Then there were bâtons de commandement, carved with scenes of the chase and with spirited heads of the horse and other animals, which quite probably were insignia of office. Reinach has suggested that bâtons were trophies of the chase, and according to Schoetensack they may have been used as ornaments to fasten the clothing. The discovery of mural painting and engraving suggests the possibility that these bâtons were believed to have some magical influence, and were connected with mysterious rites in the caverns, for a great variety of such ceremonial staffs is found among primitive peoples. Geographically, the bâtons spread from the Pyrenees into Belgium and eastward into Moravia and Russia.

Slender bone needles brought to a fine point on stone polishers indicate great care in the preparation of clothing. Associated with the borers are many other bone implements: awls, hammers, chisels, stilettos, pins with and without a head, spatulas, and polishers; the latter may have been employed in the preparation of leather. The borers, pins, and polishers appear from the very beginning of the period of sculpture. The name of poniard (poignard) is given to long points of reindeer-horn; one of these was found at Laugerie Basse.

History of Upper Palæolithic Art

Following the pioneer studies of Lartet, the history of the art of the Reindeer Period, as manifested in bone, ivory, and the engraved and sculptured horns of the deer, occupied the last thirty-five years of the life of Edouard Piette,(19) a magistrate of Craonne who pursued this delightful subject as an avocation. He was a pioneer in the interpretation of l'art mobilier, the mobile art. It must be remembered that in Piette's time the fourfold divisions of Upper Palæolithic culture so familiar to us were only partly perceived; his studies, in fact, related chiefly to the mobile art of Magdalenian times, and he undertook to follow its modifications in every successive grotto, beginning with his brochure La Grotte de Gourdan, in 1873, in which he first announced the idea which underlay all his later conclusions, that sculpture preceded line engraving and etching. He divided the art into a series of phases; that of the red deer (Cervus elaphus) he termed Elaphienne, that of the reindeer Tarandienne, that of the horse Hippiquienne, and that of the wild cattle Bovidienne. In concluding this early work of 1873, he remarked: "To write the history of Magdalenian art is to give the history of primitive art itself." He observed that in sculpturing the horn of the reindeer the artist was obliged to work in the hard exterior bone and to avoid the spongy interior; this defect in material suggested the invention of the bas-relief. The statuette he regarded as the assemblage of two bas-reliefs, one on either side of the bone. Thus he described the ivory head of the woman of Brassempouy, the only human face of Upper Palæolithic times which is even fairly well represented; also the two imperfect feminine torsos in ivory. In 1897, at the age of seventy, Piette undertook his last excavations, and the sum of his labors is preserved for us in the magnificent volume entitled l'Art pendant l'âge du Renne, published in 1907.

The pupil and biographer of Piette, l'Abbé Henri Breuil, observes that his scheme of art evolution is exact along its main lines.(20) It is true that human sculpture appears for the first time in the lower Aurignacian, that it survives the Solutrean, and even extends into middle Magdalenian times, but this enormous period cannot be placed in one archæological division as Piette supposed; in truth, he did not suspect the prolonged gestation of Quaternary art, but contracted into one small division the documents of numerous phases. At the same time, Piette was right in attributing the flower of the art of engraving accompanied by contours of animal forms in relief to the second and third levels of the Magdalenian industry, but he had no idea that this development had been preceded by a long period in which engraving had been practised in a timid and more or less sporadic manner as a parietal art on the walls of the caverns as well as on bone and stone. It is also true that a considerable facility in sculpture preceded the art of engraving, but it was arrested in its progress while engraving slowly developed; in the early choice of subjects the sculptors of middle and late Aurignacian times showed a preference for the human form, while later, in Solutrean and early Magdalenian times, they inclined principally toward animal figures, so that sculpture was not suddenly eclipsed. The first engravings made with fine points of flint on stone are hardly less ancient than the first sculptures, and modestly co-exist beside them up to the moment where engraving, greatly multiplied, largely supplants sculpture. Finally, observes Breuil, it is one of the glories of Edouard Piette to have understood that the painted pebbles of Mas d'Azil represented the last prolongation of the dying Quaternary art.

