Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave: The Oldest Known Paintings in the World
New York, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1996. Hardcover. cherry-brown cloth over boards w/ Gilt titling at spine; 135 pp.; 94 color photos and figures. pictorial dustjacket w/ yellow printing. VG-/VG (very slight spine lean. textblock has slight split to textblock; pgs firm & intact. dustjacket scuffed & scratched; edge-wear, some curling to edges; length-wise curl to interior flap). Item #121624
ISBN: 9780810932326
The Chauvet cave, named for one of the discoverers, which had been untouched for thousands of years. It was filled with Stone Age cave bear skeletons and footprints, the blackened remains of fires, and, most importantly, walls covered with more than three hundred extraordinary paintings and engravings of animals. These staggering images proved to be doubly remarkable, for not only have radiocarbon tests established them to be over 30,000 years old - the oldest known paintings in the world, nearly twice as old as those found at Lascaux - but they are powerful, sophisticated works of art rather than crude sketches. Dawn of Art is the first book in English on the images that have, as the French Ministry of Culture declared, "overturned the accepted notion about the first appearance of art and its development." The remarkable photographs in Dawn of Art show each wall in clear detail, revealing the incredible mastery of the prehistoric artists. Astonishingly, while most cave art is of creatures such as horses, aurochs, and bison, over half of these images depict such dangerous animals as cave bears, hyenas, lions, mammoths, and rhinoceroses. The paintings are particularly impressive in terms of the techniques used to present perspective and motion. Many figures interact with each other; some are staggered, to give perspective; others are drawn on bulges in the cave wall to further suggest depth.--Publisher.
OCLC: 33665663
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