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Alan Garner, archaeology, art, arts, British Museum, creativity, Czech Republic, exhibition, Ice Age, maps, nature, Paleolithic, Sculpture, Ursula Le Guin
“He cut the veil of the rock; the hooves clattered the bellowing waters below him in the dark. The lamp brought the moon from the blade, and the blade the bull from the rock. The ice rang. He took life in his mouth, spat red over hand on the cave wall. The bull roared. Around, above him, the trample of the beasts answered; the stags, the hinds, the horses, the bulls , and the traces of old dreams. The ice rang. He held the lamp and climbed among antlers necks ears eyes horns haunches, the limbs, the nostrils, the rutting, the dancers; from the cave to the crack.”
from Boneland, by Alan Garner
Replica of 14,000 year old carved clay bison from Tuc d’Audoubert in the French Pyrenees
The stunning exhibition of Ice Age Art at the British Museum produces more questions than answers in its array of objects. Should it be seen as ‘art’? Should it be seen as art for art’s sake? What was it done for? Was it all functional in some way? Was it regarded aesthetically at the time? Was it made by ‘artists’? Should it be seen in isolation from its context? Do the modern art works accompanying it add anything?
To take one type of example from the exhibition open to interpretation:
My hasty sketch above is of the engraving on the tip of a mammoth tusk found at the Paleolithic Pavlov site in Moravia in the Czech Republic, which it is said could be a map of the Pavlovske Hills and the River Dyje, with the small oval showing the ancient settlement.
In the exhibition this is shown with an apparently similar image by the 20th century British artist Victor Pasmore adjacent, possibly an abstraction of a snowstorm or just sequences of parallels of curved lines.
![dolniIMG_1929[1]](https://dianajhale.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/dolniimg_19291.jpg?w=296&h=382)
Here is a modern map of the Pavlov site from a display in the Dolní Věstonice Museum near Pavlov. (This is possibly taken from the book “Dolní Věstonice” by A. Knor, V. Lozek, J. Pelisek and K. Zebera via http://donsmaps.com/dolnivi.html where you can find information on the sites)
Are we reading our own conventions of map making – contour lines, rivers, paths- into the lines cut in the ivory?
Below is another sketch I did from an engraved tusk in the exhibition, also possibly a map, from a 20,000 year old Russian settlement site.
Are these images of the oldest maps in existence?
Ursula Le Guin, in her creation of a past/future imagined world (mainly derived from her knowledge of Native American California) in her book Always Coming Home writes in her chapter on maps
“small, schematized, symbolic maps of the Valley or a part of it were often carried by people going on a downriver journey to the ocean or upriver to Wakwaha. As most people knew every feature of the landscape, from mountains to molehills, within four or five miles of their home, and the entire length of the valley was less than thirty miles, these maps were less guides than talismans.”
Why do we make maps? To communicate to others – how to find somewhere, something, the nature of the landscape. Do we need maps when we are in daily contact with our locality, our environment? What else could these patterns represent? Are they just doodles, early examples of the art of mark making, or do they have a symbolic meaning of some sort, to do with identity or possibly spiritual? If they do have a meaning they indicate an ability to use metaphor, which is indeed a key indicator of the ‘modern mind’, the theory behind this exhibition. I know that the scientific application of archaeological techniques can go a long way but unless we find the Paleolithic equivalent of the Rosetta Stone we will never know for sure. But in the meantime we can always speculate and let these objects play on our imaginations.
This was just one aspect of the exhibition that set me off on a train of ideas.
Why do we make art anyway? I shall keep thinking about this.
To be continued…
Related INFORMATION
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/bison-tuc-d-audoubert.php
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/sculpture/jill_cook.php
- Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind – review (guardian.co.uk)
- T.J. Clark: Ice Age Art (lrb.co.uk)
- Ice Age Art: Arrival Of The Modern Mind (morningstaronline.co.uk)
- Ice age carvings: strange yet familiar (guardian.co.uk)
This is a subject that really fascinates me too & I find myself asking similar questions. When I first heard about this exhibition it reminded me that the price I pay to live somewhere within easy reach of wonderful natural landscape, is not being able to go to these sorts of things.
