Famous Paintings: Cave Paintings in Chauvet, Altamira and Lascaux
Posted by Susan Benford
The discovery of cave paintings in Altamira, Spain, and in central and southern France remains one of the most momentous events in art history. With September marking the start of new beginings, I want to examine some of the earliest famous paintings in Western art history.
These earliest works are prehistoric cave paintings found in the Chauvet cave, in southwestern France. Discovered in 1994, images in the Chauvet caves include the bison, mammoth, wild horse, rhino, deer, owl, auroch (the ancestor of domestic cattle),
Big Horn Rhino, Chauvet Cave
ibex and even occasional people. It is believed that this massive network of caves was occupied by humans during two periods (the dates of which aren't unanimously agreed upon by archaeologists): the Aurignacian, some 30,000 to 32,000 years ago, and the Gravettian, 24,000 to 27,000 years ago. Radiocarbon dating indicates that Chauvet's cave paintings were created during the Aurignacian occupation; from the Gravettian occupation comes the oldest known human footprints, those of a young boy.
Spain's Altamira caves, recently dated to 12,500 BCE, typically featured paintings of bison and introduced a sculptural effect to prehistoric art. Its artists incorporated the irregularities and protrusions in the cave's walls and ceilings into their designs, making the paintings appear three dimensional and moving. The Altamira cave painters are also noted for their highly realistic depictions, rendered using three hues of natural pigments like ochre and zinc oxides.
Bison, Altamira Caves
Although the Altamira Caves were discovered in 1879, their paintings were dismissed as inauthentic on the grounds that "primitive" people could not paint so brilliantly. Not until 1902 -- at which time other cave paintings had been discovered in northern Spain and France - was Altamira's famous artwork deemed prehistoric.
The most complicated cave paintings known are found in Lascaux, in the Dordogne region of southern France. These caves - with an astonishing array of 600 caves paintings and 1500 engravings - were discovered in 1940 by four teenagers, Marcel Ravisdat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel and Simon Coencas.
Discoverers Jacques Marsal and Marcel Ravidat with Abbe Breuil and teacher Mr. Laval at the entrance of the cave. In recounting his first glimpse of the cave paintings, Marsal described a "cavalcade of animals larger than life painted on the walls and ceiling of the cave; each animal seemed to be moving." Unlike other caves in which prehistoric art had been created, Lascaux has a protective layer of chalk which rendered the cave waterproof, preserving the cave paintings for millenia.
Lascaux Caves, Great Hall of the Bulls. As with Altamira's cave art, the Lascaux painters also incorporated the protrusions inherent in the walls. Subject matter included the ibex, auroch, bear and feline, whose most distinctive characteristics were exaggerated - these animals' eyes, hooves and horns are depicted simultaneously from the front and in profile. I'm reminded
Pablo Picasso, Girl Before a Mirror. Oil on canvas, 1932. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
of this simultaneity captured centuries later in Picasso's famous painting, Girl Before a Mirror.
During World War II, the Altamira caves were used by the French Resistance to store weapons. Opened to the public in 1948, these cave paintings rapidly became one of France's most popular tourist destinations. Carbon dioxide exhalations, humidity, and contaminants from outside the cave environment triggered disintegration of the precious paintings. The caves were closed to the public in 1963. This video, though, shows close-ups of the Lascaux cave paintings, and is as close as possible art history fans can now get. Enjoy!