Lascaux

There is a sense of end of days these days whose endpoint is not in sight, nor even known, yet the road on which humanity is trudging, running, jumping, seething, seems set and ever-darkening. How do we abstract ourselves from the news without playing the ostrich game as if nothing were amiss? How do we retrieve the goodness of life from within, and within our circles, without feeling stuck in our bubbles? Mixed metaphors. Instead, as first blog entry an outburst written last summer after seeing the Lascaux caves in the Dordogne - one of the most gorgeous, and preserved, regions in France. It remains a life-changing experience.

Sergeac, 13 August 2019 — I finally saw Lascaux. The beautifully done replica, that is – no one can see the real one, with the ancient pigments and vestiges of 20,000-year old hands. It’s an as-if experience but it is as good as the real thing. I was with my boys, and I saw it through their eyes as well though my amazement was no less than theirs. We are children all of us before the contemplation of our origins, our eyes tuned into mirrors onto ourselves as we gaze at walls that have been familiar for decades, ever since the place was discovered and photos were distributed. And enriched by the later ones of Chauvet and Altamira. But those were images of what looked like images. Seeing them on their walls, in their place, is like looking at the fire from within its hearth. The origin of our creative fire. How far back must we go to see its first lighting? Did it start with fire? Certainly fire was needed, for the light in the dark, for lighting up the dark, the translation of a primeval element into a tool for the hands of us humans. How did those people know what they were doing? They are not so far removed from us, is all – and that is the consolation. More time separates the Lascaux paintings from those of Chauvet than that separating Lascaux from us. Prehistory lasted a long time, and seen from the perspective of the very brief historical time that is human culture – culture of land and culture of memory and social relations – that lengthiness is puzzling and troubling, because culture as we know it does seem aimed at self-destruction. And when one looks at these human accomplishments, one realises one is looking at history. There is no more need for the term “prehistory”. Clearly these were markings for some sort of posterity, aimed at least at being preserved – surely the painters chose caves because their works would be preserved there, and in the ice age in any case where else would they be able paint? The caves were their studios. What further purpose the art served beyond the joy of enacting self-consciousness, of mastering nature by the very ability to represent it, beyond the joy of making something pleasing to the eye – we don’t know. And in a sense, that doesn’t matter.

Now we see ourselves seeing this from within modernity. We see ourselves contemplating our origins and marveling at the sophistication of what we have called art for a little while, even though we know, the minute we start thinking a little, that the appellation art is culture-bound and question-begging. Perhaps we should use the term art first for these representations - rather than classifying them along with the very particular form of art produced since European antiquity and calling them art insofar as they are analogous to what we know from historical times. Everything descends from this even though we only became aware of it once our art had reached an impasse. There was a long period during which this art was forgotten. But modern art copied the earliest markings, and now we call them art, forgetting that its history is inherent in our biology and that our biology is ancient.

Can we learn how to see from that standpoint? Is it possible to shed the accretions of time and knowledge and memory and see as in that first day? But was there ever a first day? What was the first fire? The first thought? The first self-conscious utterance? What the anthropologist looks at is as laden with memory, representations and knowledge as what we experience every day. But our very ability to distance ourselves from ourselves, the step back that characterises anthropology, is also the step back that characterises all self-conscious knowledge, all knowledge where the knower is aware of constructing knowledge – all science, and all art. And the parietal artist – for want of any other available term – is aware of representing, and of participating in a form that is separate from what is being represented. We are cultured insofar as we are knowingly separate from the natural world we are able to represent, eventually domesticate, cultivate, and dominate. The humans of Palaeolithic times “mastered their environment perfectly”, we were told by various (all very able) guides. Just as animals do. That is what makes survival possible at all.

And by now we no longer master the environment. We can only master our artefacts. Few of us know how to light a fire or hunt a reindeer, though we know how to turn on the hob and roast the chicken, having bought it dead and plucked. Now we just dominate our environment. And we look at these early days of our history – indeed, no need to continue calling it prehistory– as into a mirror, seeing the super-predators we are, predators capable of hunting with the sagaye as well as with a brush, turn all environment against us. We have dominated the environment so much that the tipping point has arrived and its prerogatives are roaring again, primeval elements on the move. Earth, fire, water, air. This is how it all began, and this is how, probably, it will end. At least there will have been conscious beings to observe, and record. But who is to say what will remain of these records. And who is to say whether the caves and their earthen pigments will survive forever. They are now off-limits, having suffered the ravages of the infringing modern organisms we are. Nature may eventually reclaim them wholly, just as she is reclaiming us. Or they may be all that is eventually left of human history. But even in that case, no one would be around to find out.