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Visionary art?
Shamans, Charles Bonnet, and the cave paintings
Henry N. Claman, MD
The author (AΩA, University of Colorado, 1979) is
Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Associate Director
of the Medical Humanities Program at the University of
Colorado, Denver. He is a member of the editorial board of
The Pharos.
Paleolithic art, particularly the cave paintings of
Southwestern Europe, is a source of amazement still.
These images haunt many of us, not only because of
their beauty and their great age, (stretching back over 30,000
years), but because they are one of the few entrées we might
have into the lives of our ancestors, who are among the great
masters of artistic creativity, and about whom we know very
little apart from this art. The study of this art continues to
expand as art historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, and
natural history scientists try to unravel the mystery of what
the art “means” and why it was made. There is a wide divergence
in opinions on this subject, and some experts have actually
warned against further attempts to discover “the meaning”
of paleolithic art. However, it is hard to abandon the quest,
and this contribution attempts to call attention to another
possible avenue of interpretation, relying on new neurophysiological
concepts.
The art was produced in profusion, and consists mainly
of paintings and engravings, as well as sculpture in the round
and in bas-relief. The early members of our genus and species,
Homo sapiens sapiens, were hunter-gatherers. They lived in
small nomadic bands of perhaps fifty to one hundred people,
in a mostly egalitarian society. They made stone tools and had
fire but made neither cloth nor pottery. Half of the art is in
limestone caves and half is outside, mainly in shelters. Those
in the caves are better preserved and have received the most
attention.
What was depicted? Many of the most prominent images
are of animals, mainly large ones such as horses, bisons, bovids,
lions, rhinoceri, reindeer, and so forth. Rarely seen is a
small animal such as a rabbit or owl. The large animals are almost
always shown in profile, in big or small images, complete
or fragmentary. When I was lucky enough to be in the Great
Hall of the “original” Lascaux cave (now closed to the public)
I felt that I was engulfed in the midst of a huge stampede. It
was an overwhelming experience of power and speed. In addition
to all the animal depictions, however, there are a lesser
number of human figures, or parts of humans, including positive
and negative hand prints and images of (mainly female)
genitalia. Intact humans are rare and almost always masked.
There is a also very large number of enigmatic forms that are
Man looking at prehistoric cave painting of animals.
Photo by Ralph Morse//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images.
4 The Pharos/Winter 2011