cave of...

"...time loses its contours underground." I saw the Cave of Forgotten Dreams last night, and was blown away. Not so much through Mr. Herzog's expression of the caves (3d!) and the philosophical stance he wages (rather distracting), but simply by the art itself. On their own, these paintings are amazingly beautiful... indeed, reminiscent of Picasso as the film mentions.

chauvet lions

chauvet horses

I think what is striking is how much beauty there can be in something so removed from its creator. We have no idea who or why these were made. Herzog and the archaeologists theorize and extrapolate using a blend of science and soul searching to try to recreate a context for these paintings outside of their literal location, which is just present day France. And the context they are striving for is bigger than any of us can really take on. They are looking for a way for us to know ourselves.

picasso's 'essence' of a bull, left. the second sketch came first.

Because perhaps we haven't changed? We look over the span of time and we see ourselves, a similar hand, a similar eye to create imagery and motion. After Picasso saw the caves at Lascaux he said, in varying ways and many times, 'We have learned nothing. They've invented everything.'

chauvet bulls

 As I said before, the art is beautiful: the strokes are dramatic and emotive, utilizing perspective, shadows and surrealist techniques to generate movement and narrative. It is beyond what I ever assumed of cave art, which I thought was flat and primitive. And supposedly some of it dates thousands of years apart, layers of time. To see the film is visually seductive- the 3D can be rather odd at times but overall it allows for this incredible detail and depth to a landscape that is unearthly to begin with. And yes, it makes you wonder who and why... it humanizes something that we view as science, as animalistic. It reminds us how much we don't know, how much can not be preserved or discovered that would even begin to tell the true story. So we take it as is, using our own eyes and our own stories to reconstruct theirs. We could be so wrong, or so right.

Oh, and you get to see albino alligators in 3D at the end... the mutants that are looking back over the abyss of time. I don't know, ask Herzog. But also beautiful, and unearthly.