It is fortunate that the mantle of Piette fell upon a man of the artistic genius and appreciation of Breuil, to whom chiefly we owe our clear understanding of the chronological development of Upper Palæolithic art. In the accompanying table (p. 395) are assembled the results of the observations of Piette, Sautuola, Rivière, Cartailhac, Capitan, Breuil, and many others, largely in the order of sequence determined through the labors of Breuil.

We are far from 1880, observes Cartailhac,(21) when the discovery by Sautuola of the paintings on the roof of the cavern of Altamira was met with such scepticism and indifference. Knowing the artistic instincts of the Upper Palæolithic people from their engraving and carving in bone and ivory, we should have been prepared for the discovery of a parietal art. The publication of the engravings in the grotto of La Mouthe by Rivière(22) in April, 1895, was the first warning of our oversight, and immediately Edouard Piette recalled Altamira to the memory of the workers on prehistoric art. The discovery of Sautuola ceased to be isolated. Led by the engravings found in La Mouthe, Daleau discovered the engravings in the grotto of Pair-non-Pair, Gironde. In 1902 there was the double discovery of the engravings in the grotto of Combarelles, and of the paintings in the grotto of Font-de-Gaume, communicated by Capitan and Breuil. Discoveries at Marsoulas, Mas d'Azil, La Grèze, Bernifal, and Teyjat soon followed.[AX]

STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF UPPER PALÆOLITHIC ART

In 1908 Déchelette listed eight caverns in Dordogne, six in the Pyrenees, and seven along the Cantabrian Pyrenees of northern Spain, but there are now upward of thirty caverns in which traces of parietal art have been found, and doubtless the number will be greatly enlarged by future exploration, because the entrances of many of the grottos have been closed, and the remote recesses in which drawings are placed, as in the recent discovery of Tuc d'Audoubert, are very difficult to explore.

The chief divisions of Upper Palæolithic art are as follows:

Drawings and Engravings of the Early Magdlenian

We have already traced the art of engraving, as it first appears in late Aurignacian times, into the Solutrean; in the latter it is but feebly represented. Its further development in early Magdalenian times is found in the engravings made with more delicate or more sharply pointed flint implements, capable of drawing an excessively fine line; these were doubtless the early Magdalenian microliths. The animal outlines, with an indication of hair, are frequently sketched with such exceedingly fine lines as to resemble etchings; the figures are often of very small dimensions and marked by much closer attention to details, such as the eyes, the ears, the hair both of the head and the mane, and the hoofs; the proportions are also much more exact, so that these engravings become very realistic. Breuil ascribes to the early Magdalenian the engraved mammoth tracings of Combarelles. Engravings of this period are also found in the grottos of Altamira in Spain, and of Font-de-Gaume in Dordogne, and to this stage belongs the group of does at Altamira, distinguished by the peculiar lines of the hair covering the face. The subjects chosen are chiefly the red deer, reindeer, mammoth, horse, chamois, and bison. The striated drawings of Castillo and Altamira, which partly represent hair and are partly indications of shading, belong to this period.

The engravings in the grotto of La Mouthe were discovered by Rivière, in 1895, and were the means of directing attention afresh to the long-forgotten parietal art found in Altamira by Sautuola in 1880. The drawings at La Mouthe begin about 270 feet from the entrance and may be traced for a distance of 100 feet, scattered in various groups; they manifestly belong to a very primitive stage, probably early Magdalenian, the point of chief interest being that, while the greater part of the engravings are in simple incised lines, here and there the contour is enforced by a line of red or black paint; this is the beginning of a method pursued throughout the Magdalenian parietal art, in which the artist carefully sketches his contours with sharp-pointed flints before he applies any color. This treatment, at first limited to the simple outlines, led to tracing in many of the details with engraved lines, the eyes, the ears, the hair; thus Breuil has shown that in its final development a carefully worked-out engraving underlies the painting. In the La Mouthe drawings the proportions are very bad; they represent the reindeer, bison, mammoth, horse, ibex, and urus; spots of red are sometimes splashed on the sides of the animals; here and there is a bit of superior work, such as the reindeer in motion.

