Sunday, July 28, 2013

Cats in Art: Panel of the Lions (Unknown Prehistoric Artist)

Go. See. Cave of Forgotten Dreams.

Or use Netflix, like I did, since the movie is now available there.  If you are like me, the theatrical release never made it to my backwoods area.




Image credit The Bradshaw Foundation, here, black drawing on rock, 30,000 years ago, unknown artist, approximately 4 meters square.

 
From the Bradshaw Foundation website, where you can view stills of the various images in the cave:

The wall to the right of the central recess has a large number of animals drawn on to it. The overall scene depicts a hunt. On the right of the composition there is a rhinoceros and a mammoth. On the left, there are four bison heads, and two more rhinos. Then there are seven bison, pursued by a pride of sixteen lions, mainly depicted by their heads alone. Above all of this drama, at a different scale, there is a large feline figure shown standing face to face with a lion cub. Almost all of the animals on this panel face left. This composition is unique in Palaeolithic art.


Chauvet Cave was discovered in 1994...or should I say, rediscovered, since prehistoric man obviously entered and used the cave some 30,000+ years ago, leaving behind stunningly beautiful and haunting art on the walls of the cave. You should go to the Bradshaw site and read more.

The story of the cave itself and its exploration:

These cat images--or should I say lion images, since the house kitty was still thousands of years in the future--are breathtaking in their detail. The artists of today paint house cats, and the event is totally non-threatening. The life of the artist in this image would literally been in danger just to have seen a lion.



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