Jean Clottes. Cave art.

Jean Clottes. Cave art. JEAN CLOTTES. Cave art cave art:see Paleolithic art; rock carvings and paintings. . 334 pages, over 300 colour plates. 2008.London: Phaidon; 978-0-7148-4592-0 hardback 45 [pounds sterling], $90& 75 [euro]. Fifty-five years ago this reviewer walked into the cave ofLascaux--no guide, no supervision--and explored and admired the vividpaintings that most of us know well from numerous books and papers.Lascaux today is not so brilliant due to the serious effects of variouspolluting agencies. But the thousands of earlier visits included manyphotographers whose work is ever-more important in the documentation ofthe artistry not only of Lascaux but also of many cavern walls bearingpaintings and engravings of Late Glacial times. Here in this book,called simply Cave Art, the paramount French specialist of the subjecthas assembled over 300 pictures, both old and new, of images painted andengraved en��grave?tr.v. en��graved, en��grav��ing, en��graves1. To carve, cut, or etch into a material: engraved the champion's name on the trophy.2. , arranged in a general chronological system which some maydispute. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] At first glance, Cave Art looks like a coffee-table tome, large,thick and heavy, full of colour and captions, with seemingly little inthe way of discursive text. Bur this book is more than an ornament ornament, in architectureornament,in architecture, decorative detail enhancing structures. Structural ornament, an integral part of the framework, includes the shaping and placement of the buttress, cornice, molding, ceiling, and roof and the capital and : inits Introduction the author sets out his structural approach and hisopinion on a wide variety of important subjects, starting out withchronology and retaining the classic West European sequence ofAurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian. There follows acomment on the distribution of sites, predominandy in France and Spain,but also incorporating 'a minor engraved site in England (CreswellCrags Creswell Crags is a limestone gorge in North East Derbyshire, England near the villages of Creswell and Whitwell. The cliffs of the ravine contain several caves that were occupied during the last ice age, between around 43,000 and 10,000 years ago. )' as well as comparable small sites elsewhere in westernEurope Western EuropeThe countries of western Europe, especially those that are allied with the United States and Canada in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (established 1949 and usually known as NATO). . Here is where the book's title is convenient burmisleading, as contemporary open-air sites are included; few of thesegenerally receive the prominence of the decorated caves. Thetechnologies of painting, engraving and carving are briefly addressedand then the author identifies the principal 'themes' in theart, the word 'themes' perhaps overgenerous as he seems morerealistically to be listing individual subjects--geometrics, herbivores,humans, and indeterminates including composites. To comprehend a'theme' within the repertoire needs more on matters such ascontext, position, association, size and quality, in thisreviewer's opinion. And here again the book's Cave Art conceptis extended to include mobiliary art Mobiliary art is a term used in archaeology for one of two general categories of paleolithic artifacts produced. Mobiliary art can be moved or transported while parietal art (cave art) cannot be. , well-illustrated among thepictures of wall-based paintings and engravings. The mobiliary art iscrucially important as support for the author's chronologicalscheme noted below. The author then lists three areas of research that concernhim--themes and techniques, cultural and environmental contexts, andethnological eth��nol��o��gy?n.1. The science that analyzes and compares human cultures, as in social structure, language, religion, and technology; cultural anthropology.2. comparisons--in the expectation that these will aid ourquest for Verb 1. quest for - go in search of or hunt for; "pursue a hobby"quest after, go after, pursuelook for, search, seek - try to locate or discover, or try to establish the existence of; "The police are searching for clues"; "They are searching for the a meaning behind it all. Here it must be said that bothgeographical width and chronological depth act to defeat the emergenceof any demonstrable 'truths', and the three approaches are notfully integrated, nor ever could have been for such a subject. Theauthor does his best to avoid dogmatism dog��ma��tism?n.Arrogant, stubborn assertion of opinion or belief.dogmatism1. a statement of a point of view as if it were an established fact.2. in his final