Text Technology: Cave Painting
(Public Writing)
Case Study: Chauvet Caves
The Chauvet cave paintings were discovered in 1994 in Pont D’Arc in the Ardèche region of France. Estimated to be about 30,000 years old, the paintings, engravings, and drawings include images of horses, bison, owls, rhinos, and lions with some additional stylized panels. The cave system extends beyond 400 meters and can be compared to the Lascaux caves and other major European prehistoric sites. The images make use of the cave wall to create shadow and a 3D effect. It is thought that the paint, made from natural pigments, was applied using moss or hair mats and some appears to have been applied by blowing through a straw.
~ Dr. Elaine Treharne
~ Dr. Elaine Treharne
Bibliography
(read and watch the embedded video) Azéma, Marc and Rivère, Florent. “Animation in Paleolithic Art: a pre-echo of cinema.” http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/086/ant0860316.htm
Bower, Bruce. “Stone Age Art Gets Animated.” http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/341206/description/Stone_Age_art_gets_animated
Clottes, Jean. "Chauvet Cave (ca. 30,000 B.C.)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/chav/hd_chav.htm (October 2002)
(watch trailer and clilp) Herzog, Werner. Cave of Forgotten Dreams. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1664894/
Tedesco, Laura Anne. "Lascaux (ca. 15,000 B.C.)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/lasc/hd_lasc.htm (originally published October 2000, last revised August 2007)
Bower, Bruce. “Stone Age Art Gets Animated.” http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/341206/description/Stone_Age_art_gets_animated
Clottes, Jean. "Chauvet Cave (ca. 30,000 B.C.)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/chav/hd_chav.htm (October 2002)
(watch trailer and clilp) Herzog, Werner. Cave of Forgotten Dreams. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1664894/
Tedesco, Laura Anne. "Lascaux (ca. 15,000 B.C.)". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/lasc/hd_lasc.htm (originally published October 2000, last revised August 2007)
Research Questions
1. What type of function might these caves have had? How do we know?
2. What is the significance of this type of text for us as students of text technologies?
3. What are the particular characteristics of the tools and substrates used to make the paintings?
4. Briefly describe the research finding about the caves that most interests you.
5. Many other prehistoric painted/marked caves exist beyond Chauvet. Choose one to research and briefly outline your findings, focusing on its use and its relevance to our course.
- These caves were most likely primarily used for shelter, but the drawings on the cave walls imply that people stayed for extended periods of time in order to complete this vast array of artwork. The depictions are all of animals, which hint that these people were hunter-gatherers and respected the animals they hunted. According to Marc Azéma, Paleolithic artists have invented systems of breaking down movement and graphic narrative. He also discovered that animal movement was also represented in more dynamic ways—with the use of animals drawn on a spinning disc. (Azema) This indicates that the drawings in the cave were most likely used for story telling, sharing the tales of the hunters after they returned. There seems to be no written language system that we would recognize as such, so this was how they communicated visually. The way they use superimposed images to create movement is interesting, because they do not have the technology we have today to see what they look like animated, yet they were able to imitate movement in a variety of ways. How these artists were able to capture images of these animals is fascinating to the study of how our brain works. We talked about how writing shapes our thought process, but for them it must have been visuals that dominated their thought processes. Seeing an animal run across the plain must be as vivid in their mind as us studying for an exam. This attention to detail shows how important animals were to their lives, and how important it was even then to have some written form of communication in a presumably all-oral culture.
2. What is the significance of this type of text for us as students of text technologies?
- Just like we read about a pencil as a text technology, I think this opens our eyes to how many different kinds of texts there really are. I have learned about cave paintings before and their relation to history, but never have I viewed the actual paintings as a text or form of communication. It is significant for us to realize that there are many unconventional text technologies, and it opened my eyes at least to see that there are more text technologies if we know how to look.
3. What are the particular characteristics of the tools and substrates used to make the paintings?
- Artists used the two major parts of the cave in different ways. In the first part, a majority of images are red, with few black or engraved ones. In the second part, the animals are mostly black, with far fewer engravings and red figures. Some of the ink seems to have been blown through a type of straw. (Met Museum). Cave art artists might have used brushes made out moss, fur, or human hair. They might have also blown paint through hollow bird bones to create softer textures. Scientists believe that they made paints by smashing and grinding colored minerals. They also think that they might have mixed animal fat or vegetable oil to make different colors. The substrates used were obviously the cave walls, but also rotating animal disks with opposing images, which could be spun rapidly to view the two images as moving together. (Rivere)
4. Briefly describe the research finding about the caves that most interests you.
- The thing that interested me the most in my brief research was the reaction of the movie crew being in the caves for a few days. One of the crew members said that after being in the caves for five days, he decided not to return because of the emotional weight he felt. He said it was so powerful, that he dreamt of lions, both real and cave drawings, every night he was down there. Every day was an emotional shock for him. He had to leave after those five days to relax and absorb everything he had seen. I am not a very religious person, but I do believe in the power of human interaction. Being in a place like that, so important to the study and history of man, I can only imagine what it would feel like. Not to mention they are the only ones who have ever been allowed to film down there, so the responsibility must also have been a heavy burden.
5. Many other prehistoric painted/marked caves exist beyond Chauvet. Choose one to research and briefly outline your findings, focusing on its use and its relevance to our course.
- The painted walls of the interconnected series of caves in Lascaux in southwestern France are among the most impressive and well-known artistic creations of Paleolithic humans. (Met Museum) Most of the paintings depict animals found in the surrounding landscape, such as horses, bison, mammoths, ibex, aurochs, deer, lions, bears, and wolves. Like the Chauvet, both animals they hunted and those that they feared were represented. In addition to the painted images, Lascaux is rich with engravings of animals as well as abstract designs. In the absence of natural light, these works could only have been created with the aid of torches and stone lamps filled with animal fat. (Met Museum) I find it extremely interesting to study the ways they made the marks on the wall that would last 30,000+ years. The pigments used to paint Lascaux and other caves were derived from readily available minerals and include red, yellow, black, brown, and violet. No brushes have been found, so in all probability the broad black outlines were applied using mats of moss or hair, or even with chunks of raw color. (Met Museum) So just like the Chauvet caves, the tools of the time were most likely mats of moss or hair. The creativity of people back then impresses me. Sitting here typing on my computer it is mind-boggling to think how far technology has come in such a small amount of time. The rotating discs they used in these caves were the first form of thaumatrope, that wasn’t invented until 1875! (Science News) The resourcefulness and artistic skill that it took to inscribe these paintings so that they would last is inspiring. I also find it interesting to think about the intentions of the early humans when they made these drawings. Clearly they were meant to tell a story, but do you think they knew how long they would last? Surely not. In this way, the cave drawings might be compared to our own drawings and writings, that very well may be studied ten, twenty, thirty thousand years from now. Obviously there are no guarantees, but we have no idea where our work will end up after we are gone, or who might find it interesting or useful.