Lascaux

 I read an interesting book about the cave paintings at Lascaux last week by the French art historian Jean-Jacques Lefrere. I've always been curious about those paintings, especially after reading the first chapter of Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" in college. Whatever we know about cavemen, despite all of our caricatures of and speculation about them, is as simple and as profound as this: in the beginning, human beings had the impulse to make art.

Lefrere was puzzled by the technical aspects of the cave art--namely, that it didn't have a right to be as good or as consistent as it apparently is. (There are cave drawings separated by over 17,000 years and hundreds of miles that are remarkably similar.)

It was a great book in which he slowly laid out what we know about the paintings:

They are all in profile. They are all of animals, and there is never any vegetation or other landscape elements. The horns, antlers, legs, and bodies are remarkably well painted, without any apparent hesitation or correction. A number of paintings are started, but unfinished. The paintings all appear in locations in the caves that are far, far away from any natural light. The paintings are on unusually textured and irregular surfaces, very rarely on a blank/flat space. The paintings vary wildly in size (some are enormous, some very small) but all have a harmony of style and proportion.

Lefrere speculated that the paintings were done not by freehand or from practiced technique, but by placing a carved statue of an animal before a clay lamp (hence reindeer, bison, and horses rather than rabbits, frogs, or snakes) and by painting in the projected shadow on the illuminated wall.

The boys and I decided to give it a test. We checked out a book about the discovery of the caves from the library, then set about building a fire last week to make ourselves enough charcoal. Not having any berries or madder on hand, we colored the charcoal with food coloring, and then blocked off all of the light coming in through the basement windows. 

At first we tried to light a paraffin lamp, but it was stinky and hot. A flashlight worked fine for a light source. (Except when an older brother thoughtlessly bumped the chair it was up against. Hence the unfinished reindeer.)

Owen's favorite part of getting the charcoal

Felix, who blistered his hand after putting it on the chimneia

Projecting the shadow. We had a cow, a horse, and a leopard

Cave-child

Finished work