What if we didn’t have to suspend our disbelief? What if we could just plunge into some artistic expression — a story, a movie, a painting — and feel it authentically? What if we could just . . . believe?
#history #ancient #belief #art #artist #cave #caveart #niaux #painting
when we read a novel or watch a movie as adults anyway we typically engage in a willing suspension of disbelief as the English poet and critic Samuel Taylor Kid Put it we know what we are reading or seeing is not real but we pretend on some level that it is helping us to have an emotional or intellectually stimulating experience what if we didn’t have to suspend anything what if we could just plunge into some artistic expression a story a movie a painting and feel it authentically what if we could just believe I recently had the extraordinary experience of visiting the new cave home of cave paintings that have been dated around 14,000 BC our prehistoric ancestors Homo Sapien sapiens living here in the region of the Pyrenees in southwest France painted dozens of images of animals such as bison and horses as well as geometric figures we may never know exactly why they painted them or what they meant but some of the speculation is fascinating and suggestive most of the paintings we saw just some of the ones that have been discovered in this extensive cave in a mountain side were located in a large natural Dome under a ceiling some 25 M High where the Acoustics were good our excellent guide got us to thinking about what may have taken place there he even invited someone to sing I did not volunteer a blessing to everyone present he also pointed out that flickering torch light would have had a different Optical effect perhaps seeming to animate the figures today in the age of CGI flickering torch light might seem like merely a very primitive form of special effects but what if the effects were not intended to be a trick at all before seeing the new cave in person I had read a bit about cave art in a book on the history of art as well as a few articles including one written by the director of the Altamira cave Jose Antonio leras I find this speculation from leras particularly intriguing a few dabs of black paint and the Shadows created by Lamplight are enough to suggest the startling appearance of eyes brows and other facial features by applying such techniques the altamir residents converted Solid Rock into beings that almost seem to live and breathe perhaps the artists of the magdalenian era saw in these rocks something latent that once revealed might bring them closer to the sacred this capacity to bring out something normally hidden to the community suggests that the painters of alamira might have also served as Priestly figures shamans or intermediaries who used their Mastery of artistic techniques to bridge the human world and the holy linking the every day with something more powerful and spiritual unquote I came across similar speculation by author Lou Renee ner in art a history of painting sculpture architecture Frederick Hart explains that newer quote has suggested that to the cave artists artistic creation may have seemed identical with actual creation and that by their activity and paint They Were Somehow making these animals who moved through their Forest World unquote put all of these details and speculation together and we have what I think is an appealing Experience One impossible for us imagine you and your family hike deep into a dark cave a half mile or so into the belly of a mountain as my wife Le observed during our visit perhaps these people conceived of the mountain as a living thing itself an entity that could be entered through an opening there seeing only by torch light you watch a special person an artist or Shaman paint animals into existence the animals seem to move in the flickering light and the artist is integrating his or her painted lines with features of the rock so that human Artistry and nature are working in tandem the depicted animals seem to be born out of a huge uterus-like cavity in the mountain long before even rudimentary science it would have been easy to believe I think that you were witnessing an actual Act of Creation that one of your tribe was crafting a living thing into existence I’m glad that we have science today I’m glad that we recognize facts document them and use them to make sense of the world around us in terms of health government and more we’re better off because we have these things still as a lover of literature and the other Arts I find this scenario appealing if art and life came together in this way these prehistoric people had access to something unavailable to us a truly immersive artistic experience [Music] [Music]