The cavern of Combarelles, discovered in 1901, in Dordogne, near Les Eyzies, contains by far the most remarkable record of early Magdalenian art; there are upward of four hundred drawings and engravings representing almost every animal of early Magdalenian times, among them the horse, rhinoceros, mammoth, reindeer, bison, stag, ibex, lion, and wolf; there are also between five and six representations of the men of the time, both masked and unmasked; the style is more recent than that of the oldest drawings in Font-de-Gaume, but much more ancient than the period of polychrome art.[AY] The gallery is 720 feet long, and barely 6 feet broad; the drawings begin about 350 feet from the entrance, and are scattered at irregular intervals to the very end. In general the art is very fine and evidently largely the work of one artist; representations of the woolly rhinoceros and of the mammoth are very true to life; there is a pair of splendid lions, male and female; the drawings of the horse are abundant, and side by side we have a representation of several types of horses, the pure forest type with the arched forehead, the small, fine-headed Celtic type, and a larger type reminding us of the kiang, or wild ass. Here the greater part of the work is engraving, as contrasted with the painted outlines in the cavern of Niaux and with the etched outlines of the Grotte de la Mairie.

Even a large cavern like Combarelles offers comparatively few surfaces favorable to these engraved lines; but, small or large, such surfaces were eagerly sought, sometimes near the floor, sometimes on the walls, and again on the ceilings; even with the brilliant light of an acetylene lamp it is now difficult to discover all these outlines, some of which are drawn in the most unlooked-for places. If the extremely fine incisions, such as those representing the hair of the mammoth, are so difficult to detect with a powerful illuminant, one may imagine the task of the Crô-Magnon artists with their small stone lamps and wick fed by the melting grease. One such lamp has been found in the grotto of La Mouthe, about 50 feet from the entrance; the workman's pick broke it into four pieces, only three of which were recovered. The shallow bowl contained some carbonized matter, an analysis of which led Berthelot, the chemist, to conclude that an animal fat was used for lighting purposes. Like most other implements, this lamp is decorated—in this instance by an engraving of the head and horns of the ibex. Three of these lamps have been found in Charente and Lot, and it is noteworthy that lamps similar to those of the Magdalenian period are used in Dordogne at the present day.

In the great cavern of Castillo,[AZ] at Puente-Viesgo, discovered in 1903 by Alcalde del Rio, which is entered by the majestic grotto already described on p. 162, the animal drawings are mostly of an archaic character, belonging to the very beginnings of early Aurignacian parietal art. The most abundant subjects are horses and deer, which entirely replace the reindeer drawings so abundant in central France, outlines of the stag and of the doe being very numerous; on the other hand, the bison and the ox are rarely drawn. Belonging to the category of most primitive painting are the simple outlines in black of a horse and of a mammoth, the two limbs of one side being represented as inverted triangles, terminating in a sharp point, like the drawings of children. Of more recent style are the rather crude polychrome bisons, numerous hands outlined in red, and a vast number of tectiform signs and symbols which represent inferior work of the middle Magdalenian period.

