Upper Palaeolithic Installation Art: Topography, Distortion, Animation and Participation in the Production and Experience of Cantabrian Cave Art
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Upper Palaeolithic Installation Art: Topography, Distortion, Animation and Participation in the Production and Experience of Cantabrian Cave Art Takashi Sakamoto , Paul Pettitt & Roberto Ontañon-Peredo The physical nature of cave walls and its impact on Upper Palaeolithic image making and viewing has frequently been invoked in explanations about the function of cave art. The morphological features (convexities, concavities, cracks and ridges) are frequently incorporated into the representations of prey animals that dominate the art, and several studies have attempted to document the relationship between the cave wall and the art in a quantitative manner. One of the effects of such incorporation is that undulating walls will distort the appearance of images as viewers change their viewing position. Was this distortion deliberate or accidental? Until now, the phenomenon has not been investigated quantitatively. We address this here, analysing 54 Late Upper Palaeolithic animal images deriving from three Cantabrian caves, Covalanas, El Pendo and El Castillo. We introduce a novel use for photogrammetry and 3D modelling through documenting the morphology of these caves’ walls and establishing the specific relationship between the walls and the art created on them. Our observations suggest that Palaeolithic artists deliberately placed images on very specific topographies. The restricted nature of these choice decisions and the fact that the resulting distortions could have been avoided but were not suggest that the interaction between viewer, art and wall was integral to the way cave art functioned. Introduction little evidence elsewhere for visual culture (see Aubert et al. 2018; Slimak et al. 2018: but also see European ‘cave art’ forms the most robust set of vis- replies from Hoffmann et al. 2018b,c; 2019,who ual culture for exploring the early evolution of point out the errors of such critiques). Figurative human visual systems. At present an apparently art in Europe—overwhelmingly dominated by prey non-figurative phase of body-extension art (hand animals such as horse, bovids and cervids—appears stencils, finger dots and lines) predates U-Th min- after ∼37000 cal. BP in our estimation, based on a par- imum ages of ∼64000 BP, at least in three Iberian simonious interpretation of the few existing dated caves, and maximum and minimum ages place a per- examples in western Europe and their associated pre- iod of similar art between 45,000 and 43,000 BP cision/errors (Hodgson & Pettitt 2018). Formally (Hoffmann et al. 2018a); we note that there are detrac- speaking, the latter relates to the Early, Mid and tors who have criticized the former minimum age, Late Upper Palaeolithic and to the visual culture of mainly due to perceived errors in sampling strategy Homo sapiens, persisting in fits and starts until and hence relevance of dated calcites to the under- near the end of the Upper Palaeolithic around the lying art, and an apparent incompatibility with the Pleistocene–Holocene transition (Bahn 2016; existing archaeological record which as yet presents Hodgson & Pettitt 2018; Pettitt 2014; 2016). Upper Cambridge Archaeological Journal 30:4, 665–688 © 2020 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research doi:10.1017/S0959774320000153 Received 15 Jul 2019; Accepted 12 Apr 2020; Revised 12 Apr 2020 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 03 Oct 2021 at 22:05:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774320000153 Takashi Sakamoto, Paul Pettitt & Roberto Ontañon‐Peredo Palaeolithic cave art—produced by spitting, finger cave walls often played an integral role in the cre- painting, brush painting, drawing and low-relief ation and, in particular, viewing of images, and sculpture—comprises a wide variety of themes, hence that ‘cave art’ was actually a system that inte- such as solitary and grouped herbivores and carni- grated the artist/viewer and their physical environ- vores, geometric signs, finger flutings (drawn lines ment in a two-way relationship that was constantly left by fingers on soft clay), hand stencils and prints changing (Lorblanchet 1995; Pleniér 1971; Sauvet & and, rarely, anthropomorphs (Bahn & Vertut 1997; Tosello 1998). This relationship corresponds to the Vialou 1998; White 2003). Here, however, we are con- principles of modern ‘installation art’ (Sakamoto cerned with its dominant element—naturalistic 2014.). drawings/paintings of quadrupedal mammals on ‘Viewpoint’ in cave art has been discussed fre- walls and ceilings of the Mid and Late Upper quently, from different perspectives, e.g. the plurality Palaeolithic (∼30,000–14,000 BP). These are most of horizontal axes (Criado Boado & Penedo Romero abundant in southern France and the Iberian penin- 1993); anamorphosis (Aujoulat 1985; Groenen 2000); sula (especially northern Spain), with other continen- and the shared gaze (Geneste et al. 