Grotte Chauvet -- The Art of the Cave and What It Tells Us

In France, one readily encounters the remnants of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the early modern era through its churches, towns, and buildings with many of these places still being used. Roman art and architecture have also been left behind, albeit in ruins. The Grotte Chauvet, however, provides the earliest-known human artworks going back 35,000 years--and they are in pristine condition thanks to a cave-in that shut off access 20,000 years ago!

 

The cave art of the Paleolithic period was an especially creative time in western Europe, as shown by the above map. There were actually about 280 sites of cave art locations in this region, according to the Royal Society of Chemistry.

 

People tend to view Stone Age art as primitive with the idea that artists became more advanced and sophisticated over the centuries. Actually, the concept of art did not exist before the 15th century, and there was no word for it in ancient Greek and Roman times let alone Paleolithic times. Consequently, the cave painters' purpose was not about decoration or even depicting the beauty that they saw around them. Cave painting in France and Spain has led anthropologists and archeologists to speculate that the images of animals, symbols, pictographs, engravings, and human hand prints were connected to some sort of ritual and/or belief system. They consider this a giant leap in the development of the modern human mind as illustrated by the differences between Neanderthal man and modern man. 

 

 

Neanderthal man lived 315,000 to 800,000 years ago in Eurasia. They became extinct about 40,000 years ago when early modern man emerged from Africa around 300,000 years ago. The Neanderthal brain indicates development in the sensory centers, especially vision and motor, located primarily in the rear half of the brain. Homo sapiens, which include the Aurignacians who lived 43,000 to 33,000 years ago, show brain  development primarily in the frontal lobes, which are the higher thinking centers of the brain and show ability in speech, imagination, sociality, culture, religion, and ethics through social learning. Neanderthals most likely went extinct due to competition with, or extermination by early modern man through  climate change, disease, or a combination of these factors. 

The paintings in France and Spain illustrate differences in development and style of representation, too. For example, the Lascaux paintings depict strange beasts, some of which are half-human and half-bird and others that are half-human and half-lion. The Niaux cave in the southeastern Pyrenees displays a huge frieze of bison, deer, ibex, and horse; carvings of salmon or trout; and bears claws. Grotte Chauvet, however, distinguishes itself with paintings of the more dangerous animals--lions, mammoths, and rhinoceroses--covering over 63% of the walls. Reindeer, horses, bison, aurochs, and ibex--likely food sources--are also present. There is very little representation of humans and none at all of plants. What is most interesting about all of these paintings is their spiritual quality. Although it is difficult to separate art from the spiritual, this article will focus on the art of Grotte Chauvet as discussed primarily by paleolithic art historian Diana McDonald of Boston University in her 32-minute video that follows. 

 

Quality of the art

From an artistic point of view, the Grotte Chauvet artists applied sophisticated techniques of drawing, shading, perspective, and composition on their murals. They used charcoal to produce black and gray colors and red ochre. Sometimes they prepared their "canvases" by scraping surfaces and painting on them. They also engraved softer stone with their fingers, a rock, or a bone, as shown with this owl figure. (Note that the owl is pictured from the back with its head turned 180 degrees.)

 

Grotte Chauvet is between 100-130 feet high and covered with stone columns, stalagmites, stalactites, and many other rock formations. The striking feature typical of this cave and many of the European cave paintings are the large caverns that could emit certain sound qualities. Since flutes and drums go back 42-40,000 years, singing and music were probably also a part of the cave experience.

 

Grotte Chauvet is composed of a series of chambers or galleries which get darker and darker as one penetrates the cave. This lack of light also leads researchers to believe that no one lived in the cave but rather that the people used it for spiritual purposes. 

Cave bears hibernated in the cave as evidenced by the bones, claw scratchings, and impressions of their bodies left on the cave floor. Handprints in red ochre tend to be closest to the entrance of the cave while more interesting figures are in the deepest parts of the cave--including an altar with a bear skull on top of it. The figures seem to be consciously grouped although it is not always evident as to the logic behind these groupings. The painters also used various rock formations and the cracks in the rock to make the animals appear to be alive and emerging from the rock, as with this rhino (above photo).

