ARAS

a) View of the Main Hall of cave; frieze of animals in procession at left and right, converging a little to left of upper center; at lower center, entrance to the Axial Gallery (see 1Cb.515-.534); at lower right, entrance to the Passage (see 1Cb.535-.536); b,c) views of the frieze of animals in Main Hall; procession of animals at left led by very large bull, small horses running below, large red horse superimposed on bull, followed by more horses, a mythological animal with two long straight horns (so-called Unicorn) bringing up the rear; between the large bull at head of procession at left and the one at right facing him, head and upper body of horse, above group of small red deer; procession at right made up of three very large bulls, all shown in b) as they are viewed by camera, circling the upper wall; the last two of the three shown again in c).For location of individual animals and groups of the frieze see Charts shown in 1Cb.500b and 1Cb.502a. For diagrammatic drawing and detailed description of the frieze see 1Cb.502b. For photos and descriptions of individual animals see 1Cb.503-.514."The Hall measures some thirty feet across and about one hundred deep, but the disposition, the ordering of the indeed rather chaotic frieze stretching around the walls and up on to the ceiling overhead gives the impression of a kind of rotunda. One enters the Cave at a side of the northern end of this Hall; opposite one extends a long frieze of animals dominated by four gigantic bulls. These astonishing figures spread out end to end, follow around the wall, and circle back along the left. The frieze is thickly peopled with animals covering all the rock surface available. The regularity of its development is really owing to the natural regularity of the surface that has been painted: relatively smooth, partially coated from the beginning by a whitish layer of calcite, that surface begins waist-high on the wall and, moving from left to right, widens vertically - but one barely notices that the width of painted area is greater on the right. Finishing in an oval dome, the ceiling lifts well above the wall's smooth part. This circular disposition of surface, suitable for painting, governed in advance the general shape the frieze would take and at the same time facilitated the distribution of the figures. Thus, the men who succeeded one another at the task of painting them, while never individually having the overall scheme in mind, spontaneously composed its elements and the naturally unified grouping was finally realized. From all appearances, they did their painting not all at once but over an extended period, and as at the time there was no reason for not doing so, they often crowded over upon already painted areas - whence the overlapping and superimposing -; yet, it was only rarely they would disturb anything which, painted at an earlier date, contributed to the Hall's magnificence." [--Bataille.]A few sign-spots, blotches or darts - painted in black or red on the animals or at the side of them - add a note of mystery to this strange group. [--Windels.]"Four colossal bulls, over five meters in length, completely dominate the great oval hall. They are white. In between them there live and florish, unmenaced, an entire cosmos of smaller and, in comparison with them, miniature animals. Some of these were made before them, some later. There is here an interplay of time and forms in which each creature is given a right to its own life within the total composition."Though the legs of the bulls, sometimes their bellies, and the head of the finest of them are tinted black, the animals themselves are white: a rare occurrence in primeval art. They are white like Apis, one of the bullgods of the Egyptians. Symbols flutter all around them, sometimes alighting on their bodies."These animal-gods seem to bear marks of long ages of veneration and worship. The fact that the heavy outlines of the bulls were painted over and around the animals of earlier periods is as firmly established as that in later periods other animals were superimposed on their bodies.""The complete freedom and independence of vision of primeval art has never since been attained...In our sense there was no up and no down, no above and no below...Nor was there a clear distinction and separation of one object from another - witness the continuous use of superimposition - nor rules of related size and scale. Gigantic bulls of the Magdalenian era could stand alongside tiny deer from Aurignacian times, as around the dome of Lascaux... All was displayed within an eternal present, the perpetual flow of today, yesterday, and tomorrow.""The enigmatic creature at the far left of the frieze has been called a unicorn on account of the two strokes above its head. The four bulls and this creature, its gravid body marked with ring-shaped symbols, imbue the domed hall with an awesomeness which never fails to impress even the most casual sightseer...A compelling atmosphere of religious awe emanantes from this great oval hall." [--Giedion.]"We know nothing whatever of those gatherings in a Hall which contains space for, let us say, a hundred persons, even a few more if crowded together. But we may suppose that the painted caverns, which were not used for dwelling places...exerted a powerful attraction. All men share an instinctive dread and awe of complete darkness. That terror is 'sacred'; obscure light suggests what is religious: the Cavern's aspect intensified the impression of magical power, of penetration into an inaccessible domain which, at that time, painting strove to create. The caves still have about them something that seizes, spellbinds the visitor, quickens his pulse: these places are still able to cause an inner distress not at all unlike the anguish connected with sacred rites." [--Bataille.]The dating of the bulls is not certain. Breuil attributed them to the Perigordian era; H. Kühn, to the late Magdalenian. Giedion, who considers them to be Solutrian, observes that they are older and younger than many of the animal population painted around them - younger than the herd of stags, between their heads (Aurignacian), and older than the red and black horses that course over them (Magdalenian).