The Dawn of Art

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

We have just watched the Werner Herzog film, Chauvet - Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Herzog made the film about the prehistoric, 30,000 - 32,000 year-old cave art which was discovered in 1994 in a cave in the Ardeche region of France by three speleologists, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel, and Christiane Hillaire.

Jean-Marie had first discovered faint air currents emanating from a rock wall near a popular hiking trail and led his friends there to do do a thorough investigation. After digging away rock debris, the three discovered a shaft which led down to a large, high-ceilinged chamber decorated with glittering concretions. This chamber led to another which led to a series of rooms, some with prehistoric animal bones scattered on the floor. On their way out, Eliette shone her lamp on a rocky spur hanging from the ceiling and discovered a drawing in red ochre of a small mammoth, the first of hundreds of cave paintings and engravings to be found there. It was soon established beyond a s…