Subject: Confessions of a Cultural Barbarian

Lascaux, France, Autumn 2000

Although I have traveled wide and far, I have hardly seen any of the "sights". Most of the time, I am not trying to get a look at some man-made structure, painting or other artifact, but I am drawn towards scenic beauty. My favorite is truly rough, untamed wilderness anywhere. The Himalayas or mountains in general, any big desert, the jungle, the Arctic and of course the ocean.

When I do get to one of the "sights", it usually gets ruined for me by the thousands of people crowding into a much too small space, by the postcard- and ice-cream stands, by the whole ugly commercialization. I prefer not to have it spoiled for me and so most of the time I simply don't go.

Very rarely, once every few years, I do stumble across one of those things that leave a profound impression.

--

In 2000 Liping and I had closed down the language center for two months in order to make a big round-trip of Europe. We bought an old VW micro-bus for a couple of grand and drove from my hometown next to the Danish border down to Munich, through the "Ötztal" and the "Himmelsjoch" or "Passo di Rombo", where the trip almost came to an abrupt end as our aging camping van had serious trouble climbing up all the way to the top. We visited a neighbor from Taiwan in his home in Riva del Garda, Italy, drove on through France, Spain, Portugal and back into Spain and France. We saw a lot of beautiful scenery all over the place and had planned to visit a writer in Poitiers, France, near the end of our trip.

We had miscalculated the time, though, as he was still in Poland. I forgot to mention that the other part of our trip was devoted to the quest for truly delicious food. And since we found ourselves in Bordeaux with a few days to spare, we decided to head towards the Dordogne and the Périgord. But since you can't eat good food, collect walnuts and mushrooms all day and listen to the deer's mating calls all night, Liping idly thumbed through a copy of the Lonely Planet for Europe and suggested we have a look at the caves.

Well filled with the most delicious food and best wines the area had to offer, I didn't object and off we went in search for the cave. The scenery was lovely and after a bit of searching we found Lascaux, where the cave is located.

I had always assumed that cave paintings are rather crude sketches of stick animals which (with the help of a lot of imagination) can be likened to actual animals or people.

Not in my wildest dreams had I imagined what we actually saw there in the reproduction of the original cave (which is closed to the public, because of the destruction it would cause). That people in the stone age 17,000 years ago could create art of such beauty and quality was for me nothing less than a major revelation. These guys had dedicated years and years mastering their craft, and had spent a long time creating their masterpieces. They had to build a kind of scaffolding to be able to paint the ceiling and they had to get up and down all the time, to see what it looked like from down below. They incorporated the natural contours of the limestone rock to create visual effects in their paintings - or should I say sculptures? http://www.culture.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/

They couldn't possibly have had the time to do any hunting or gathering, they probably didn't even have time to cook their food. Most likely they had the support of a whole bunch of people who not only encouraged them, but actually supported them while they created the paintings.

The more time I spent in that cave - in real time it was probably only a couple of hours, but it felt a LOT longer - the less I noticed the other people and the quieter I became. (Very unusual for me, as I keep up a lively chatter or mumble at all times ;-). When later I talked to the guide, I found out that I was not the only one so affected. He had come as a student for a simple summer job, but he was so fascinated by it, that it literally changed his life. He gave up pursuing his original career and got a permanent job there, trying to learn as much as he could.

I am sure it was quite a relief for my friends, since, for a little while at least, I talked about other things than my usual favorites.

Cheers!

Holg

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