2004). Selection tal European examples in Italy, Germany, the Czech of different viewing distances will also alter the view- Republic, the United Kingdom and Russia (Bahn er’s perception of specific images (Bourdier 2013; 2016), Croatia (Ruiz-Redondo et al. 2019) and, further Bourdier et al. 2017). Anamorphosis in particular is afield, in Egypt (Huyge et al. 2007) and Indonesia directly related to the issue of multiple viewpoints, (Aubert et al. 2014). Unlike Palaeolithic images in as it appears distorted in frontal view but resolves the open air (e.g. Portugal’s Côa Valley; Spain’s into proper proportions only from a specific view- Siega Verde; Germany’s Hunsrück (Bahn 1995; point. Anamorphosis has been identified in a num- Baptista 2009; Batarda Fernandes et al. 2017; Welker ber of caves in different European regions, e.g. 2016), where colouring might not necessarily have Lascaux (Aujoulat 1985; 2005; Surre 1992), Cougnac been an essential element as multiple carving techni- (Groenen 2000; Lorblanchet 1989), Tito Bustillo ques were employed to highlight images, probably to (Aujoulat 1985), the Réseau Clastres at Niaux achieve long-standing visibility in open landscape (Clottes & Simonnet 1990). Most famously, the red where pigments would otherwise fade (see Zilhão cow depicted on a corner of the ceiling of Lascaux’s et al. 1997), these images can be preserved remark- Axial Gallery appears to viewers in proper propor- ably well in the relatively stable microclimates of tion only when they look up at the cow from a frontal deep caves. viewing position, while this naturalistic harmony is It is well known that the natural features of cave gradually disturbed as the viewpoint elevates and walls (grooves, cracks, rock edges, concavities and approaches to the actual height at which the artist convexities) were frequently utilized as constituent worked (Surre 1992). An anamorphic herbivore in parts of animal representations, either to define Cognac was placed on a wall at the height of stand- parts of their outline, or to add volume to muscular ing viewers, but it appears deformed when viewed areas of their body (e.g. Alcalde del Río et al. 1911; from this height, only achieving naturalistic form Breuil 1952; Lemozi 1929; Leroi-Gourhan 1992). when the viewer crouches down and looks up This deliberate incorporation of cave topography (Groenen 2000). Thus, the presence of anamorphosis into early figurative image making—or rather the in cave art supports the notion that an ideal view- visual psychology underlying it—has featured point was actually shared between artists and viewers strongly in recent hypotheses about the origins and (Gittins & Pettitt 2017), and viewing such images nat- early development of art (e.g. Brot 2012; Groenen urally involved the awareness of different view- 2000; Hodgson 2000; 2003; 2008; Hodgson & Pettitt points. Accordingly, it seems safe to argue that 2018; Ogawa 2005). Additionally, the shadows cast Upper Palaeolithic artists were aware of the plurality by topographic features seem also to have been con- of viewpoints in cave art. stituent parts of images (Groenen 2000; Pettitt 2016; As noted above, the mutual relationship Pettitt et al. 2017). The physical nature of the cave between the artist’s/viewer’s and the cave’s environ- wall will obviously affect viewing activity. Unlike ment allows us to draw an analogy between some images on a flat surface, undulating cave walls will cave art and modern ‘installation art’. Installation distort images’ appearance whenever viewers change art is an expressional format in contemporary art their viewing position (e.g. Aujoulat 2005; Groenen which aims to provide us with different multisensory 2000; Leroi-Gourhan 1968), a distorting effect which experiences that complement those of quotidian life seems to have been deliberate in the ‘animation’ of (Bishop 2005; Reiss 1999). Its defining feature is to some images (Azéma 2008). It seems, therefore, that force viewers to interact with an artistically 666 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 03 Oct 2021 at 22:05:53, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774320000153 Upper Palaeolithic Installation Art constructed space; while conventional fine art Here, we undertake the quantification of the requires audiences to be a passive recipient of visual active role of cave walls in image-making and view- information transmitted from artworks such as ing by the installed participant, using 54 Late Upper paintings and sculptures, installation art rejects Palaeolithic (Solutrean and/or Magdalenian) images such a one-way relationship (Bishop 2005; Reiss from three Cantabrian caves (Covalanas, El Pendo 1999). In this sense, the novel environment of a and El Castillo). We introduce a novel use for photo- cave’s interior will enhance the viewers’ multisensor- grammetry and 3D modelling in order to document ial engagement with the space and the art created the morphology of these caves’ walls and the rela- therein. The novel constraints of caves, such as the tionship of specific examples of art with them.