The Lascaux Cave Paintings

France is world-famous for its art. From Manet to Monet, from the Louvre to the Pompidou Centre, French artists and institutions have pushed the boundaries of what we think is possible with art, as well as what defines it.

But when we consider French art, most of us probably confine our scope to a two- or three-hundred year period between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. It was during this time that the legends of French artistry, such as Renoir, Delacroix and Cézanne, awed the nation and the world with their talents.

But did you know some of France’s most significant paintings date from long before this period? And not just hundreds or even thousands of years before, but up to 20,000 years ago!

These are what are known as the Lascaux cave paintings, and they still exist to this day. The precise date of their creation is hard to pinpoint, but they are generally believed to have been painted between 17,000 and 22,000 years ago. This date is determined by a method known as radiocarbon testing, which involves analysing fragments of charcoal found in or alongside the paintings.

Unfortunately, we don’t know much about who painted these pictures, but we do know who discovered them. They were stumbled upon in 1940 by a teenager by the name of Marcel Ravidat, who was out walking his dog when the pair came across a hole in the ground. Ravidat was intrigued, and later returned to the hole with a few friends. Together they entered the hole and explored the subterranean passageway, believing it might be a secret entrance to a local manor house.

What they discovered was even more impressive. As they progressed through the caves, they noticed that the walls were covered in strange paintings of animals, depicting everything from bulls to bears to deer. Some of these creatures - such as aurochs - are now extinct, with others - such as rhinoceroses - no longer local to the European continent. In one of the paintings, there is also a depiction of a human being (albeit with the head of a bird!).

The boys didn’t keep the secret to themselves. In 1948, the caves were opened to the public, attracting over 1,000 visits a day. Due to the increase in light and carbon dioxide resulting from the influx in visitors, however, the paintings began to deteriorate, and the caves were closed to the public again in 1963. Nowadays if you want to visit the caves, you’re unfortunately out of luck, but thanks to the Internet they are - in a certain way - more accessible than ever. You can check out a 3d model of the caves here, for instance.

The paintings are really quite striking, and surprisingly sophisticated when you consider that writing was only invented in the 4th millennium BC, while the wheel was invented in the 4th century BC. Of course, the painters did not have the luxury of a homeware store close to hand, so they had to work with limited materials. Among the substances used to paint the pictures in Lascaux were ochre, goethite and hematite, hence the very limited colour palette of yellow, red and black.

That said, the paintings aren’t so different from much of the surrealist art that dominated early 20th century France. When the famous cubist painter Picasso visited Lascaux, he is said to have observed that ‘They invented everything’. And it isn’t only painters who have been influenced by France's enduring cave paintings. The German filmmaker Werner Herzog was so inspired by the story of the even older paintings in the Chauvet Cave - southeast of Lascaux - that he produced a haunting documentary about them in 2010, entitled ‘Cave of Forgotten Dreams’.