MAN FROM THE FARTHEST PAST 
gnacians, they usually executed their engravings and paint- 
ings in the remotest depths of caverns, in places almost 
incredibly difficult of access and in darkness hardly to be 
dispelled by the smoking torches and crude stone lamps 
of the ancient artists (Fig. 56). Such inaccessible recesses 
were never picture gal- 
qos. leries or show places, 
nena gy but rather Cro-Mag- 
Whe Sn ey §=onon man’s cathedrals 
Qe aaa and temples, where, 
—__ far from the abodes of 
Fic. 56. Stone lamp from cave of La Mouthe, his fellows, he carried 
in southwestern France; perhaps it provided yg 
light for the cave artists. After de Mortillet on his most sacred and 
awesome rites. 
Great differences exist in the artistic merits of the vari- 
ous pictures, showing that some individuals had far greater 
talent than others. Nevertheless, the changes of style in 
this cave art follow exactly the same course wherever it 
occurs, even in the most widely separated regions. This 
can only mean that active communication and _ inter- 
change of ideas was going on at this time throughout much 
of western Europe, at least among the medicine men. 
One of the striking things about this cave art is the ap- 
parently purposeless way in which one picture is drawn 
over another, exactly as though. the latter had not existed 
(Plate 60). Here we have one of the surest proofs that the 
motive underlying it all was magical and not merely 
esthetic, for it shows that after a given design had served 
its purpose in helping “‘make magic”’ it lost its interest. 
Earlier drawings meant nothing to later artists. Evidently 
Cro-Magnon man, like most savages to whom the ceaseless 
quest for food is the great problem of life, was a strict 
utilitarian. And like them, too, he doubtless hunted dif- 
ferent animals at different seasons. 
The cave artists employed several of the graphic arts— 
engraving, carving in low relief, painting in one or more 
colors, and modeling or sculpture. Not infrequently they 
= are 
= AD 
SEE A 
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