Answering Timothy Tyler

I've always thought the cave paintings were more honest, soulful and lovely than any abstract work I have seen. I am truly a fan. I feel a connection with those unknowns. We would have been them had we lived then. I think what we do is not so different at times and wouldn't it be neat if our work lasted so long?
Timothy Tyler

To call the representations on the walls of the caves of Lascaux 'honest, soulful and lovely' might be the aesthetically just and artistically sound, but comparing them to 20th century abstract art using these terms leads to interpretational problems. Remember, the cave paintings were not made to be soulful or beautiful. Think about the fact that hardly anyone ever saw these paintings before they were archaeologically 'discovered' because the caves were not luminated, perhaps only on cerebral occasions, and then the paintings were meant to serve as theistic representations, called upon by priests. The sentiments you feel are sentiments of your time, not of theirs. In fact, one might state that you are a fan of these cave paintings for the wrong reasons. There is nothing essentially wrong with that. Since the religious beliefs on behalf of which these pantings were made do not exist anymore, there is no way one could understand them in the way they were meant to be understood. But you must remenber that abstract paintings have a completely different reason to exist. Comparing them in that way to archaeological painting is useless, in the sense that looking at abstract art like you are looking at the Lascaux paintings is essentially not possible. In fact, your statements are a projection of your own embedded sense of quality towards your concept of art on Lascaux and modern art. The latter are made by artists from a completely different sense of quality than yours and the Lascaux-painters.
Giacomo di Lindini