cave art

The Lascaux caves are located in France. Deep in the caves are paintings on the walls and ceilings of animals. Such as deer,bison, and other animals the Lascaux may have hunted. As you should know the caves are very dark. You may ask how they got their light to see what their painting. Well they used a stone lamp filled with animal fat. Which probably smelt really bad. The cave painters would have had to make their own paint. The paint was made of lumps of clay and a soft stone which were grounded into powder. To get a red color they mixed animal blood. to get another color they mixed animal fat as well. This would seem like a very messy and smelly process just to paint. But If it wasn't for them we wouldn't have Art today. The Lascaux probably painted to show the success they had after they hunted. No one really knows. These paintings have been around for about 30,000 years. So the reason why they painted probably was for a special reason. On the paintings their is an original technique used which is shadowing. The shadowing helps the painting become three dimensional. Another technique that the Lascaux might have been a reed or bristle brush. This would help them paint the paintings better.Another technique would be the mixing of colors to make the painting more realistic. Gradation of value is basically the change of how they changed the painting to make it look more realistic.