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Western Prehistoric Cave Art

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Twentieth-century, European early Modern artists deliberately sought inspiration from prehistoric and tribal art and from various subcultures as a way of breaking the then indoctrinated rules of fine art and experimenting with entirely fresh techniques (Cardinal 2004). Prehistoric influences on modern artists were tacitly acknowledged in post-World War II France, which coincided with the discovery of the Lascaux Cave in 1940 and its opening to the public in 1948. Cardinal (2004) makes a case that the French painters and print-makers, Pierre Tal Coat, Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier, and others were all influenced by the widely circulated popular images of Lascaux reprinted in newspapers and magazines at the time. Prehistoric cave art continues to capture our imagination, and despite its antiquity, reflects a style similar to many in the Western pictorial tradition, which may partially explain the reason we are still fascinated by these cave paintings today (Rosengren 2012).
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For more than one hundred years, researchers have attempted to interpret and reinterpret the meaning behind these images depicted far beneath the earth’s surface. The most popularized line of thinking is that these caves are the official birthplace of art, and simply display man’s inherent desire to produce things of beauty. It has been assumed that game must have been plentiful during this period, allowing for an abundance of spare time. Coupled with man’s innate nature to create, cave art was therefore naturally born (Rosengren 2012). In the mid-twentieth century, French writer Georges Bataille was quite influential in espousing this popular belief that “the miracle of Lascaux” was a stupendous and epoch-defining expression that ultimately culminated in “the birth of art” (Cardinal 2004,

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