Men of the Old Stone Age: Their Environment, Life and Art

by Henry Fairfield Osborn

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.

Fig. 218. Outline of one of the bison in the Galerie des Fresques at Font-de-Gaume, showing the preliminary etching or engraving preparatory to the polychrome fresco painting. After Breuil.

Pl. VIII. One of the bisons on the ceiling of Altamira, representing the final stage of polychrome art in which four shades of color are used. After Breuil.

Fig. 219. Entrance on the right to the grotto leading to the great cavern of Font-de-Gaume on the Beune. Photograph by N. C. Nelson.

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.