On the other side of the same mountain is the grotto of Pasiega, discovered in 1912 by Doctor Hugo Obermaier. This small grotto, about 500 feet above the river, receives its name as a retreat of the shepherds. In the floor is a very narrow opening through which one rapidly descends by means of a tube of limestone barely large enough to admit the passage of the body. The interior is very labyrinthine. After passing through the Galerie des Animaux and the Galerie des Inscriptions, one reaches, after a most difficult détour, the terminal chamber, which Obermaier has called the Salle du Trône, the throne-room; here there is a natural seat of limestone, with supports at the sides for the arms, and one can still see the discoloration of the rock by the soiled hands of the magicians or of the artists. In this salle there are a few drawings and engravings on the walls, and a few pieces of flint have been discovered. In no other cavern, perhaps, is there a greater sense of mystery as to the influence, whether religious, magical, or artistic, which impelled men to seek out and enter these dangerous passages, the slippery rocks illumined at best by a very imperfect light, leading to the deep and dangerous recesses below, where a misstep would be fatal. The impulse, whatever it may have been, was doubtless very strong, and in this, as in other caverns, almost every surface favorably prepared by the processes of nature has received a drawing. No industrial flints have been found at the entrance to this cavern, but some have been traced into the interior. The art is considered partly of late Aurignacian, perhaps of Solutrean, and certainly in part of early Magdalenian times; in general it is much more recent than that of Castillo. It consists both of engravings and painted outlines, with proportions usually excellent and sometimes admirable. The paintings of deer are in yellow ochre, of the chamois in red. There are altogether 226 paintings and 36 engravings, in which are represented 50 roe-deer, 51 horses, 47 tectiforms, 16 Bos, 15 bison, 12 stags, 9 ibexes, 1 chamois, and 16 other forms, distributed in all parts of the cave. The outlines are in solid red color or in stripes of red or black, or there is a series of spots; the subjects are chiefly the stag, the doe, the wild cattle (which are rather common), the bison (which are less common), the ibex, and the chamois. Among the numerous representations of the horse there are two small engravings of a type with erect mane, both the feet and the hair being indicated with great care, the limbs well designed and of excellent proportions, clearly in early Magdalenian style. Of the utmost interest is the discovery here of two horses drawn with rounded forehead and drooping mane, the only instance in which the drooping mane of the modern type of horse (Equus caballus) has been observed in the cavern drawings.

In the advanced development of middle or high Magdalenian art, parietal engraving with finely pointed flint implements presents a nearer approach to the truth both of proportion and of detail than do the earlier stages. In this stage the engravings seem to consist chiefly of independent animal figures and to furnish a prelude to the application of color. A simple but striking example of approaching perfection of technique is seen in the bison (Fig. 205) engraved in the cavern of Marsoulas, where the profile is outlined and great shaggy masses of hair beneath the neck are admirably indicated. In these drawings the complicated details of the feet, with their characteristic tufts of hair, and of the head show far more careful observation. In the great series of bison at Font-de-Gaume the entire animal is sketched in with these finely engraved lines, as brought out through the wonderfully close observation and studies of Breuil. This is quite similar to the practice of the modern artist who sketches his figure in crayon or charcoal before applying the color.

There are two quite different styles in this engraving, one seen in the deep incised lines of the reindeer head in the cavern of Tuc d'Audoubert (Fig. 232), a complete design in itself, another seen in the deep incisions in the limestone outlining the horses and the bison as observed in the cavern of Niaux (Fig. 174). Here the engraved line is followed by the application of a black painted line, the effect being to bring out the body in the surrounding rock so as to give the silhouette a high relief.

In the drawings in the large on these curved wall surfaces, only part of which could be seen by the eye at one time, the difficulties of maintaining the proportions were extreme, and one is ever impressed by the boldness and confidence with which the long sweeping strokes of the flint were made, for one rarely if ever sees any evidences of corrected outline. Only a lifelong observer of the fine points which distinguish the different prehistoric breeds of the horse could appreciate the extraordinary skill with which the spirited, aristocratic lines of the Celtic are executed, on the one hand, and, on the other, the plebeian and heavy outlines of the steppe horse. In the best examples of Magdalenian engraving, both parietal and on bone or ivory, one can almost immediately detect the specific type of horse which the artist had before him or in mind, also the season of the year, as indicated by the representation of a summer or winter coat of hair.

