Painting[(38)] also had its birth in the Aurignacian, in the simple contours of the hand pressed against a wall surface or outlined with color, accompanied by primitive attempts at linear drawing in color and painted groupings; for example, the crude outlines of the bison in the grotto of Castillo are of Aurignacian age, also the black linear designs of the deer and of the ibex in the cavern of Font-de-Gaume, Dordogne, the striking red linear design of the mammoth in the grotto of Pindal, in northern Spain, representing the animal as with two limbs, and the red outlines of wild cattle in Castillo. Breuil also attributes to Aurignacian times the spirited figure of the woolly rhinoceros in red ochre in the cave of Font-de-Gaume, as well as the outline of the stag in red color.
Fig. 162. Silhouettes of complete and of partly mutilated hands from the walls of the grotto of Gargas in the Pyrenees. After Breuil.
We are impressed throughout with three qualities in this Aurignacian design: first, the very close observation of the animal form; second, the attempt at realistic effect produced with very few lines; third, the element of motion or movement in these animals. For example, the two heads of the woolly rhinoceros in the slab engravings of the Trilobite grotto (Fig. 161) are remarkably correct in proportion; there is an attempt with fine lines to indicate the wool hanging along the lower surface of the head; behind these two figures is the rump of an elephant with the tail upturned, an adaptation of the artist to the form of the slate fragment; the outlines of the feet both of the rhinoceros and the mammoth are remarkably accurate representations of these pachyderms.
In the more advanced development of draftsmanship in late Aurignacian times the engravings of these animals not merely approach the truth, but characteristic features are strikingly represented; and with a few sure lines the proportions of the body as a whole are better preserved, while the complicated curves of the hoofs and of the head show very close observation.
Fig. 163. The long, overhanging cliff of Laussel on the Beune is a typical rock shelter, first sought in Acheulean times, and also visited during the Mousterian, Aurignacian, and Solutrean stages. Photograph by N. C. Nelson.
Fig. 164. Section of the rock shelter of Laussel, showing the superposed industrial layers from Acheulean to Solutrean times. After Lalanne.