Beyond the Cave: Lascaux and the Prehistoric in Post-War French Culture

Abstract

Discovered in I940 a few months after the military collapse of France, the prehistoric cave paintings of Lascaux were to become for many writers and artists of the post-war period a symbol of the twin births of art and homo sapiens. This new primitivism may be explained with reference to three contexts: the institutional recognition of Modernism by the French state; the Gaullist rehabilitation of national cultural identity after Vichy; and French resistance to growing American cultural hegemony. In each case, the cultural reconstruction of France privileges the originary moment symbolized by Lascaux. The work of Georges Bataille, Rene Char and Maurice Blanchot, however, explores and problematizes the originary status of prehistoric art in terms of anthropology, ontology and aesthetics. Far from providing a solid foundation for cultural reconstruction, Lascaux comes to represent the suspended and precarious nature of human existence in the post-war years and to function as a caution against the dangers implicit in the quest for cultural origins.