CHAUVET CAVE: THE ART OF EARLIEST TIMES, Jean Clottes, University of Utah Press, $45, cloth, 226 pp., 176 color photographs, 30 maps.
My introduction to the cave paintings of Lascaux, France, was in a freshman art history class in 1970. The prehistoric renderings were exquisite. Enigmatic and complex, several students debated the actual date of the paintings as well as the images' true origin.
While the professor advanced several theories, I continued to be enraptured by the symbolic, quasi-abstract drawn animals before me; the notion that man, many thousands of years earlier, was putting art — for whatever reason — on cave walls thrilled me.
The same curious excitement arose in me again as I read through "Chauvet Cave: The Art of Earliest Times" by Jean Clottes.
Before the discovery of Chauvet Cave in southeast France, Lascaux had the oldest known surviving cave paintings: 32,000-12,000 years BP (before the present). Chauvet, which dates as far back as the Aurignacian period (37,000-29,000 years BP), is now considered the oldest known cave site with identifiable images depicting mammoths, rhinos, lions, bears, bison and horses. This makes Chauvet Cave a priceless find.
"Chauvet Cave: The Art of Earliest Times" measures 10 by 13 inches, is illustrated with 176 color photographs, many of which are two-page spreads, making the final image 20 by 13 inches. Each picture is in critical focus, teasing the reader into believing they might actually be right there in the cave.
One of the best aspects of the book is the chapters breakdown. Chapter One, "How to Study the Cave?" is a succinct and easy-to-understand description of how the project
began, who made up the research team and how the work was carried out and the difficulties solved; it is ideal for the novice anthropologist.
Each chapter is structured to be concise and visually arresting. They discuss the cave and its surroundings — how humans lived and died there; the floors of the cave, with human and animal bones; the drawings in the cave by each chamber; the art techniques used to create the images; the list of animals depicted; alternate points of view on the meaning of the cave; and finally a conclusion.
While the occasional word or sentence is formidable — referring to scientific dating, stratified periods, etc. — "Chauvet Cave: The Art of the Earliest Times" is worth the time expended in searching through the dictionary. And who knows, you too might be a little thrilled by the history of this very ancient art.
E-MAIL: gag@desnews.com