The realism of most of the parietal art passes into the impressionism of the excessively fine engravings on bone or reindeer horn, executed with a few strokes, of a herd of horses or of reindeer (Fig. 207), or where a herd of deer is seen (Fig. 208) crossing a stream full of fishes, as in the well-known engravings on reindeer horn found in the grotto of Lorthet, in the Pyrenees. This is one of the very rare instances in Palæolithic art, either engraving or painting, which shows a sense of composition or the treatment of a subject or incident involving more than one figure. Others are the herd of passing reindeer found engraved on a bit of schist in the grotto of Laugerie Basse, the lion facing a group of horses engraved on a stalagmite at Font-de-Gaume, and the procession of mammoths engraved upon a procession of bison in the same cavern.

Beginnings of Painting

The beginnings of painting in Aurignacian times, consisting of simple contours and crude outlines in red or black, with little or no attempt at shading, pass in early Magdalenian time(24) into a long phase of monochromes, either in black or red, in which the technique pursues a number of variations, from simple linear treatment, continuous or dotted, to half tints or full tints, gradually encroaching on the sides of the body from the linear contour. Of this order are the figures in flat tints and shading, resembling those of the Chinese, without modelling; also the figures entirely covered with dots, such as are seen at Marsoulas, Font-de-Gaume, and Altamira. The tints, as in the drawing of the galloping steppe horse, pass inward from the black outline to enhance the effect of roundness or relief. In the splendid series of paintings in the cavern of Niaux there is little more than the black outline of the body, but the covering of the sides with lines, indicating the hair, lends itself to the rounded presentation of form. A somewhat similar effect is sought in the lines of the woolly rhinoceros painted in red in the cavern of Font-de-Gaume, which Breuil attributes to the Aurignacian stage, but which also suggests the early Magdalenian.

Drawings in Various Caverns of the Early and Middle Magdalenian

The grandest cavern thus far discovered in France is that of Niaux (1906), which from a small opening on the side of a limestone mountain and 300 feet above the River Vic de Sos extends almost horizontally 4,200 feet into the heart of the mountain.(25) Not far from Tarascon on the Ariège it lay near one of the most accessible routes between France and Spain. Passing through the long gallery beyond the borders of the subterranean lake which bars the entrance, at a distance of half a mile we reach a great chamber where the overhanging walls of limestone have been finely polished by the sands and gravels transported by the subglacial streams; on these broad, slightly concave panels of a very light ochre color are drawings of a large number of bison and of horses, as fresh and brilliant as if they were the work of yesterday; the outlines drawn with black oxide of manganese and grease on the smooth stone resemble coarse lithography. The animals are drawn in splendid, bold contours, with no cross-hatching, but with solid masses of bright color here and there; the bison, as the most admired animal of the chase, is drawn majestically with a superb crest, the muzzle most perfectly outlined, the horns indicated by single lines only, the eyes with the defiant expression highly distinctive of the animal when wounded or enraged. Here for the first time are revealed the early Magdalenian methods of hunting the bison, for upon their flanks are clearly traced one or more arrow or spear heads with the shafts still attached; the most positive proof of the use of the arrow is the apparent termination of the wooden shaft in the feathers which are rudely represented in three of the drawings. There are also many silhouettes of horses which strongly resemble the pure Asiatic steppe type now living in the desert of Gobi, the Przewalski horse, with erect mane and with no drooping forelock; in contrast to the bison, the eyes are rather dull and stupid in expression. There are also drawings of other types of horses, a very fine ibex, a chamois, a few outlines of wild cattle, and a very fine one of the royal stag; we find no reindeer or mammoth represented. In some of the narrower passages the rock has been beautifully sculptured by water, and the artists have been quick to take advantage of any natural lines to add a bit of color here or there and thus bring out the outline of a bison.

