Montagu 1957: 215)

Close-up of horses, aurochs, and rhinoceroses, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet photograph, public domain.

As for the motives behind the creation of the images, Montagu agreed with the prevailing theories of the day, that hunting magic of some sort would have been the primary reason the imagery was produced. “Why did these people of Aurignacian culture make the wall paintings in uninhabitable caves, and in the darkest and most inaccessible recesses of these? The most likely answer is that they made them for magical purposes and not in order to decorate the caves. The animals shown on the roofs and walls of these caves are often represented as pierced by spears and arrows. One makes as naturalistic a model as one can of the animal one hopes to kill, and then kills it in effigy; as one does to the drawing of the animal – accompanied by the proper incantations – so one will do in fact to the real animal. One has but to wish in the ritually acceptable manner and one will succeed. Hunting scenes abound in these cave drawings and paintings, and there can be very little doubt that this art, at any rate, was devoted principally to the practical purpose of securing success in the hunt. This does not mean that the artist did not obtain some esthetic pleasure from his achievement, but it does mean that love of beauty was not the principal purpose.” (Montagu 1957:217)

Ceiling of the bulls, Altamira Cave, Spain. Internet photograph, public domain.

“That the artist took pride in his accomplishment and was encouraged to do so is indicated by several facts. In the first place, the skill exhibited by these artists takes a certain amount of training. That such training was available from different centers is testified to by the fact that preliminary sketches on stone of certain animals have been found several hundred miles away from the caves in which the finished polychromes occur. In 1926 an engraving on limestone was found in the half-cave at Geniere in France. This was immediately recognized to be the sketch for the very individually painted polychrome of an old bison on the wall of the cave at Font-de-Gaume, in the Dordogne, some two hundred miles away.” (Montagu 1957: 217-219)

Although Montagu does not mention it, this practicing quite possibly implies instruction in the art form. One does not start with a Masterpiece, there is a learning process, usually through previous practice, or possibly a period of training such as apprenticeship. I have argued in the past that evidence for apprenticeship can be found in rock art images found in high locations that display perspective anamorphosis (elongation to make the image look correct when viewed from an angle – see “anamorphosis” in the RockArtBlog index at the bottom of the column). I do not believe that one goes to these lengths of practice and training to not seek the approval, indeed appreciation, of their results from their reference group, tribe or clan. This anamorphosis may be either the result of someone (the apprentice) up on a scaffold taking directions from someone (the master) down below who is looking up at some extreme angle, or a purposeful design feature meant to make the proportions look correct from the viewpoint of an audience down below and looking up (I do admit the possibility that the proportion of the image could be done that way purposefully without anamorphosis being the aim). But the key concept here is that there was an audience – appreciating the art.

Megaloceros giganteus, Lascaux Cave. France. Internet photograph, public domain.

“Obviously artists who could paint as well as Aurignacian and Magdalenian cave artists must have taken great esthetic pleasure in accomplishing their work, whether inside or outside a cave. It is therefore unnecessary, as some have done, to argue that the first drawings and paintings were made only for magical purposes, only for a practical purpose, and not from the sheer pleasure derived from doing something for its own sake – and doing it as well as possible.” (Montagu 1957:219-220) Indeed, the personal satisfaction of creating something is very compelling, but as I said above, I believe that the creators were also seeking the approval of their peers. This is, by definition, Art Appreciation. Now I certainly do not believe that the images were produced as “art for art’s sake,” just to entertain others. But I do believe that appreciating the images was a part of the experience that accompanied the primary motive for their creation whether “hunting magic” or something else.

Boar, Altamira Cave, Spain. Internet photograph, public domain.

Coincidentally, while I was writing this my May/June 2022 issue of Current World Archaeology magazine arrived with an op/ed by Neil Faulkner (who I am sorry to say is deceased) on “Interpreting Art.” In this, Faulkner, was expressing concern with the use of terms from Art History or Art Appreciation in describing objects instead of using phraseology that he seemingly believes have “real” meaning (archaeological terminology no doubt).

“Art can be hugely important in offering insight into the thought worlds of past people. So we have to take interpretation seriously. And that requires us to try to situate the art in the context of contemporary belief and ritual. So this – an example taken at random – will not do: ‘Cave painting is considered one of the first expressions of the human animal’s appreciation of beauty and a representation of a mystic or sacred side to life.’ I have no idea what is meant by an ‘appreciation of beauty.’ It is one of those trite phrases you find repeated a million times in art books. As for a ‘representation of a mystic or sacred side to life,’ does this not beg the question: what is this side of life, and why bother to represent it at all? Cave art can attract nonsense – nonsense which dissolves as soon as one thinks about it critically. One example is the claim that paintings of animals were teaching aids for apprentice hunters. The best way to learn practical skills – as we all know – is to practice on the real thing. You learn how to hunt – probably from a very early age – by joining older family members on a real hunt. It used to be said that when archaeologists cannot explain something, they claim ‘ritual use.’ So perhaps it has become too tame and unimaginative to say that a prehistoric painting of a bison, or a Greek sculpture of a goddess, or a medieval religious fresco were for ritual use. But they were.” (Faulkner 2022:65)

Bison, Chauvet Cave, France. Internet photograph, public domain.

And again:“Archaeologists should beware of lazy and pretentious interpretations of art derived from modern and highly misleading concept of ‘fine art.’” (Faulkner 2022:65) For the record I have never said that rock art represented “fine art” in Faulkner’s use of the term.

