Lascaux - Interpretation of Images

Interpretation of Images

In recent years, new research has suggested that the Lascaux paintings may incorporate prehistoric star charts. Dr Michael Rappenglueck of the University of Munich argues that some of the non-figurative dot clusters and dots within some of the figurative images correlate with the constellations of Taurus, the Pleiades and the grouping known as the "Summer Triangle". Based on her own study of the astronomical significance of Bronze Age petroglyphs in the Vallée des Merveilles and her extensive survey of other prehistoric cave painting sites in the region — most of which appear to have been specifically selected because the interiors are illuminated by the setting sun on the day of the winter solstice — French researcher Chantal Jègues-Wolkiewiez has further proposed that the gallery of figurative images in the Great Hall represents an extensive star map and that key points on major figures in the group correspond to stars in the main constellations as they appeared in the Paleolithic.

An alternative hypothesis proposed by David Lewis-Williams and Jean Clottes following work with similar art of the San people of Southern Africa is that this type of art is spiritual in nature relating to visions experienced during ritualistic trance-dancing. These trance visions are a function of the human brain and so are independent of geographical location. Nigel Spivey, a professor of classic art and archeology at the University of Cambridge, has further postulated in his series, How Art Made the World, that dot and lattice patterns overlapping the representational images of animals are very similar to hallucinations provoked by sensory-deprivation. He further postulates that the connections between culturally important animals and these hallucinations led to the invention of image-making, or the art of drawing. Further extrapolations include the later transference of image-making behavior from the cave to megalithic sites, and the subsequent invention of agriculture to feed the site builders.

Some anthropologists and art-historians also theorize that the paintings could be an account of past hunting success, or could represent a mystical ritual in order to improve future hunting endeavors. This latter theory is supported by the overlapping images of one group of animals in the same cave-location as another group of animals, suggesting that one area of the cave was more successful for predicting a plentiful hunting excursion. Daniel Quinn, in The Story of B, hypothesizes that the paintings were instructional in nature, created in order to communicate successful hunting strategies.

Applying to the Lascaux paintings the iconographic method of analysis (studying position, direction and size of the figures; organization of the composition; painting technique; distribution of the color planes; research of the image center), Thérèse Guiot-Houdart endeavoured to comprehend the symbolic function of the animals, to identify the theme of each image and finally to reconstitute the canvas of the myth illustrated on the rockwalls.

Julien d'Huy and Jean-Loïc Le Quellec show that certain angular or barbed signs of Lascaux may be analysed as "weapon" or "wounds". These signs affect dangerous animals - big cats, aurochs and bisons - more than the others and can be efficiently explained by a fear of the animation of the image. Another finding supports the hypothesis of half-alive images. At Lascaux, bisons, aurochs and ibex are not represented side by side. Conversely, one can note a bisons-horses-lions system and an aurochs-horses-deers-bears system, these animals being frequently associated. Such a distribution may be explained by the relationship between the species pictured and their environmental conditions. Aurochs and bison fight one against the other, and horses and deers are very social with other animals. Bisons and lions live in open plains areas; aurochs, deers and bears are associated with forests and marshes; ibex habitat is rocky areas, and horses are highly adaptative for all these areas. The Lascaux paintings disposition may be explained by a belief in the real life of the pictured species, the artist trying to respect their real environmental conditions.

Little known is the image area called the Abside (Apse), a roundish, semi-spherical chamber (like those adjacent to Romanesque basiliques) approximately 4.5 meters in diameter (about 5 yards) covered on every wall surface (including the ceiling) with thousands of entangled, overlapping, engraved drawings. The ceiling of the Apse (which ranges from 1.6 up to 2.7 meters high (about 5.2 to 8.9 feet) as measured from the original floor height) is so completely and richly bedecked with such engravings that it indicates that the prehistoric people who executed them first constructed a scaffold to do so.