introductory pageswhere a historical approach is adopted for the ever-beguiling andnever-conclusive subject of Interpretations. The various theories, from Art for Art through Sympathetic Magic Sympathetic magic, also known as imitative magic, is a type of magic based on imitation or correspondence. Imitation involves using effigies to affect the environment of people, or occasionally people themselves. toStructuralist concepts are replaced now, in the author's view, byShamanic Religion. Anticipating some opposition to this last-namedinterpretive approach, the author makes two statements. The first is hisacceptance that 'some of the observations and arguments put forwardin previous hypotheses are still valid'; the second is that'many researchers today ... mistrust ... any type of interpretationat all'. There can be few prehistorians who come to the caves andshelters who will not have some opinion or theory to account for certainaspects of the artistic representations, and the search for a universaltruth must surely be misguided. A large area, a vast time-frame,substantial environmental alterations, these and more suggest variation,amendment, expansion, hiatus, perhaps disputes and confrontations, thatwould certainly alter any overall initial concept of social practicethat originally inspired and initiated the processes of what weappreciate as 'artistry'. The author believes that 'thestructure of Palaeolithic thinking and the manner in which theymanifested themselves barely changed until the upheaval at the end ofthe ice age'. That is one opinion. The bulk of Cave Art consists of single and double-page spreads ofphotographs of painted and engraved images, chronologically-arrangedinto three Ages, and terminated here by a short assemblage of rock artfrom around the world and of post-Pleistocene age; this last sectioncould have been omitted as the pictures can do little more thanemphasise the fragmentation of the grand Ice Age concepts, with noexamination of how, why or when such late manifestations of cave,shelter, open-air and mobiliary art appeared. Each of the three main chronologically-arranged sections consistssimply and without overall comment of photographs of those imagesbelieved to date appropriately and to express the character andidentities of the figures, some barely discernable or incomplete, othersdramatic and almost individually identifiable within their specificgrouping; the Chauvet horseheads are an obvious example, and a pity thatthe same cannot be exposed here for the Altamira bison. The selection of photographs for the book has been based very muchupon imagery, the particular animal or less-identifiable symbol, ratherthan upon groupings and contextual associations. There are welcomeexceptions, particularly for the author's key and defining sites:Chauvet and Gargas for 'The Age of Chauvet 35 000-22 000 yearsago', Lascaux and Cosquer for 'The Age of Lascaux 22 000-17000 years ago', and Niaux for 'The End of the Ice Age 17 00011000 years ago'. Readers of Antiquity will be aware of the disputeconcerning the radiocarbon dates for the Chauvet art; the matter is notargued anew in this book, although the author acknowledges the differingopinions. The five type-sites are well-illustrated in the book, withsome photographs of walls, ceilings and crevices. Bur no such contextualview appears for sites such as Altamira, Font de Gaume Font de Gaume is a cave in southwestern France near Les Eyzies. The cave houses a collection of prehistoric polychrome cave paintings, and is a popular site for tourists. History of Font de Gaume and Rouffignac.For this last site, a brief mention of the original controversy over theauthenticity of much of the imagery is dismissive of those whose doubtswere once fiercely expressed. And for this reviewer, the several bisonand horses of Le Portel figured here can hardly reflect the intricacy in��tri��ca��cy?n. pl. in��tri��ca��cies1. The condition or quality of being intricate; complexity.2. Something intricate: the intricacies of a census form.Noun 1. ofthe multi-channelled cavern, in which long ago he dropped and broke hislamp, alone, and then waited in deep silence and all-envelopingblackness until a rescuing torch was brought along the passageway,briefly illuminating the black horses that seemingly bucked and dancedabout on the walls; this is surely the way to observe and reflect uponthe images, their place and their power. Cave Art is certainly an impressive and attractive book, and wouldlook well on my coffee-table, if I had one, and it deserves a prominentplace among the ever-growing range of monographs on Ice Age art. But itis surely time, now, for a more conceptual and analytical approach tothis body of archaeological evidence. JOHN COLES Cadbury, Devon, UK