Lascaux cave paintings

Part of an ekphrastic, non-fiction series from author David Linebarger.

The Bradshaw Foundation provides an online learning resource to promote the study of early humankind’s artistic achievements and to foster principles of research and of conservation. Its areas of focus are archaeology, anthropology and genetic research, with the primary objective to discover, document and preserve ancient rock art around the world.

The long read: In our self-obsessed age, the anonymous, mysterious cave art of our ancient ancestors is exhilarating

Cave paintings consists of painted and engraved works on cave walls or ceilings. The earliest examples of those were seen at Aurignacian times which was almost 35,000 years ago. According to eviden…

In 1940 in south western France in Lascuax some teenagers stumbled across cave paintings from 17,300 years ago. In 1955 the carbon...

Rock art, created by the San or Bushmen, is now accepted as having spiritual significance. And while you may admire the polychromatic eland and other animals, so lovingly depicted, the strange patterns and splotches have huge significance too.

Thomas Dowson takes us inside Lascaux Caves, France. An Ice Age Cave few have the opportunity to visit today.

These are very old works painted by hunters who never went to art schools. Yet the basic elements of lines, shapes, colours, textures, form...