An Ode to Carl

Portion of the Lascaux cave drawings

Copyright © Edward Riojas

Like wine, we all have our favorite vintage. 2005 was a pretty good year for wine, I’m told. So was 1990. 1975 – not so much. How about the year 15,300 B.C.? Well, you know, that’s the number smarty-pants scientists put on the cave drawings of Lascaux, France. Whatever the number, that was a superb year.

I’ve always been a fan of Lascaux’s cave drawings, and have sometimes wondered about the person behind those exquisite images. Paleontologists and anthropologists and lots of other ’gists have loaded us up to the gills with clueless insights regarding the artist responsible. I don’t think anyone really knows anything about those caves, and that’s the charm of it.

At the risk of sounding sexist, I’d like to give the cave artist a name: Carl. I only think of him as a man because cool pictures from book-learnin’ tomes always show a uni-browed, knuckle-dragging chap and I simply can’t put those features on a woman, no matter how talented she might otherwise be. So Carl it is – with a “C.”

Maybe it’s because I’m on the other side of the aisle with art folks, but science-types sometimes cheese me off. Not only have they put Carl a few centuries before Adam and Eve with their goofy date, but they’ve loaded up his resume with all kinds of garbage. “He was a shaman,” sez they, “trying to bring good luck to the coming hunt, and therefore put images of what he wanted for din-din up on the cave walls.” Whatever.

I think it’s interesting that apparently no one  ever thought that maybe he was one of Noah’s kids. Those rug rats knew a thing or two about animals, and the Lascaux caves are all about animals. Or maybe Carl was closer in lineage to old-man Adam. At any rate, he lived during a time when animals were greater in number and size.

Just look at the images Carl the caveman left us: Dun horses and long-horned cattle commingle with shaggy bison, rhinoceroses, caribou, and other animals so faithfully reproduced that it is mind-boggling – and laughable – that a pea-wit could accomplish half as much. In some places, the artist approached his subjects with scientific accuracy, delineating individual specimens and articulating joints with exacting detail.

What is also amazing are the colors used in those images. Sure, he was forced to use a limited palette based on available colors, but the result of expertly using blacks and umbers and siennas and ochres shows sophistication exceeding a lot of crap shown down the road in hoity-toity Paris. And to think Carl probably dug his pigments out of the dirt!

"Birdman" detail of the Lascaux cave drawings

There are hints, too, that Carl didn’t work alone. Variations in style exist, and it is evident in the image of a “bird-man” figure about to be gored by a large bovine. Both figures in the tableau do not have large swaths of ground earth color as are used in other drawings, and the poses are stiff and lack the elegance found in other images. I’m no scientist, but my guess is that it was Carl’s cousin, Bob, who had a hand in the “bird-man” drawing. I also think Carl probably got pissed-off at Bob because, collaborations aside, few artists like other artists messing with their art.

No human bones were found in the caves, however, so we can assume Carl didn't kill his cousin over the defacing of some rather nice art. I guess that's how nice guys behave. So let’s all pour a glass of our favorite vintage and raise a toast to all-around, nice-guy, Carl. Thanks to him, even a hole in the ground can age nicely over time.