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The Cave Paintings of Chauvet
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Visit to the Chauvet Cave in 1999 by John Robinson
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Pulling my mind away from the religious connotations, I turned the glasses to study the Lions. Again the glasses intensified the images making them even more menacing. The line and shading of the cave paintings is awesome. A magnificent work of Art.
The whole canvas is nearly 30 feet long, and spread across a magnificent water worn smooth wall of ochre shades. A large Bison to the left of the panel is painted as though it is coming out of the wall, only the front half of the giant beast shows. Beneath the Bison is a real oddity, a baby Mammoth with enormous feet. What is it doing here? It seems out of place in the over all design of the panel.
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To the left of the Lions is the great panel of Rhinoceros. What a composition! It is out of this world. I counted eight great bodies, but there could be another 6 beasts hidden in the complexity of the drawing, as the top Rhinoceros is extraordinary. He is shown as having seven enormous front horns making it look as though the animal is thrashing his head up and down in anger.
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Between the Lions and the Rhinoceros is a shallow recess like a side Chapel to the Sanctuary.
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On the back wall is painted a solitary Horse, with a proudly arched mane above a black face. The body was quite orange in the light of my lamp. His back legs look as though they are hidden by undergrowth, so I got the feeling that he was walking out of the wall. What a masterpiece of drawing. What a feat of imagination
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The air in the Sanctuary is dangerously high in CO2, as it collects here because of being the lowest point of the cavern, and causes the symptoms that I was beginning to feel, tightness in my head and breathlessness. I wondered if this had been so 30,000 years ago? If so the visitors would have felt the same way as I did now. Surely this would have conveyed the feeling of sacredness to the chamber, presenting a physical barrier to the Underworld, by causing giddiness, followed by collapse.
It was time to turn and leave. Before heading back Jean showed me a large cave-in of the floor behind the Sorcerer. There at the bottom of the pit was an enormous bear skull, the largest found in the Chauvet Cave. We climbed back up the entrance of the Sanctuary, passed under the Owl, and returned to the ladders.
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