Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

the painter dipped a hand in the pigment and then pressed it against
the wall, leaving a “positive” imprint. These handprints, too, must
have had a purpose. Some researchers have considered them “signa-
tures” of cult or community members or, less likely, of individual
painters. But like everything else in Paleolithic art, their meaning is
unknown.
The mural (wall) paintings at Pech-Merle also allow some in-
sight into the reason certain subjects may have been chosen for a
specific location. One of the horses (at the right in FIG. 1-10) may
have been inspired by the rock formation in the wall surface resem-
bling a horse’s head and neck. Old Stone Age painters and sculptors

frequently and skillfully used the caves’ naturally irregular surfaces

to help give the illusion of real presence to their forms. Many of the

Altamira bison (FIG. 1-9), for example, were painted over bulging

rock surfaces. In fact, prehistorians have observed that bison and

cattle appear almost exclusively on convex surfaces, whereas nearly

all horses and hands are painted on concave surfaces. What this sig-

nifies has yet to be determined.

LASCAUXPerhaps the best-known Paleolithic cave is that at Las-

caux, near Montignac, France. It is extensively decorated, but most

of the paintings are hundreds of feet from any entrance, far removed

O

ne of the most spectacular archaeological finds of the past

century came to light in December 1994 at Vallon-Pont-

d’Arc, France, and was announced at a press conference in Paris on

January 18, 1995. Unlike some other recent “finds” of prehistoric art

that proved to be forgeries, the paintings in the Chauvet Cave

(named after the leader of the exploration team, Jean-Marie Chau-

vet) seemed to be authentic. But no one, including Chauvet and his

colleagues, guessed at the time of their discovery that radiocarbon

dating (a measure of the rate of degeneration of carbon 14 in or-

ganic materials) of the paintings might establish that the murals in

the cave were more than 15,000 years older than those at Altamira

(FIG. 1-9). When the scientific tests were completed, the French ar-

chaeologists announced that the Chauvet Cave paintings were the

oldest yet found anywhere, datable around 30,000–28,000 BCE.

This new early date immediately caused scholars to reevaluate

the scheme of “stylistic development” from simple to more complex

forms that had been nearly universally accepted for decades. In the

Chauvet Cave, in contrast to Lascaux (FIG. 1-11), the horns of the

aurochs (extinct long-horned wild oxen) are shown naturalistically,

one behind the other, not in the twisted perspective thought to be

universally characteristic of Paleolithic art. Moreover, the two rhi-

noceroses at the lower right ofFIG. 1-12appear to confront each

other, suggesting to some observers that the artist intended a narra-

tive, another “first” in either painting or sculpture. If the paintings

are twice as old as those of Lascaux, Altamira (FIG. 1-9), and Pech-

Merle (FIG. 1-10), the assumption that Paleolithic art “evolved” from

simple to more sophisticated representations is wrong.

Much research remains to be conducted in the Chauvet Cave,

but already the paintings have become the subject of intense contro-

versy. Recently, some archaeologists have contested the early dating

of the Chauvet paintings on the grounds that the tested samples

were contaminated. If the Chauvet animals were painted later than

those at Lascaux, their advanced stylistic features can be more easily

explained. The dispute exemplifies the frustration—and the excite-

ment—of studying the art of an age so remote that almost nothing

remains and almost every new find causes art historians to reevalu-

ate what had previously been taken for granted.

The World’s Oldest Paintings?

MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES

22 Chapter 1 ART BEFORE HISTORY

1-12Aurochs, horses, and
rhinoceroses, wall painting in the
Chauvet Cave, Vallon-Pont-d’Arc,
France, ca. 30,000–28,000 or
ca. 15,000–13,000 BCE.

The date of the Chauvet Cave
paintings is the subject of much
controversy. If the murals are the
oldest paintings known, they exhibit
surprisingly advanced features, such
as overlapping animal horns.

1 ft.