More art appreciation
OH warned me that Herzog's cave art film would get in my head, and indeed it has. There was such a lot to absorb, even though it didn't seem that way at the time. Bits keep floating to the surface... so here are some more bits.
The film isn't just about the art/science divide (the study team have mapped every millimetre of the cave walls in 3-D but do they understand what the art means?) but about the issues of power and control. The cave is sealed off to protect it - the scientists now control who has access and for how long. Yet when the art was made (always in the dark parts of the cave) perhaps it was the artists who controlled who saw the images, and how...
I liked the idea that the pictures in the flickering torchlight might appear to be moving (some are drawn with extra legs and several outlines, perhaps to suggest movement too, as in a cartoon) and indeed might be the first cinematic experience.
And there was a wonderful story about a researcher in Australia in the 1970s who went to a rock shelter with an old Aboriginal guy, who got upset when he saw that the rock paintings there were fading and decaying, and then started to touch up the pigment, to restore the images. The researcher asked him why he was painting; he replied that he wasn't painting. The spirits were painting.
I loved that. It speaks to anybody who has ever done anything creative. That feeling that it's not you who is making the artwork, or writing the story... that you are channelling ideas and energy from somewhere outside yourself... it goes right back to the roots of what makes us human. And it's a truly wonderful feeling that I think goes a long way towards explaining why creative people have such a deep NEED to create things, whatever medium they choose to work in...