Presenting the widest possible contrast to Niaux is the cavern of Le Portel, west of Tarascon, with its contracted entrance and a very rapidly descending passage hardly broad enough to admit the body. This narrow and tortuous cave terminates in an extremely small passage, so narrow as barely to admit the athletic and determined artist explorer, the Abbé Breuil. Here, as in Font-de-Gaume and other caverns, is one of the greatest mysteries of the cave art, namely, that these terminal and dangerous diverticules finals were wrought with some of the most careful and artistic designs. Le Portel, like Niaux, reveals a single style, but one altogether different. Very numerous bison are drawn in outline both in red and black; the sides of the body are often dotted with red or hatched in close parallel lines. On a long horizontal panel are seen many bison in red, and one observes here a finely drawn pair of bison feet in the best Magdalenian style. The horse as represented here is of a quite different type with thin upper tail and a tail-tuft resembling that of the wild ass, so that one is almost tempted to believe that the kiang is intended, but the ears are too short; it has a high rump and a high, splendidly arched neck, like that of the stallion, and the eye is better drawn; the body is covered with long vertical or oblique lines which might be mistaken for stripes, but this hatching is a matter of technique only. Again, the mane is erect, and there is no forelock; in fact, none of these Magdalenian artists has represented the horse with the forelock, indicating that this character of the modern horse was unknown in western Europe and probably came in during Neolithic times.

Of an entirely different type are the beautifully engraved miniature figures of animals discovered in 1903 in the Grotte de la Mairie.(26) The outlines, from 18 to 20 inches in length, are sharply engraved on the limestone stalagmites; they are all in the middle Magdalenian style and include the stag, reindeer, bison, cave-bear, lion, wild cattle, and two very distinct types of horses: one of these types is large-headed with an arched forehead; this is probably the forest type and perhaps represents the horse most abundant at the Solutré encampment (see p. 288); the other horse is small-headed, with a perfectly flat, straight forehead, corresponding with the Arab or Celtic pony type.

Drawings and Paintings of the End of the Middle Magdalenian

The fourth and final developmental phase of painting flowers out toward the end of middle Magdalenian times in the grand period of polychromes. These are first etched with underlying lines engraved with flint, the surface of the limestone having been previously prepared by the thinning or scraping of the borders (raclage) to heighten the relief of the drawing; then a very strong contour is laid down in black, and this may be followed by a further contour line in red (the use of black and red is very ancient); an ochreous brown color is mixed in, conforming well with what we know to be the tints of the hairy portions of the bison. Thus gradually a complete polychrome fresco art develops. The final stage of this art follows, in which the filling out of various tones of color requires the use of black, brown, red, and yellowish shades. The underlying or preliminary engraving now begins to recede, being retained only for the tracing in of the final details of the hair, the eyes, the horns, and the hoofs. The early stages of this art are seen in the cavern of Marsoulas, and its height is reached in the mural frescos of Font-de-Gaume and in the ceiling of Altamira, the latter still in a perfect and brilliant state of preservation.

To prepare the colors, ochre and oxide of manganese were ground down to a fine powder in stone mortars; raw pigment was carried in ornamented cases made from the lower-limb bones of the reindeer, and such tubes still containing the ochre have been found in the Magdalenian hearths; the mingling of the finely ground powder with the animal oils or fats that were used was probably done on the flat side of the shoulder-blade of the reindeer or on some other palette. The pigment was quite permanent, and in the darkness of the Altamira grotto it has been so perfectly preserved that the colors are still as brilliant as if they had been applied yesterday.

The art of the grotto of Marsoulas, in the Pyrenees, is both of an earlier and of a later period; the engraved lines, as of the head and front of a bison, are beautifully done in advanced Magdalenian style, deep incisions representing the larger outlines and finer incisions representing the hair; here the outlines are also traced in color, and there are several masks or grotesques of the human face; these last are treated with a total disregard of the truth which characterizes the animal work. Among the few bison represented here, some are covered with dots or splashes of color, others show the painted outline which begins to extend over the surface with gradations of tint, anticipating the color effects attained in the finished paintings of Altamira and of Font-de-Gaume. All the details of the early technique are found here: the artist outlines the form with an engraved line; he traces in black color the contours of the head and of the body; he begins to apply masses of red over the figure. This beginning of polychrome art at Marsoulas is a step toward coloring the entire surface with red ochre and black, as in the finished paintings of a later period.