There was a time when Paleolithic cave paintings were construed primarily through the lens of “art,” an interpretive stance which assumes that at least some Paleolithic peoples were “artists” who painted for pleasure. Because this lens is so subjective (and creative), all manner of interpretations were offered. Whether prosaic or fanciful, this approach raised troubling [...]
Tags:altered states of consciousness·art history·ASC·cave art·cave paintings·dark zone art·David Lewis-Williams·doodles·entoptics·flutings·form constants·France·functionalism·hallucination·Jessica Cooney·Kevin Sharpe·Leslie Van Gelder·Paleolithic·petroglyphs·play·ritual·Rouffignac·shamans·symbolism
Here is a little quiz. What do these places and paintings have in common:
Lascaux Cave, France
Sistine Chapel, Vatican
Although perhaps 30,000 years separate these places, they were/are supernatural spaces adorned with spectacularly painted images having spiritual significance. But that is not all. You can no longer visit the Lascaux Cave because human exhalation, perspiration, etc. was [...]
Tags:carbon dioxide damage·cave paintings·impure spirits·Lascaux Cave·Michelangelo·Sistine Chapel·spiritual paintings·supernatural spaces·Vatican
Over at Seed, Holly Capelo provides a helpful survey of the various ways in which the famous Upper Paleolithic cave paintings — found primarily in France and Spain — have been interpreted over the last several decades. The occasion for her survey, which strangely omits mention of David Lewis-Williams’ contention that the paintings were the [...]
Tags:altered states of consciousness·archaeoastronomy·aurochs·bovids·bull mythology·cave paintings·cyclical time·David Lewis-Williams·entoptic images·Hall of Bulls·Holly Capelo·Lascaux·linear time·lunar time·Magdalenian·Michael Rappengluck·Occams razor·paleolithic graffiti·parsimony·seasonal hunting·star time·Taurus constellation·time-keeping system·Upper Paleolithic
How we perceive the external world is a fascinating subject that has long attracted the attention of great thinkers from Kant to Nietzsche. Kant knew that we possessed some sort of interior filter that enables us to perceive the world and Nietzsche knew that this filtered perception was always an interpretation of the world. Modern [...]
Tags:aesthetics·Altamira·altered states of consciousness·American Indian·Ansel Adams·cave paintings·color symbolism·dichromatic·Edge of Perception·Edward Curtis·exteriority·external world·Greg Boustad·interiority·internal world·Kant·Lascaux·Luke Jerram·Nietzsche·perception·perspective·plant acoustics·scientific constructions·scientific perceptions·sensory perception·the art of science·tobacco·tobacco shamanism