If I correctly interpret the intent of Faulkner’s editorial, it is to express the feeling that art historians sometimes try to hide a lack of real knowledge with the use of grand phraseology. On February 22, 2020, I wrote an editorial on RockArtBlog titled “A Case of Hypervocabulitis – Using Big Words to Sound Impressive.” In this I described the recent experience of reading a book by an archaeologist which was crammed full of exactly this type of terminology, and I coined the phrase hypervocabulitis to describe it. The examples I gave from that volume off of a handful of pages included “Androcentrism, Commodification, Decontextualization, Emic/Etic, Hegemonic masculinity, Indeterminancy, Intersectionality, Polysemy and Semiotic.” Now, admittedly, these words do have meanings, but there are much easier and clearer ways to phrase those meanings, and I, as an Art Historian, pointed that out in the context of a book written by an Archaeologist. So back at you Faulkner!

In the words of the great Mark Twain referring to commentators on research into the civilizations of Pre-Columbian America, “The researches of many commentators have already thrown much darkness on this subject, and it is probable that, if they continue, we shall soon know nothing at all about it.” (www.jimpoz.com) I believe we know exactly what he was talking about.

So to sum up, yes there was Art Appreciation in the history of rock art, from Cave Painting right on down to historic times. I have admired certain rock art panels, you have too. Whenever someone said, or even thought, that the creator of an image did a good job on it, that was by definition Art Appreciation. And I will bet that they managed to do it without the hypervocabulitis that too many modern commentators, including archaeologists, employ to impress their audiences. Montagu did not, my favorite writers do not, and I don’t either.

NOTE: Images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Faris, Peter, 2020, A Case of Hypervocabulitis – Using Big Words to Sound Impressive, 22 February 2020, https://rockartblog.blogspot.com/2020/02/

Faulkner, Neil, 2022, Culture Thinking Aloud: On Interpreting Art, Current World Archaeology, Issue 112, April/May 2022, Vol. 10, No. 4, p. 65

Jim’s Favorite Famous Quote, Quip, Axiom and Maxim Repository, https://www.jimpoz.com/quotes/Speaker:Mark_Twain, accessioned 20 February 2020.

Montagu, Ashley, 1957, Man: His First Million Years, The World Publishing Company, Cleveland and New York.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF PERSPECTIVE ANAMORPHOSIS IN ROCK ART – THE LASCAUX RED BULL:

Three Kings panel, McConkey Ranch, Vernal, Utah. Photograph Peter Faris, September 1990.

I have discussed the subject of anamorphosis previously on RockArtBlog. According to Wikipedia “Anamorphosis is a distorted projection requiring the view(er) to occupy a specific vantage point - to view a recognizable image. - The word is derived from the Greek prefix ana-, meaning ‘back’ or ‘again’, and the word morphe, meaning ‘shape’ or ‘form’.” (Wikipedia)

Proportions of central figure of Three Kings panel showing that it is eight heads in height (normal proportion should be six-and-a-half to seven). Peter Faris.

On 23 April 2009, in “Portraiture in Rock Art”, I wrote about the central figure in the Three-Kings panel, McConkey Ranch, north of Vernal, Utah, “This figure also displays another interesting detail. When seen from the ground below the figure appears in normal proportion. When observed from a vantage point near its height the figure is seen to be vertically elongated out of proportion (as seen in the photo above). I enjoy imagining a Fremont Indian artist and his young apprentice creating the portrait of an important man of the band or tribe. The young apprentice forced to climb the rocky crag with his tools and materials where he took direction from the master who stayed down on the ground below shouting to him to "make that line higher, no, a little down from there." The result appears in realistic proportion from below on the ground, but is elongated vertically when viewed from a raised viewpoint.” (Faris 2009)

I revisited this subject in “Perspective Anamorphosis – An Example In Rock Art,” on 22 June 2013, where I again included the above quote.

The red aurochs in the Megaloceros Room, Lascaux cave, France. Photograph by Norbert Aujoulat, from donsmaps.com.

Apparently the artists of the painted caves in Europe had discovered the optical distortions of angle and distance on an image and also used anamaphosis to counter them. “When our ancestors painted beautiful works of art, were they intending them to be viewed by others, or did they just paint for their own pleasure? The Lascaux caves in the Dordogne region of France, may have the answer. There you can see a painting of a red cow with a black head high on one of the walls. Up close the cow appears to be stretched from head to toe, but when viewed from the ground the cow regains normal proportions. This technique, known as anamorphosis, is highly advanced and suggests the painter was considering his audience as he painted the cow.” (Ravilious 2010)

Closeup of the red aurochs in the Megaloceros Room, Lascaux cave, France. Internet photo, public domain.

This could, in fact, be true, the painter may have been aware of the distortion effects of angle and adjusted the image to appear correct from the floor of the cave. But, it is also possible that the anamorphosis appeared accidentally as I described above for the McConkey Ranch Three-Kings panel. An elderly master painter may have been directing a young apprentice high up on a scaffold painting the cow. With the master giving directions from ground level when he told the apprentice where to place the lines of the back and belly of the cow because they looked correct to the master on the ground, the anamorphosis would be automatically built in to the image. Either way, images high on cave walls (with the Lascaux red cow as our particular example) can be found which display perspective anamaphorsis, which makes the cave artists either technically highly sophisticated or the lucky recipients of a happy accident – either way with interesting results.

Lascaux replica, France, another red Aurochs. Internet photograph, public domain.

Lascaux replica, France, brown Aurochs. Photograph, Ministere de la culture, Norvert Aujoulat.

There is, however, another possibility that we have to visit. This thick bodied bovine image may be merely a stylistic choice. Indeed, other painted aurochs from Lascaux show the same features of a small head and an abnormally thick torso. But, as I said above, whatever the truth, the question is fascinating.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Ravilious, Kate, 2010, The Writing on the Cave Wall, New Scientist, 17 February 2010, https://www.sott.net/article/203166-The-writing-on-the-cave-wall

Wikipedia, Anamorphosis, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphosis, accessed on 27 February 2022