Member Reviews
What's it's about:
Thirty thousand years ago our prehistoric ancestors painted perfect images of animals on walls of tortuous caves, most often without any light. How was this possible? What meaning and messages did the cavemen want these paintings to convey? In addition, how did these perfect drawings come about at a time when man’s sole purpose was surviving? And why, some ten thousand years later, did startlingly similar animal paintings appear once again, on dark cave walls?
Scholars and archaeologists have for centuries pored over these works of art, speculating and hoping to come away with the key to the mystery. No one until now has ever come close to elucidating either their origin or their meaning.
In their stunning book and for the first time, David and Lefrère, after working together for years, give us a new understanding of an art lost in time, revealing what had until recently remained unexplainable—the oldest enigma in humanity has been solved.
My thoughts
DNF 100%
Just can't get in to it, have re started it four times since yesterday ,and still can't get past the chapter I'm on.
There's nothing I like about, and it's not keeping my attention at all. With that said I would like to say thinks to NetGalley for at least giving me a chance at reading it in a change for my honest opinion
Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley.
I have never seen the Lascaux Cave paintings, at least not the real ones. I did see the traveling reconstruction exhibit, which was very cool. But truth be told, I have never really thought about cave paintings very much, outside of abstract desire to see them.
David and Lefrere, however, seem to have spent a significant about of time thinking about cave paintings. This is a good thing.
In this short book, it is possible to read this in an hour or so, David and Lefrere make a pretty good case for the cave paintings’ creation – both the how and the why.
The theory about the why is one of those moments that at first seems so out there but makes such prefect sense when they lay out the details and take the reader along with them on the journey of discovery.
I am not entirely sure if I fully believe all the why part of the theory. While the authors make a very good case, there are too many variables that can be called into account. The process of how the art made it on to the wall – the “technology”/technique – of the animals on the walls of the cave.
The book is very readable because the structure is done in steps. The reader goes on the journey of discovery with the authors.
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The prehistoric caves of France and northern Spain have always caused wonder, because of the sophisticated, seemingly modern art renderings of animals on their walls. All kinds of theories, ever more complicated, have come and gone without leaving satisfaction. Then in 2013, a graphic artist by the name of Bertrand David hit on a delightfully simple solution that appears to be bombproof. This is his story.
The secret to the drawings is shadow tracing. Using a small model in clay or wood, plus a candle or lamp or torch, artists could trace out animals at will. It explains why the finer details are usually obscured or missing, why there is overlap, why there are multiples. Even why one is upside down. It also explains why the drawings were always in totally dark recesses and never near the entrances. This was hunter-gatherer fun. Graffiti. They drew, and moved on.
David got the idea both because he is an artist and because his young son’s bedside light inspired him to think of children’s tracings. He tried it out in a sealed dirt cellar and lo and behold – cave drawings. He then partnered with Jean-Jacques Lefrere to research prior art, as it were, and attempt to validate the theory. This short book is the result.
I have to say, some 60 years ago, I watched a Disney cartoon of a caveman doing a tracing of his shapely mate on a wall. She got bored standing there and shifted position while he traced, resulting in a fat, slovenly image. Naturally, he got an earful and worse for that artwork. I have never forgotten that cartoon, and so I am surprised anyone is surprised and that this is somehow a brilliant, inspired discovery. But it is. So be it.
David Wineberg