Chapter 3 / Chinese Horse

"Chinese Horse"

Lascaux, Dordogne, France / c. 15,000 B.C.-13,000 B.C.

The Chinese Horse, discovered in the Lascaux cave in Southwestern France, is painted on limestone rock and is 5 ft. 6 in. long. Although the animal was painted nearly 17,000 years ago, the colors remain vibrant and stand out well against their pale limestone background. The horse is painted orange with a deep black outline, effectively juxtaposing light and dark. The head and legs of the horse are much smaller in ratio than the body, creating an almost cartoon look, without being too silly and while remaining recognizable as a horse. Although only two colors (black and orange) seemed to have been used, and although minimal details were added to the painting, the artist still effectively gets across the image of a horse to viewers thousands of years later.

The artist who painted the horse worked by firelight. As we saw in the movie 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams', the use of firelight shows movement in the images on the cave walls as the fire moves and plays with shadows across the paintings. The artist applied the pigment directly to the cave walls, and in some cases, used a hollow reed to blow the pigment onto the cave walls to show different effects.

Along with the actual horse, there are two feather-looking objects that were painted over and near it. These are slightly darker in color compared to the horse's coat, and resemble bushes, or simply abstractions. Because they are not outlines like the horse, they could be symbols. By layering the pigments in this fashion, the painting almost takes on a 3-D effect since it creates a foreground and a background. Even the horse's two left legs are clearly shown as being behind the body, adding more to the movement of the painting rather than just being painted on the same plane as all other parts of the body.