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August 17, 2004
early cave paintings
courtesy of dylan's textbook, i now have tonnes of things to read up on. one being the cave of lascaux.
facts:
- cave in south of france
- drawings are of paleolithic era
- has more than 1500 animal pictures drawn on its wall (another site says 2 to 3 thousand)
- 17,000 years old
- probably painted with grounded yellow&red ochre mixed with animal fat
- mostly paintings of bisons, horses, deer, bulls and other animals
- drawings seem to depict hunting stories, almost like a comic strip, "read" from left to right often ending when the prey is captured
- there are also engravings of animals
- lovingly named "the birthplace of animation" because of thespringing out of the paintings
- the drawings are well preserved thanks to the natural condition of the cave (i forgot whether it was the humidity or lack of).
- when the caves were open for visitors, moss started to grow over them and some of the drawings deteriorated due to increase of carbon dioxide emitted by crowds sighing and gasping over the art.
- so the caves are closed to public again
- two (or was it four?) teenagers stumbled onto the cave while they were treasure hunting in 1940
enough with facts, on to pictures. the map (kinda looks like a man poised to throw a spear aye?) of the inner caves, divided into galleries:
there are lots of pictures on the net of the paintings, here are some that i particularly like:
horse
bisons
bulls
human
this one is on the ceiling
bulls? i love the frail quality of the horns (don't start anything lame about "horny" chewa) (giggles, i love that you can't comment!)
curiousities will be a regular thing, stick around and enjoy the journey. i'll do mogao caves tomorrow if i feel like it.