Leonardo

Were the Cave Paintings in Southwest France Made by Women?Author(s): Michel Schmidt-ChevalierSource: Leonardo, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Autumn, 1981), pp. 302-303Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1574607 .

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Leonardo, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 302-303, 1981 Printed in Great Britain

0024-094X/81/040302-02$02.0()/0 Pergamon Press Ltd.

WERE THE CAVE PAINTINGS IN SOUTHWEST FRANCE MADE BY WOMEN?

Michel Schmidt-Chevalier*

1.

In the Vezere valley in Perigord (in southwest France) numerous examples of Upper Old Stone Age paintings (10,000-30,000 years before the present) by Cromagnon people may be found in remote caves [1, 2]. In the museum at Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, Dordogne, one can see a drawing by the French archeologist Abbe Henri Breuil (1877-1961) of the way he imagined two prehistoric humans at work painting on the wall of a cave. Breuil's drawing, undoubtedly reliable as regards the painting medium, the implements employed and the manner of illuminating the wall, nevertheless has left me uneasy. One man is shown holding a lamp (many lamps have been found in caves), and the other paints, as before an easel. Furthermore, the cave paintings themselves include neither scenery nor ceremonies, which I find strange.

Present changes introduced in the caves to facilitate visits by tourists have considerably altered their ambience, so that they do not provide the ambience experienced by those who found them during the past 100 years as they made their way through narrow and difficult passageways. Yet, the caves are dim, moist and deep, so that when I am in one I imagine myself to be a fetus in a womb. The caves suggest to me images of a female kind, symbolizing fecundity, gestation and childbirth. Were these sanctuaries (they definitely were not abodes) women's domains? Were the cave paintings made by women?

Is there a distinguishable difference between paintings and drawings made by men and women today? Is it possible without reading a signature or recognizing a particular style to designate as women's paintings those made by, say, Suzanne Valadon, Germaine Richier or Maria-Elena Vieira da Silva? Perhaps only by responding to a particular kind of sensibility-or, as I believe Schopenhauer may have said, by waiting for a painting to 'talk'-will a clue be given.

I have noted the following regarding the caves: (1) Depictions of pregnant animals are numerous. (2) The hands shown in outline appear to be those of women, which I liken to Arabian charms and jewels that are hand- shaped and are known as 'hands of Fatma'. (3) A female's footprint has been definitely identified in the cave called 'Pech Merle', near Cabrerets, Lot. (4) The cave in the Dordogne called 'L'Abri du Cap Blanc' contains the grave of a woman and is amply provided with furniture and garments. (5) Symbols painted on walls bring to my mind some ornaments and geometrical drawings on pottery that appeared later in the Neolithic era, when it has been demonstrated that the pottery was made by

*Painter, Cours, 46000 Cahors, France. (Received 15 July 1980)

women, similar to that done in Africa south of the Sahara and in tribes of Amerindians. (6) Most convincingly, there is a kind of reverence expressed in the depictions of animals that were depended on for food. There is no apparent depiction of hostility in the paintings and drawings of animals. Even the pictures of male bisons (often used to signify virility and strength) appear calm and gentle.

On the basis of artefacts made from silex and other hard stones, one can describe the technology developed by people in the Stone Age and the following eras, and one can even make examples of their tools and determine the manner in which they were used. It is much more difficult to determine how their societies were organized and how they functioned. I wonder, for example, if they were matriarchal in structure, with priestesses who performed rites for the perpetuation of their group and of animals for their food.

2.

Four sketches that I have made from color slides of paintings on walls of prehistoric caves in southern France are reproduced in Figs. 1-4. The cave Pech Merle contains paintings of two horses surrounded by outlines of hands (which I believe are those of women) (Fig. 1). The hands first aroused my interest about the sex of the cave painters.

Figures 1-3 show typical depictions of animals that seem to me to be in a tranquil state, both in the stylized executions of horses and of mammoths and in the large realistic representation of a bison in the Font-de-Gaume cave near Les Eyzies-de-Tayac. Even when animals are depicted in action, as in the Lascaux cave near Montignac, Dordogne, I interpret them to be in a state of tranquility. In comparison, the more recent Tassili cave paintings in the Sahara (10,000-12,000 years before the present) seem more aggressive in character.

The depiction of a man felled by spears, found in several caves, is a rather exceptional instance of violence. Perhaps significantly, these depictions tend to be located in more remote, less accessible places. Even fierce felines and cave bears, though dangerous adversaries, were depicted in a tranquil state. So were women! Figure 4 shows a speared man wearing a mask, a detail of a painting in the Cougnac cave near Gourdon, Lot. The man's genitals are not shown, but his navel is, as is often the case in many such early paintings. However, in the Lascaux cave there seems to be an exception. At the scene of a hunting accident, a man knocked down by a wounded bison seems to be wearing a cover over his genitals. The presence of a navel and the absence of genitals in the depictions of men may have some kind of significance.

Of course these few remarks are my personal observa-

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Were the Cave Paintings in Southwest France Made by Women?

Fig. 1. Stone -Age painting, Pech Merle cave near Cabrerets, France (detail, pen and ink copy by author).

Fig. 4. Stone Age painting, Cougnac cave, near Gourdon, France (detail, pen and ink copy by author).

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Fig. 2. Stone Age painting, Pech Merle cave near Cabrerets, France (detail, pen and ink copy by author).

Fig. 3. Stone Age painting, Font-de-Gaume cave near Les Eyzies- de-Tayac, France (detail, pen and ink copy by author).

tions and speculations about the sex of Stone Age painters. I would be surprised and pleased if they contribute anything to present-day knowledge of Stone Age cave painting.

In addition to References 1 and 2, References 3-5 will be of interest to readers.

References 1. A. Leroi-Gouran, Prehistoire de l'art occidental (Paris:

Mazenod, 1965). 2. H. Breuil and F. Windels, Quatre cents siecles d'art parietal,

(Montignac, France: Centre d'Etudes Pr6historiques, 1952). 3. S. Giedion, The Outline in the Early Beginnings of Art,

Leonardo 2, 181 (1969). 4. J. Jelinek, Encyclopedie illustree de l'homme prehistorique,

(Paris: Griind, 1979). 5. E. Borneman, Le Patriarcat (Paris: Presses Universitairs de

France, 1980). Note: It has been speculated by some anthropologists (see for example H. De Lumley, La Prehistoire francaise, Vol. 1. Les Civilisations paleolithiques et mesolithiques (Paris: Editions du CNRS, 1976)) that the vehicle of the paint used by the Cromagnons for their paintings was urine. If one further supposes that it was not an animal's but a human's urine, Schmidt-Chevalier's speculation that Cromagnon painters were women could be tested by means of microanalysis for the detection of the presence of a female hormone or its decay products in samples taken from the paintings (Jacques Mandel- brojt, Co-Editor).

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