That's my "takeaway" too, Alamo-Girl. The artist could have chosen to depict living men. He did not, for then his seeming point could not have been made: that there is life in death, or beyond death. There seems to be an authentic spiritual recognition in play here. And that is what makes the dead man "more than" the beast that killed him.
Lascaux is a kind of epiphany. It is an amazing discovery to realize just how "sophisticated" these "primitives" were, at such an early point in human history. The ideas of a common humanity, of a common human condition, of a common human destiny, emerge from these caves....
Thank you so much for writing, Alamo-Girl!
As always, you and I are on the same wave length!!!
Yeah.. my thought too.. So easily people use the term "primitive".. Must mean more "primitive" than myself.. in most cases.. a kind of subtle arrogance.. Some "cave man" grunting and scribbling "primitive" art.. that don't even own a microwave oven to heat up their frozen dinner they must mean..
And that that primitive creature probably bludgeoned some hapless other creature to death with a rock, and was heating steaks, very rare on some fire.. is the image I get..
Logical to me, since I have done that very thing myself, sans the art part.. but boiling some King Crab on a fire and consumeing it was, well, better.. Surf and Turf, I think, is a very old concept.. Originated by some OTHER primitive type living by some seashore.. What 37 millinia ago.?.. Who knows what went through their mind digesting such a meal.. Defameing "cave people" should be a hate crime.. LoL..