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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



It is also clear that the work of many different artists is represented, 

 covering a considerable period of time. The walls show traces of many 

 other paintings that were erased to make way for new work. According to 

 some students it is even possible to trace a development from the cruder 

 outline sketch to those in polychrome. This point is one of several strongly 

 supporting the theory that this type of art was invented during the Aurigna- 

 cian stage. 



The cavern of Altamira is by no means the only example of Aurignacian 

 art. Many caves have been discovered in northern Spain and in France, 

 some of which rival Altamira in the variety and magnificence of their art. 

 Yet in all we find the same type of art, making it certain that Aurignacian 

 culture flourished throughout Spain, France, Belgium, parts of Germany and 

 perhaps England. The anthropological significance of the preceding facts 

 is considerable; they make it clear that the cultural view of modern man 

 applies equally well to the man of antiquity and that we are quite right in 

 interpreting Aurignacian culture by what we know of living races. We 

 believe that no one can look at the illustrations in this article without 

 recognizing that their artists must have accomplished their work just as we 

 would and moved along in the construction of their culture by steps analo- 

 gous to our own. In other words, the universal human was there in that 

 dim remote past, as it is with us still. 



The subjects chosen by these artists were almost exclusively the large 

 mammals of the time, the bison, mammoth, reindeer, horse, wild boar and 



a/It Capitan and Breuil 

 Two reindeer fronting cacli otIuT in tiie cavern of i<\)ni-(l(!-(iaiiiue, chosen for the central framed 

 pan(;l in tlie Museum series of murals. In the original the artist traced part of the outline by en- 

 graving and the remainder with crayon, then laying on the colors. The combination of drawing, 

 painting, engraving, and sculpture is one of the striking characteristics of Aurignacian art 



