170th Century BCE Cave Paintings In the vertical art storage rack you will find the following: Posters: The Art Elements & Principles posters to use in the discussion On the NSS PTA website, you will find digital images available for download. These can be sent to the teacher to project on their Smartboards: Digital files: Lascaux France Map, 2 Bison (painting), 3 Megaloceri (drawing/painting), Bison (painting), Lascaux Cave Ceiling, Cow (painting), Lascaux entrance, Hall of Bulls (drawing), Hall of Bulls with Ponies (drawing), Hands (negative painting), Horse (engraving), Horse Head (engraving/painting), Horse (painting), Horse (relief sculpture), Mammoth (drawing), Lascaux Map, Stag (engraving) In the black cabinet, you will find a white binder with a copy of this presentation and several 8.5 x 11 prints of the other works referenced in this presentation. Updated September 2017
Overview What: Cave paintings: the earliest known form of sequential art Ask: what do you think sequential art is? Defn: Sequential Art A sequence is something that happens in a certain order, like storytelling. The paintings at Lascaux tell stories. Where: Lascaux, France: The cave is on Lascaux Hill which is found in a little oak forest south of Montignac, France When: The paintings were done during the 170 th century BCE. They were discovered on September 12, 1940. Who: Four teenagers and their dog discovered the paintings Life Lessons These are important messages for the students to remember and you can include these ideas as part of your presentation. Children can make important discoveries. Go exploring: you never know what you will find. Remember to go with a friend and think about safety first though. (Remind the children that the explorers came back the second day with flashlights and rope.) Art is everywhere. Discovering the Paintings As legend says, there was an underground passage full of hidden treasures from a nearby castle to the Lascaux estate. Four teenagers, Marcel, Jim, George, and Simon were looking for these treasures when their dog, Robot, fell into a small hole in the ground. It turned out to be a small entrance into a cave which concealed real riches magnificent rock paintings -- one of the most renowned archaeological discoveries of the 20 th century. This is how it happened The dog, seemingly lost, didn t answer to Simon s whistle. It turned out that the poor pup had fallen into a hole in the ground. The four boys decided that even though the dog was down there in the dark by himself, it would be best to go home and come back with a flashlight and rope. Using the rope, they lowered each other into the dark, unknown cave.
The cave was dark. Passages were narrow and there was a shaft about 12 meters deep which had to be descended by rope. Marcel ventured into the opening and as he walked, he paid attention to the walls and discovered paintings. The news spreads like wildfire. Lascaux entrance Lascaux Cave Ceiling Soon leading archaeologists came to assess the site and view the paintings. Villagers and travelers from all over came to view the caves. Soon the entrance was considerably enlarged and the floors lowered to enable the constant flow of tourists (almost 1200 people per day) to circulate more easily. By 1955, the first indications of deterioration of the paintings appeared. The cause was determined to be an excess of carbon dioxide in the air brought about by the visitors breath. This gas acidified the water vapor being breathed out and as it condensed on the walls, it corroded the rock face. A system was then put in place to monitor the production of carbon dioxide. Nevertheless, a few years later, green patches developing rapidly on the walls indicated the presence of green algae and mosses. The paintings also began to deteriorate. Research showed that this deterioration was caused by the intensive development of this site, and as a result the caves were closed in April of 1963. Fortunately, once the visits to the cave had been cancelled and the original climatic conditions recreated, the Lascaux cave art returned to the state it was in on the day of its discovery. At present the site is checked daily by a computerized system. It uses remote metering to record variation in temperature and carbon dioxide gas pressure in the cave. However, the biological equilibrium of the cave remains fragile. In March of 1980, the French authorities decided to create a life size copy of this Paleolithic sanctuary to compensate the general public for the loss caused by the closing of the cave. Two of
the sections, the Great Hall of Bulls and the Painted Gallery, have been reproduced about 200 meters from the original cave. The reproduction is a half-buried structure enclosing a cement shell which corresponds exactly in shape to the interior of the original. Special photographs and measurement were taken and the images projected onto the walls to reproduce the paintings as accurately as possible. The paintings were reconstructed; they used the same types of materials believed to have been used 19,000 years ago. These were natural pigments like ochre, charcoal, and iron oxides. The Art Cave iconography (pictorial record) is limited to three basic themes: animals, human representations, and signs. Neither the landscape outside the cave nor any of the vegetation of the time is portrayed on these walls. The caves were frequently filled with large red cows, yellow horses, bulls and black stags. It is thought the pictures illustrated a prehistoric tribe s hunt for food. However, there are a number of inconsistencies with this. It is interesting to note that the images do not directly reflect the diet of the artists. Horses and bison were often drawn but birds and reindeer were commonly eaten. Another theory suggests the images present their wish for a successful hunt. They thought of the cave as sacred and went in to ask the spirits to help them catch some large animals to feed on and to provide clothing. By drawing the animals they hunt on the walls of the cave, these early hunters would gain power. They would be as fast as the deer and as strong as the mighty buffalo. They may have believed their drawings were sacred as the cave. Regardless of the meaning behind the paintings, there is a very interesting fact about the drawings: the hunts were drawn on the wall like a comic strip. The story of the hunt goes from left to right, until the prey is captured. These pictures were obviously used to tell stories. In addition to the information gathered about this time period and early man, the cave art serves to depict early man s mastery of most of the graphic arts which we know today: Engraving and Sculpting in Rock They had stone scrapers for smoothing the wall and sharp flint points for engraving. Horse (engraving) Horse Head (engraving/painting)
Stag (engraving) Horse (relief sculpture) Ask: Does anyone know what relief sculpture is? Defn: Relief Sculpture Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. Painting They ground ochers (earthly matter) into powders that they mixed with some medium, such as animal fat, before applying. A large flat bone served as a palette; they could make brushes from reeds or bristles and could use a blowpipe of reeds to trace outlines of figures and to put pigments on out-of-reach surfaces. Bison (painting) 2 Bison (painting)
3 Megaloceri (drawing/painting) Cow (painting) Hands (negative painting) Horse (painting) Ask: Has anyone heard of Negative Painting? Defn: Negative painting is a simple technique that involves applying pigment around a subject to give it definition. Add paint to surround the person, place or object, making it stand out because it appears lighter than the background. Drawing Mammoth (drawing) Hall of Bulls (drawing)
At the end of the 19 th century, there were numerous opponents to the recognition of Paleolithic cave art. (This was still before the caves of Lascaux had been discovered.) One of the arguments was the question of lighting. For some it seemed very unlikely that man could have done paintings or engravings in the deep reaches of the cave far from the light of day. Man was thought incapable of creating an instrument which would be both portable and capable of giving off sufficient light to allow him to work under the conditions imposed by the natural environment. Hall of Bulls with Ponies (drawing) However, in 1899, at another site of cave art in France, a sandstone object decorated with an engraved ibex was discovered. On it was a circular depression that had been hollowed out and its base was covered with a carbon deposit. Analysis revealed the presence of flammable matter with an animal fat base. The wick was perhaps made of moss. This was determined to be the first prehistoric lamp. The Cave: The cave has a very narrow entrance and then a drop off. Archaeologists have sectioned off and named various galleries within the cave. The first twenty meters inside the cave slopes steeply down to the first hall in the network, the Great Hall of the Bulls. The Painted Gallery, which is about 30 meters long, is a continuation of this hall. A second, lower gallery, the Lateral Passage, is found off to the right of the Great Hall of the Bulls. It connects the Chamber of Engravings with the Main Gallery and at its extremity with the Chamber of Felines. The Shaft of the Dead Man is set a little apart, at the far end of the Chamber of Engravings. In these rooms, archaeologists have not found any traces of man. Elements of Art: Begin with using the Elements of Art posters for discussion. Since this is the first presentation of the year, it would be a good idea to review the elements.
COLOR: What kinds of colors were used? (Colors found in nature they used earth matter to create their paints.) How do the colors help tell the story? (The colors are basic within the earth tone family. They reflect nature.) SHAPE: What shapes do you see? (Rectangular in the animals bodies and triangles in their heads) TEXTURE: Do you get a sense of texture in these paintings? (Yes, definitely. There seems to be shading on the animals bodies. They reflect the softness of the animals skin.) What texture words come to mind when you look at the paintings? (Leather, suede, horns are smooth, tails are scratchy.) LINE: What kinds of lines are depicted? What is the quality of the lines? (There are bold, thick lines outlining the animals. There are fine, fragile-looking lines representing animals manes.) LIGHT: What do the paintings tell you about light? (There are not a lot of shadows. The light is coming straight on.) SPACE: Do these types of paintings appear three-dimensional? (When animals in front of or behind other animals. Sometimes there is some shading on the body of the animal.) Discussion Questions: General: (There are no wrong answers. Encourage the children to use a rich vocabulary to describe the art and their feelings about it. Provide additional words to expand their art vocabulary.) 1. Which words would you use to describe the cave art? (natural, earth tones, warm, active, movement, exciting) 2. What do you think inspired the artists to paint these? Let s create a story about the paintings. 3. How do the paintings make you feel? 4. How would you feel if you discovered the caves? Have you ever discovered anything? 5. Have you ever been in a cave? Tell me about it. 6. What would you paint to tell your story for people to discover in 100,000 years? Which materials would you use? Online Sources: http://www.lascaux.culture.fr/#/en/02_00.xml http://www.ida.net/users/rrobbins/lascaux.html http://www.richeast.org/htwm/las/las.html