 

There is also some evidence to suggest that a significant quantity of the charcoal drawings were painted by a single master artist although scientists have determined through carbon dating of the charcoal, torch marks, and the drawings themselves that the first and most numerous cave paintings at Grotte Chauvet were done 35,000-36,000 years ago and the second 29,000-30,000 years ago. 

The 1000+ paintings and engravings seem to exhibit some kind of theme. For example, in the most accessible part of the cave, most images are drawn in red ochre, like this bison made with palm prints, while only a few are in black. In the deeper galleries of the cave, the animals are mostly drawn and/or shaded in blacks and grays, with far fewer rock engravings and red figures. 

 

Animals are also grouped into specific panels like the Horse Panel and the Panel of Lions and Rhinoceroses. What makes Chauvet such an important example of cave art is the sophistication of its paintings. No other Aurignacian cave contains compositions with the same degree of realism, naturalism and complexity.

 

On the Horse Panel, Paleolithic scientist Jean Clottes noted that the images were intended to be experienced in the same way we view movies, theater, or even religious ceremonies today—as a powerful, shared experience. Flickering lights from the artists' torches--and today's flashlights--make the figures appear to move.

 

 

 

The people lived near these dark and silent caves, not in them. Researchers believe that their art contains both their imaginations and their sacred myths in the form of wall drawings, sculpted objects, geometric shapes, signs, and bone collections. Plants were not included in this menagerie of drawings. However, what is unique to Grotte Chauvet from other Paleolithic caves are the depictions of carnivorous animals who once roamed the Earth thousands of years ago. Most other cave paintings feature sedentary animals. Only occasionally are humans represented and these are mostly in partial forms like hands, palms, and finger prints.

The rhinos were feared and admired for their skin, horns, menacing appearance, and wild behaviors. There are 17 rhinos in the end chamber.

This painting has the rhinos' swooping horns in repetition of several overlapping horns. The Egyptians and Mesopotamians used this technique to show multiples of animals. The artists here used it to show movement.   

 

The artists were remarkably skilled and sophisticated as their paintings reveal a sureness of sinous outline, the beauty of shading, and a realistic feel of the animals. They obviously put a lot of forethought into their paintings and were close observers of the animals’ behavior and their relationships with each other. These rhinos crash into each other as their front legs are splayed. Quick brush strokes further illustrate their ferocious action.

 

The Horses Panel below illustrates the artists' appreciation for the horses' beauty and agility. A different species from today, they had short heads, small eyes, and a brush-like mane. They were hunted for their meat and not tamed or domesticated.

  Mammoths (lower left) were huge animals and too dangerous to hunt. The horse and reindeer were the prey of choice. There are not many mammoths on the cave walls but when they appear, they are usually in charcoal or engraved in clay. They exhibit a lumbering movement due to their size.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lions, however, seemed to hold a particular fascination for the artists. (Visitors to the cave seem equally fascinated by them.) 

They are located primarily in the last chamber where a painting shows a whole pride closing in on a bison. This stunningly dramatic panel was prepared by scraping the background rock, which again indicates careful thought and planning before painting the figures. The lions have gaping mouths, erect ears, sharp eyes, stretched out bodies but no manes as today's male lions do. The lions work together as a team to attack and subdue their kill successfully. This is regarded as a lesson to humans who must cooperate with each other in order to survive.

 

The end chamber, the darkest and most remote of all the chambers takes advantage of the pendulum rock to illustrate attention to procreation and fertility. A woman's vagina is overlayed with the head of a bison and a lion, the most dangerous parts of those animals. Procreation and fertility seem to be a perpetual theme not only with Paleolithic man but among the ancient civilizations. Women and goddesses were often paired with dangerous and virile animals.

The cave paintings found in Grotte Chauvet provide insight into the Paleolithic Mind and its capabilities. These people closely observed the fauna around them and accurately depicted them and their behaviors from memory.     

To learn more about the spirituality of the cave, see: "Grotte Chauvet--Holy Ground, Sacred Space."