Have you read David Lewis Williams? If I remember rightly, one of his hypotheses for the origin of these sorts of marks is that they are what I think he calls entoptic images – images that people see when they are in a state of altered consciousness. Which doesn’t at all mean that they couldn’t then take on some sort of symbolism & meaning. In fact I think the idea is rather that spirituality is what has come out of this way that the brain functions. I find it so frustrating – I really want to know what they were made for, by whom, for whom, under what circumstances etc, but as you say “Are we reading our own conventions …” so in a sense we can never really know because we interpret from such a different perspective.
But still, It’s all very interesting to be thinking about.
I recommend reading Alan Moore’s ‘Voice of the Fire’, specifically the opening story ‘Hob’s Hog’ which is an extraordinary attempt to enter into the mental world of people living 6000 years ago – http://www.themodernword.com/reviews/moore_fire.html
Thanks for that – I shall definitely check it out.
Wonderful questions, Diana. Am reminded of a writing technique that was popular in the mid-1980s here in the states. It is called mapping and essentially one puts the general topic in the center of a piece of paper with a square or circle drawn around it. On a separate piece of paper, one brainstorms some ideas about the general topic. These ideas are transferred to the piece of paper with the general topic and enclosed in their own circles or squares with lines drawn to the general topic, if they suit. From this “map,” one selects ideas to initiate a first draft.
I know it enjoyed some success, especially with young students, and I tried it with some of my college students. It was a mixed success for the students and did not work for me. I mention it because of the questions you raise in your post. What if such a writing map is discovered years later? What, if anything, does it reveal about the writer?
Enjoyed the post as always.
Karen
I have done something similar myself when starting a new theme of work in art etc. That is an interesting reference Karen, and I’m sure a lot could be read into such mapped connections by others!
The Australian Aboriginals have no word for art, for them art has a very different meaning than for us, modern Europe. The told me most were used to tell the story of the land to show others what to expect, a bit like a map, where is the water, but also which animals to expect.
Thanks for that comparison – I think the Inuit may be similar, in having no word for art. I like the idea of a story as an alternative map. I think that may be the so called Songlines?
The song-lines are more for walking, describing the landscape to find your way. The symbols painted in caves tells you where to find what, like Emu or other animals and most important for many parts in Australia where to find water.
Great post. In a way, all maps are talismans of sorts – visual guides to the various possibilities of travel.
Grayson Perry, looking at the Ice Age Art exhibition said something to the effect of “what we should really be asking is not ‘is it art?’ but ‘is it any good?'” I tend to agree.
Very much looking forward to seeing this exhibition myself sometime soon.
Thanks Laurence. I think if we are looking at it as art we can ask if it is any good or not, but it can tell us so much more in terms of trying to understand the past too, even if we can’t make total sense of it! Most of it is amazing on any terms – do go!
Am getting round to reading Boneland but had to read Moon of Gomrath first… Thursbitch was really powerful and looks like Boneland is going to match it. I love the way he is so spare with words – no overdressing yet double the impact.
Lots of ideas here: I’m also wondering how much ‘awe’ or ‘fear’ played a part in this kind of ‘art’? It’s impossible for us to really appreciate the impact a cathedral would have on a villager in the middle ages, any manifestation of decoration would be ‘wondrous’ to some extent… and a way of expressing power (robes, crowns, sceptres etc). And the ability to make marks/signs also suggests a kind of power: there’s always a passive viewer?
I might read Boneland again. It is a bit of a tricky thing to bridge the adult and child origins of the conception, as well as the different time scales It is so apparently spare it will repay further consideration I think.
You are certainly right about awe and maybe fear, and power is another aspect particularly if the making was in the hands of a few, and Garner certainly uses that in his novel. The exhibition focuses on the portable objects and they have a different impact from the cave paintings and sculptures as well as different purposes probably. I was concentrating more on the ‘art’ argument here. There is so much more in the way of responses to consider, as well as intentions.
Wonderful to see such symbols from another age carrying their knowledge ever onwards. Great post!
Thanks Matt – they are such powerful objects they definitely have something to say still.
How very exciting. We will probably never know all the answers, and I guess there are many reasons for ice age art. Some also connected to rites and religion.
Thanks Bente. I remember your wonderful photos of rock art. I might get on to the rites and religion in a further post!