Amazing virtual walkthrough of the Lascaux caves..

Since the Lascaux caves are closed to the public this is probably the closest you'll ever get to being there..

http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/#/en/00.xml

Thank you!

Thank you! I teach middle school social studies, and we study early hominids at the beginning of the year. I'm definitely going to share this with my classes. It'll be an awesome review for them this year, and of course I added it to my bookmarks for next year's classes. So cool.

I hope her teachers there are as excited about teaching her as you are with your students.

Glad to be of service to you and to our kids.

Seeing these works awakens the connection that unites the spirit of humanity.

KBR.

Radiocarbon dating of charcoal and other artifacts found in the cave complex has led most scholars to date the Lascaux paintings to c.15,000 BC, making them some of the oldest paintings in the world. The majority view is that the paintings were completed over a period of a few centuries at most, while others believe the work was carried out over a much longer period.

Given the lack of written records, the purpose of the cave paintings cannot be known for certain. However, the high quality of the work and the amount of effort involved (scaffolding must have been used to reach the highest part of the walls, for instance) suggests it was a sacred place that may have been used for rituals.

The cave complex was closed up shortly after its decoration and it remained blocked up until September 1940, when four local boys stumbled on it while looking for a dog. The site was first studied by the French archaeologist Henri Breuil (1877-1961), a renowned expert in prehistoric art.

snip

In 1983, a carefully executed replica known as Lascaux II opened to the public. Located on the same hill as the original, the replica cave took 10 years to complete. The paintings were reproduced with painstaking attention to detail by a local artist named Monique Peytral.





http://www.sacred-destinations.com/france/lascaux-caves

Thank you.

When Pablo Picasso visited the newly-discovered Lascaux caves, in the Dordogne, in 1940, he emerged from them saying of modern art, "We have discovered nothing".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1577421.stm




I came across that quote when preparing a presentation for a course "Evolution of Ideas: Art & Science" I took about 10 years ago. It was a bizarre class, full of unruly students who didn't want to be there and didn't care about the subject. It was taught by a professor who was used to teaching juniors and seniors and grad students who did care and were interested, and she had no clue how to bring these people under control. They talked on their cell phones in class, played games on the classroom computers, came and went during lectures at their pleasure. One spent most of the semester reading his Bible because he considered the art we discussed to be decadent and the science to be satanic. (And no, I'm not exaggerating.)

There were five or six of us grad students also taking the course, and we were each charged with giving a 30-60 minute presentation on one of a list of suggested topics the prof gave us. I'd always been fascinated by cave art -- even though I'm too claustrophobic to like caves -- so I chose that as my topic. I put together a powerpoint presentation with about 40 pictures from various European caves - Altamira, Pech Merle, Lascaux, Niaux, Les Eyzies, and of course Chauvet -- as well as rock art from Australia and Africa and Nevada and Ireland and Rapa Nui. In keeping with the course description of "art and science," I included information on how the various sites were discovered, preserved, and dated.

I opened with the Picasso quote and the Altamira bulls. The room went silent and stayed that way -- except for my blatherings -- for the next hour. Even the bible pages stopped turning.

The Chauvet rhino especially fascinated me. It seemed exactly like the way "we" draw cartoons with extra lines to indicate motion.



Whoever painted that long-horned rhino 25,000 or 30,000 years ago wanted to capture the power of the animal engaged in the simple act of shaking its head. I think the artist succeeded.

Thank you, fumesucker, for this link. As someone once said, "Humans don't make art; art makes humans."




Tansy Gold, who named a character in one of her books Lascaux as tribute to the cave artists

Ever read Simak's "Grotto of the Dancing Deer"?

http://www.nicholaswhyte.info/sf/gdd.htm

Haven't read the Simak. I tried to read but couldn't stand Auel's "Clan of the Cave Bear" series. I think I got through maybe 50 pages of the first book and found it impossible. I have one or maybe two of Kathy & Mike Gear's books, haven't read them either.

If there is anything to a collective unconscious or genetic memory, I think the link is through art, and through art to the imagination. It discovers us.



TG

If you read Joseph Campbell it's interesting how archetypes play out again and again in different cultures.

When there are human figures holding things such as spears, about one in ten are using the left hand, which is roughly the same percentage of left-handed people in any given population. In other words, the people may not be merely abstract representations of people, but actual portraits meant to represent specific individuals.

interview..werner herzog and the birth of art

http://www.archaeology.org/1103/features/werner_herzog_chauvet_cave_audio.html

http://www.archaeology.org/1103/features/werner_herzog_chauvet_cave_forgotten_dreams.html

this issue of archaeology is well worth looking for.


the movie will be well,like no other ever filmed.

That is just so cool. Thanks for posting this.

:kick: