Cave paintings as prehistoric flip art
Reconstructions of the original grease lamps produce a circle of light about 10 feet in diameter, which is not much larger than many images in the cave. Geneste believes that early artists used this small area of light as a story-telling device. “It is very important: the presence of the darkness, the spot of yellow light, and inside it one, two, three animals, no more,” Geneste says. “That’s a tool in a narrative structure,” he explains…
What’s more, a flickering flame in the cave may have conjured impressions of motion like a strobe light in a dark club. In low light, human vision degrades, and that can lead to the perception of movement even when all is still, says Susana Martinez-Conde, the director of the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Ariz. The trick may occur at two levels; one when the eye processes a dimly lit scene, and the second when the brain makes sense of that limited, flickering information…
… The end result for early humans who viewed cave paintings by firelight might have been that a deer with multiple heads, for example, resembled a single, animated beast. A few rather sophisticated artistic techniques enhance that impression…
…igh on the Nave’s right wall, an early artist had used charcoal to draw a row of five deer heads. The images are almost identical, but each is positioned at a slightly different angle. Viewed one at a time with a small circle of light moving right to left, the images seem to illustrate a single deer raising and lowering its head as in a short flipbook animation.
Marc Azéma, a Paleolithic researcher and filmmaker at the University of Toulouse in France, has studied dozens of examples of ancient images that were meant to imply motion and has found two primary techniques that Paleolithic artists used to do this. The first is juxtaposition of successive images—the technique used for the deer head—and the second is called superimposition. Rather than appearing in sequence, variations of an image pile on top of one another in superimposition to lend a sense of motion. Superimposition can be seen in caves across France and Spain, but some of the oldest examples come from Chauvet cave in France’s Ardèche region. Burned wood and charcoal streaks along Chauvet’s walls indicate that campfires and pine torches lit the cave.
The deer heads:
Very cool!
Nice try and certainly to get him some attention.A typical French intellectual move and claim. But nobody knows why and for what purpose these paintings deep in the abyss were made. Nobody. And we never will.
Gerard vanderleun:
Of course we don’t know and never will, short of time travel.
Does that mean we shouldn’t discuss it and generate ideas about the possibilities, and maybe even choose one or the other as most likely?
Do you only talk about those things about which you are absolutely certain? Somehow, I doubt it.
You might enjoy Werner Herzog’s 2010 documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams Available on Amazon Prime for a rental fee.
An ancient of the Zoetrope, just flattened. Look at the images successively through a slit formed by your fingers as you move your head to get the effect. It’s crude but it works. The scientists are onto something.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoetrope
Thinking about it some more, since this was viewed in the dark with the help of an oil lamp, the story teller could move his hand so that all but one figure at a time was lit. Doing it repeatedly could produce a moving picture.
Add some sacred mushrooms, and its positively psychedelic.
Cave man (or should I say Cave People) not so primitive after all.
As someone who has hunted most of his life who likes art and good story telling I dont want to over think this.
Heres my guess, this commemorates that time when Og and his buddy had 5 big bucks go past their hunting blind and they each got one with their atalatles and darts or they both missed and couldnt beleive it.
Think about it how many people do you know have a photo of themselves and maybe others holding a fish?
There was an article earlier this year that implied – but ultimately didn’t mean, to my great disappointment – that people were going to look at these cave images as the painters must have: by flickering candle or lamplight. This is a step closer, and I’m glad. It’s functionally similar to trying to watch an epic film, Star Wars or Out of Africa or the like, on a desktop monitor: you WILL miss the fullness of what the creator intended, even if you grasp the basics.
You too can visit the Lascaux Caves – in reproduction.
Background:
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/2016/1213/France-opens-Lascaux-replica-cave.-Is-it-better-than-the-real-thing
Short tourist-y video:
https://www.perigord.com/en/listings/sites-touristiques-visites/lascaux-iv/
I was privileged to visit the traveling exhibition when it came to Houston a few years ago.
https://www.hmns.org/exhibits/past-exhibitions/the-cave-paintings-of-lascaux/
While we may doubt the theory of moving images, I think it highly likely one or more visitors to the original cave noticed how the animals moved in the flickering light of oil lamps. That is an interesting (and fun) observation. Even, as Neo says, ‘wondrous’. Thanks for sharing, Neo.
The rack, antlers, one each of the deer are different which might indicate a herd moving in the same direction rather than one deer in motion. I have hunted deer for years, have a nice head on the wall three feet from me and I have never seen deer with antlers that are the same, in size and number of points. I would like to think even in the great old cave days hunters would brag about the size and number of points on deer they killed. I have a rack not a full head on the wall with 13 points that came from a deer my grandfather killed over 120 years ago and we are fascinated by that kind of stuff. By the way when a male deer if growing his annual antlers that is the fastest growing tissue we are aware of adding up to 1/2 inch per day.
Been said that when modern people ran into hunter-gatherers, it was when they’d been pushed to the margins–Arctic, sub Arctic, Kalahari, Outback–by farmers and herders. It was a pretty thin life.
Seems to have been considerably easier ten thousand years ago and further back in the protein-rich temperate zones with gigantic herds and long seasons. Which would lead to more spare time.
Still, Jean Auel of Cave Bear fame had an idea. Her H. Nean guys were aware that life was horribly dangerous, unpredictable, and there wasn’t much they could do about it. But they had to pretend to the women and kids that they had it under control. From time to time they’d have to go off by themselves and have some kind of a simultaneous nervous breakdown to relieve the pressure.
Another angle as to what went on in those decorated grottoes.
You too can visit the Lascaux Caves – in reproduction.
About ten years ago, I took three teenaged girls to Lascaux through the reproduction cave which is near the now sealed off real one. People and the CO2 they exhaled were damaging the cave paintings, The French have done a very good job with the site.
“On the Town”: Prehistoric Man
https://youtu.be/8Qb-Dxw9pMk
Did Duchamp show us one nude descending a stairway or a group of nudes descending a stairway? Whoooaaa, trippy…
2 things:
1. The picture at the beginning of this post reminds me of the Pimple Doctor before I realize it’s cave drawings.
2. RIP Ed Asner. He was 40 when he began the role of Lou Grant. Wow 40 looked old back then.
Let me just add that Ann Miller was 15 when she danced the number Prehistoric Man
Well, sometimes neo, especially when confronted with a typical ploy of one of the French professeurs agrégés to break out of his level it may be wise to just let the mystery be. Don’t you think?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huUp5wFfdcY
Omegle
Gerard ~ Thank you, I love the sweet simplicity and acoustical sound of that lovely lady Iris DeMent. I also needed to hear a simple message in these strange times where no one seems to be in charge or in control of anything and our days, no matter how young or old, are limited. Thank You.
GVdL…
My kids always look at me like I’m one of those cave paintings when I put Iris Dement on Spotify…so let me add my thanks as well. ;-D
sdferr,
Thanks for the clip from “On the Town.” I’d never seen that.
Fantastic!
Eva Marie,
Wikipedia says she was born in ’23 and “On the Town” was made in ’49, so 26 years old?
Rufus, you’re right. That makes a lot more sense. Now please tell me that Ed Asner was at least 60 when he began the role of Lou Grant.
I think A. Miller danced in “You Can’t Take It With You” (which see: terrific movie too) at around 15/16 yrs. She was a force of somethingorother at an early age, and seemed to hold onto that for a very long time.
Wikipedia says she lied about her age to get early dancing jobs. Due to his infidelity(ies), her mother left her father and took her from their home in Houston to California where the mother struggled to find work because she was deaf so Ann stepped up and started supporting them both through dancing.
sdferr; Rufus T. Firefly:
My previous post on Ann Miller, complete with documentary.
She was a force of nature.
neo @ 3:11,
When I was reading her bio I thought there were similarities with another dancer you posted about! Turns out it’s the same lady!