Cave Of Forgotten Dreams By Werner Herzog

In class and in our own time we watched an Art Documentary called “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”. This Documentary was produced in 2010 by Werner Herzog. He is doing a documentary about cave paintings in the Chauvet caves in southern France. The cave was originally found in 1993 by french cave explorers. Upon finding the cave, they found cave paintings. The paintings were preserved so well because of a natural rock slide that sealed in the cave thousands of years ago, so no outside forces could affect the art work. This is the main reason why Herzog called it a time capsule. I myself am amazed at this. How the paintings almost 30,000 years old is so pristine and beautiful. Herzog had with him a team of art historians, geologists, archaeologists, and

A few of the cave paintings included extinct animals like woolly mammoths, cave bears and the woolly rhino. This was very powerful to me. That these animals that only 30,000 years ago roamed the earth. 30,000 years is a geological eye blink in the scale of earths history. Through that history though, early man has been through that cave multiple times by multiple people. Although not used for living quarters its was like a modern public art gallery. Many early humans painted, sometimes over anothers work. That is where radio-carbon dating can help solve the issue of when was something drawn. How long between certain paintings and how long before humans started entering these caves in particular. Among these pictures, most animals had multiple legs per animal. More than usual. Herzog says that under a flickering torch light the legs could appear to move. He also notes how the bodies of animals look as if they are in constant motion, with muscle curvature exemplified through the natural curvature of the cave walls. This whole cave system has been lost out of mankind sight for thousands of