2023-05-12 22:03:53
20,000 years ago, people painted the animals that ensured their survival in the Ice Age landscape: with perspective, proportion and in motion.
Visitors in the exhibition center after walking through the impressive 1:1 replica of the Lascaux Cave. The original is not accessible for its protection.Maritta Tkalec
“Who are we?” asks Voice from the Dark at the end of a haunting film that concludes the visit to Lascaux Caves in Perigord, France. With this pounding question in their heads, modern man leaves after two hours the world of the ancestors, who populated the Auvergne hills more than 20,000 years ago and created works of art in a grotto in the limestone mountain that still take your breath away today. who were they how did they live Why did you paint more than 2000 animal figures, some of them life-size, in the dark? And what does that have to do with us?
The wild horses, aurochs, cattle, and deer are not simply painted on schematically. Their creators knew the art of perspective and managed to achieve perfect proportions. By superimposing drawings, it is possible to show movement, for example of necks. Painted cinema, 20,000 years old. All cows are red, the bulls are black. An unborn foal is hidden in the body of a horse. Stories are told here that we cannot quite interpret. Why are all 365 horses running in the direction of the cave exit and the other animals in?
Airbrush is a Stone Age invention!
These Stone Age people were not shaggy clumsy creatures, the Cro-Magnon-Humans, who settled the Ice Age-tundra-like landscape and got along with icy winters and very short summers, were tall, athletic and hunted their food – probably for this reason they did not immortalize any plants in the cave, but their food animals and only very few predators such as bears or big cats. The painting tools too: animal hair brushes and bird bone tubes for blowing up paint – airbrushing is a Stone Age invention!
The Lascaux Cave has been used for thousands of years; animals that are constantly being added do not completely cover up the older ones. Something always remains visible. Contour carvings testify to the attempt to hold the work permanently.
The only human representation in the Lascaux cave is particularly mysterious: a man with a bird’s head and an erect penis and a dying bullMaritta Tkalec
In the most hidden part of the cave, at a depth of eight meters, is the only depiction of a human being: a man with a bird’s head and an erect penis. He is part of a scene that appears aggressive: to his right is a bison with a spear across its abdomen. What do the lines oozing out from below represent: blood pouring out, entrails coming out? Was there a fight or did a ritually sacrificed animal die?
Between the animals you can see hundreds of strange signs – rectangles divided by lines into segments, some of which are colored differently. Some researchers recognize this as a sign of belonging to a clan. Some kind of coat of arms. Nobody can say exactly what message the many rows of points convey.
These people were like us – physically and intellectually. They dealt with the really important thing: their basic food supply in rough times. Without meat, bones, hides and skins of horses, bison, deer, there is no survival.
There is no doubt that they were superior to us, because they were able to cope with living conditions in which modern man would inevitably fail because he had given up knowledge that was essential for survival. And they brought about stunning cultural achievements. The hubris of the sophisticated vanishes in the face of such places. The question changes: “Who are we anyway?”
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