295
almost furiously uncertain mien: a most tentative character in his own dramatic fin
de siècle concentrated within a few minutes, mid-century. This singular look of awe
was soon followed by a “Young Couple”(c.1858), bemused, longing before the just
invented “ambrotype”—from the Greek word “immortal or imperishable.”
6
Little
boxed machines granting the idea of a new layer of longevity which promised to
yield light forever, whereas the grave could only concede the comforts of darkness
(Fig. 32.1).
Compared with these mid-nineteenth-century aspiring eyes looking toward their
posterity, Cornelius’ antecedents embodied the earliest human anonymities, muted
by the skilled yet ultimately modest workings of fingers—the large pebble-sized
“Venus of Willendorf” (c.30,000–25,000 BC), the “Female Head of Brassempouly,
France” (c.22,000–20,000 BC).
7
Such testimony to individuals lacked the verisimilitude of an altogether separate target of our fascination; not the appeal to aggrandize oneself, but all those Others with whom we had communed for hundreds of
thousands of years. Our artistic relationships with them continue to be debated, but
the debate itself is propelled by today’s altogether uncertain ethical stance, compounded by a pragmatic amnesia. We cannot know what it would have been like to
have stood all but powerless before the aurochs and saber-tooth tigers of lore.
Parietal (cave or other rock) paintings from numerous Upper Paleolithic sites like
Chauvet, Font de Gaume, and Altamira reveal the astonishing language of presences
that were these Others. The painters themselves are confined to the status of mute
observer, or, at best, clumsy stick figures with little if any self-interest. At Cueva de
La Pasiega in Cantabria, for example (Upper Solutrean, Lower Magdalenian, discovered in 1911),
8
there are some 700 animal figures delicately inscribed throughout the labyrinthine chambers. There is also a well-preserved Neanderthal-painted
ladder from 64,000 years ago. And 9000 years before that, a kind of red-ochre
crayon-rendered mini-ladder, a tectiform or idiomorph on a 1.5 inch rock flake
found in the Middle Stone Age Blombos Cave 185 miles East of Cape Town. Each
of these hybrid hominin expressions falls in step, millennium upon millennium with
a biological devotion, that of our ancestors, expressly absorbed by the sheer proliferation, beauty, and philosophical weight of animals (and some plants) in their
world. The Paleolithic Others.
The deep biosemiotic symbology at La Pasiega was finely representational of a
hierarchical coordination that had meaning in and of itself; a notational array one
could argue was some precursor for the kind of prolific classifications that would
transform doodles into intricate Egyptian and Sumerian literary cultures.
6 See The American Tintype, by Floyd Rinhart, Marioin Rinhart and Robert W. Wagner, Ohio State
University Press, 1999, p. 8.
7 See The Illustrated History Of Art, by David Piper, Chancellor Press, London, 1981, p. 12.
8 Breuil, H., Alcalde del Río, H., and Sierra, L., Les Cavernes de la Région Cantabrique (Espagne),
Ed. A. Chêne, Monaco 1911. See also, Pettitt, Paul (November 1, 2008). “Art and the Middle-toUpper Paleolithic transition in Europe: Comments on the archaeological arguments for an early
Upper Paleolithic antiquity of the Grotte Chauvet art”. Journal of Human Evolution. 55 (5):
908–917.
32.2 The Paleolithic Others
almost furiously uncertain mien: a most tentative character in his own dramatic fin
de siècle concentrated within a few minutes, mid-century. This singular look of awe
was soon followed by a “Young Couple”(c.1858), bemused, longing before the just
invented “ambrotype”—from the Greek word “immortal or imperishable.”
6
Little
boxed machines granting the idea of a new layer of longevity which promised to
yield light forever, whereas the grave could only concede the comforts of darkness
(Fig. 32.1).
Compared with these mid-nineteenth-century aspiring eyes looking toward their
posterity, Cornelius’ antecedents embodied the earliest human anonymities, muted
by the skilled yet ultimately modest workings of fingers—the large pebble-sized
“Venus of Willendorf” (c.30,000–25,000 BC), the “Female Head of Brassempouly,
France” (c.22,000–20,000 BC).
7
Such testimony to individuals lacked the verisimilitude of an altogether separate target of our fascination; not the appeal to aggrandize oneself, but all those Others with whom we had communed for hundreds of
thousands of years. Our artistic relationships with them continue to be debated, but
the debate itself is propelled by today’s altogether uncertain ethical stance, compounded by a pragmatic amnesia. We cannot know what it would have been like to
have stood all but powerless before the aurochs and saber-tooth tigers of lore.
Parietal (cave or other rock) paintings from numerous Upper Paleolithic sites like
Chauvet, Font de Gaume, and Altamira reveal the astonishing language of presences
that were these Others. The painters themselves are confined to the status of mute
observer, or, at best, clumsy stick figures with little if any self-interest. At Cueva de
La Pasiega in Cantabria, for example (Upper Solutrean, Lower Magdalenian, discovered in 1911),
8
there are some 700 animal figures delicately inscribed throughout the labyrinthine chambers. There is also a well-preserved Neanderthal-painted
ladder from 64,000 years ago. And 9000 years before that, a kind of red-ochre
crayon-rendered mini-ladder, a tectiform or idiomorph on a 1.5 inch rock flake
found in the Middle Stone Age Blombos Cave 185 miles East of Cape Town. Each
of these hybrid hominin expressions falls in step, millennium upon millennium with
a biological devotion, that of our ancestors, expressly absorbed by the sheer proliferation, beauty, and philosophical weight of animals (and some plants) in their
world. The Paleolithic Others.
The deep biosemiotic symbology at La Pasiega was finely representational of a
hierarchical coordination that had meaning in and of itself; a notational array one
could argue was some precursor for the kind of prolific classifications that would
transform doodles into intricate Egyptian and Sumerian literary cultures.
6 See The American Tintype, by Floyd Rinhart, Marioin Rinhart and Robert W. Wagner, Ohio State
University Press, 1999, p. 8.
7 See The Illustrated History Of Art, by David Piper, Chancellor Press, London, 1981, p. 12.
8 Breuil, H., Alcalde del Río, H., and Sierra, L., Les Cavernes de la Région Cantabrique (Espagne),
Ed. A. Chêne, Monaco 1911. See also, Pettitt, Paul (November 1, 2008). “Art and the Middle-toUpper Paleolithic transition in Europe: Comments on the archaeological arguments for an early
Upper Paleolithic antiquity of the Grotte Chauvet art”. Journal of Human Evolution. 55 (5):
908–917.
32.2 The Paleolithic Others