Reindeer in Lascaux.
It has long been held that in prehistoric rock art there is no “art for
art’s sake,” meaning that art was created for a reason other than purely
decorative or aesthetic. Whether or not that is always true is a subject for another
time, but there is one implication of this that I want to discuss. It is that
if the art is for another reason than “art’s sake” it is probably not done
subject to the same motives that drive a modern artist, particularly a desire
to maximize the impact of the image by adjusting elements to attract attention
and focus. In other words I, as the artist, attempt to control my image to elicit the most
emotional effect from the viewer. This does not always provide an entirely realistic
record as I make adjustments to the reality that I see to create the effects I
desire. If this is not the motive of the prehistoric artist then we might
suspect that in many ways their imagery is actually more realistic or accurate
in detail than my modern counterpart would be.
Aurochs from Lascaux with raised right front foot.
This was indeed the conclusion found in a 2009 study by
Gabor Horvath, a researcher from Eotvos University in Hungary, reported on LiveScience by Stephanie Pappas. They found that "cavemen, or people living during the upper Paleolithic
period between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago, were more accurate in
their depictions of four-legged animals walking than artists are
today. While modern artists portray these animals walking incorrectly 57.9
percent of the time, prehistoric cave painters only made mistakes 46.2 percent
of the time.”
(Pappas 2012)
“Observing carefully, scientists
found that “four-legged animals walk by moving their legs in the same sequence.
First, the left-hind foot hits the ground, then the left-front foot, followed
by the right hind-foot and finally the right front-foot. Only the speed at
which four-legged animals complete this sequence differs. But this simple gait
often escapes the notice of artists.” (Pappas 2012)
Gabor
and his researchers, “found that 63.6
percent of the animals depicted in anatomy textbooks were drawn in impossible
gaits. Half of toy horses, lions, tigers, and other quadrupeds were also wrong.
Even depictions in natural history museums failed much of the time: Just over
41 percent of those showed errors.” (Pappas 2012)
Then, “Horvath and his
colleagues wanted to look at the same question over the history of art. In the
1880s, photographer Edward Muybridge used motion pictures to show
how horses and other quadrupeds really walked. This knowledge spread, so
Horvath and his colleagues split their analysis into three time
periods: prehistoric art, historical art made before Muybridge's work, and
art made after 1887, when Muybridge's work would have been public.” (Pappas 2012)
A. Horse by Leonardo da Vinci, B. Outline of Leonardo's horse,
C. One option for correcting Leonardo's horse, D. Another
option for correcting Leonardo's horse.
“The researchers plucked 1,000
examples of art from online collections, fine art books and Hungarian museums as
well as on stamps and coins. Chance alone would dictate that artists mess up
depictions of four-legged gait 73.3 percent of the time, researchers
calculated. But art produced after prehistory but before Muybridge showed more
errors than chance would allow. In fact, 83.5 percent of depictions from this
time period were wrong. The erroneous drawings even included one sketch of a
horse by Leonardo da Vinci, known for his anatomical sketches. In the sketch,
the horse has its right-hind foot and left-front foot down with its other two
feet lifted, and in an unstable position. In fact, four-legged animals keep
three legs on the ground at any given time. It’s possible that the high level
of pre-Muybridge errors may reflect artists mimicking their peers un-anatomical
work, the researchers wrote. But Paleolithic man seems to have been a keen
observer of four-footed fauna. Cave art got its depictions right about 54
percent of the time, far better than chance.” (Pappas 2012)
In
other words, according to Horvath, in Leonardo’s drawing (A) only one foot
should be lifted from the ground. Either the left-hind foot (C) or the
right-front foot (D), not both (B). Now we have to be careful to point out that
these facts refer to walking animals; trotting, galloping, or running is a
different situation entirely, but we can generally tell from a depiction
whether the animal pictured is meant to be walking or running. These situations
can be illustrated with any of a number of animal paintings from Lascaux cave
in France.
Lascaux horse showing foreshortening
in the positions of the feet.
There is,
however, another factor which Horvath apparently overlooked (or at least I did
not find it addressed in the reports about his study) - foreshortening.
Because of perspective if we look at an animal standing on its four legs and
our eye level is above the ground, the two farther legs appear to end higher up
than the nearer ones, in other words an object farther away will simply look smaller.
This is foreshortening. In many of the Lascaux painted animals illustrated we
can imagine a ground plane in which a foot that is drawn higher on the rock
would actually be portraying a situation where the foot is solidly implanted on
the ground but demonstrating foreshortening. This can be seen as a possibility
in many of the animals portrayed in Lascaux and other caves, as well as in more
recent examples of art, and if Horvath and his team did not take it into account
their results could be incomplete. In other words, more of the animals in
Paleolithic cave paintings would be standing in correct stances than Horvath
recorded.
Otherwise,
the art done by artists in our western cultural heritage is often wrong in
anatomical details that Paleolithic artist more often got correct. This
analysis can be seen as backing up the supposition that there is no “art for
art’s sake” in rock art as they were supposedly not making alterations to
enhance the drama or beauty of their images.
REFERENCES:
Pappas,
Stephanie, Senior writer,
2012 Cavemen Trump Modern Artists at Drawing Animals,
LiveScience, 12/5/2012.
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