Discovery of Lascaux Caves
In France 1940, 18-year-old Marcel Ravidat discovered a forgotten world. Later, French archaeologist Abbé Henri Breuil recorded the paintings.
The paintings date to about 21,000 years BP. Cave painting in Europe dates to the Upper Paleolithic, 15,000 to 30,000 years BP. The paintings come in a variety of sizes. The painters liked drawing single large animals or groups of small animals.
Prehistoric immersive animation
The paintings opened to the public after 1948. However, authorities closed them off in 1963. The paintings began to degrade from exposure. Instead of firsthand viewing, facsimiles can now be toured near the original. There are also many copies found around the world.
There are many criticisms of the modern display. Some complain that the lighting robs visitors of the “true” experience. Low light, flame flickers, and shadows were crucial for cave painters. A quiet environment was also needed for proper viewing. The noise of tourists and modern technology makes this impossible.
Interactive animation
The people who discovered Lascaux in 1940 discovered over 100 stone, handheld lamps. Similar lamps are found all over Africa, Europe, and Asia.
These lamps were lit by burning animal fat. In low light, human vision sees more movement than there may be. One can imagine prehistoric viewers going from scene to scene. When the lamp was lit, the viewer disappeared with the rest of the cave. In front of him would’ve appeared shadows of galloping horses, and striding bison.
Shadow magic animation
Some compare this form of medium to “Asian shadow puppets“. The puppets themselves, though still visible, aren’t central. The projected shadows occupy the viewer’s imagination. Others compare the effect to club strobe lights.
Some people, such as Georges Bataille, think humanity arose in Lascaux. To him, we became human when we first drew the magical from our conscience.
The full animation experience
In the dim light, many special effects become possible. Animals with many heads appeared as a single animated beast. Animals with more than 4 legs seemed to be racing. In the shadow, beasts with more than one tail were wagging.
Could there have been smoking breath? Sound effects? Smell, even? The burning grease must’ve made a few mouths water.
Some think these paintings were an early form of animation and motion pictures. There is an abundance of paintings at other sites, including Chauvet.
To this day, we continue to examine prehistoric worldviews. However, we’ll stay grabbing at shadows in the dark.
Works Cited
Early Humans Made Animated Art How Paleolithic artists used fire to set the world’s oldest art in motion.
Lascaux
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux
Oil Lamp from the Cave Dwellers of Lascaux
What the Lascaux Caves Facsimiles Fail to Capture
The Parthenon
The Greeks were masters of art. Some of their brilliant sculptures had to fit into strange spaces. For example, every Greek temple had 2 pediments. These are the triangular spaces on the upper front and back of the temple. In Greek, a pediment translates as ἀετός (aetós), or “eagle”. The tall pediment, with its sides stretching out like wings, looked like an eagle.
The pediment didn’t have to hold statues. Rich rulers decorated temples with statues inside the pediment. One of the greatest examples of this is the Parthenon. The classical Athenians showed off the Parthenon to all who saw it. For this reason, the Parthenon has more sculptures than many other large temples.
Animation horses in the East Pediment
Cramming sculptures onto the Parthenon affected the sculpture design itself. Fitting sculptures in the corners of a pediment was a tricky problem. Many temple builders chose to carve bodies lying down. They were either reclined or dead. The Parthenon sculptors were cleverer.
To understand this, we’ll look at the East Pediment of the Parthenon. The right corner had 4 horses pulling the Moon goddess (Selene) down below. At the same time, on the left, 4 fresh horses pull the Sun god (Helios) up and forward. This shows a basic arc of movement, left to right. This means going from dusk to dawn, or experiencing dawn.
Athena’s birth was the dawn of Athens and mankind. All other sculptures contribute to this main arc about the goddess’ new dawn. We don’t know the exact form of all the sculptures. Time demolished many by the time people tried to record them.
Other animation in the Parthenon
The Parthenon showed other forms of movement. Everything in the Parthenon had an effect. The bent columns made the Parthenon look better in people’s eyes. Phidias’ outdoor bronze statue glistened so bright that sailors afar saw it.
The lifelike statues made old myths real to the Athenians. The colored marble drew people’s eyes in all directions. The Parthenon’s indoor pool of either oil or water shone in the sun’s light.
The centaurs and giants moved peoples’ feelings. The sculptors gave them eastern Persian features. They made the Athenians recall the earlier Persian sack of Athens. The rebuilt Acropolis was a monument to Athens’ strength.
The Athenians mixed real history with legend. They “cosmicized” the Greco-Persian wars from their own view. The Parthenon’s pediment, starring Athena, “re-played” this grandeur on loop.
Works Cited
Beard, Mary. “The Golden Age of Athens?” In The Parthenon, 117–154. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003.
Kousser, Rachel. “Destruction and Memory on the Athenian Acropolis.” The Art Bulletin 91, no. 3 (2009): 263–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40645507.
Tsalkanis, Dimitris. “The Classical Acropolis.” Ancient Athens 3D, June 13, 2021. https://ancientathens3d.com/.
Chavín de Huántar
The next example is also sacred and cosmic. However, it has more physical marvels within.
Site Location
Chavín de Huántar is an ancient site in the Peruvian Andes. It’s one of the most precious Andean sites discovered. People know the Incas, but many states and cultures came before them.
Archeologists once thought Chavín de Huántar fostered all Andean society. Nowadays, they know Chavín de Huántar wasn’t the first advanced culture. However, there is still plenty of evidence that the ancient site was central.
The site stands 3,177 m above sea level. It stands between the Rivers Mosna, Wacheksa, and Marañón. There are numerous modern residences in the area. Construction of the site began around 800BC.
The most famous monumental structures came later, between 400-200BC. Scholars call it the “Castillo”. The 2 more major structures are the “Old” and “New” Temples.
Design for experiential animation
From the front, the mountains behind Chavín form a backdrop. The Old Temple stood in front of these mountains. It was a symmetric, U-shaped building. The New Temple was a western expansion of the Old Temple. Archaeologists think the Old Temple remains more sacred.
However, the New Temple had more space for ceremonial occupancy. In front of these temples was a collection of sunken courts, stairs, and plazas.
Marvel of Engineering Animation
Overall, Chavín isn’t a large site. However, the complexity of its design exceeds many other Andean sites. The Castillo isn’t a solid stone monument. It’s filled with mazes of passages, stairways, vents, and drains. These inner mazes are how movement was “made” at Chavín.
Of course, Chavín was vital in a religious and cosmological sense. In addition, Chavín had mechanical wonders. Scientists have studied the acoustic features of The Castillo. They guessed about an ancient ceremonial wonder. If the ancients flushed water inside, they could’ve produced a hydrologic roar. Imagine the religious experience which comes with that!
In addition, the spectators were in for much greater surprises. Visitors to Chavín were sometimes allowed inside the Castillo. Other times, “priests” were the sole class entitled to enter. It’s possible that before they walked in, they consumed plant drugs.
Meeting a god in animation
As visitors passed the statues inside the Castillo, they transcended this world. At the end, they came face to face with the deadliest statue of Chavín. The Lanzón.
The feline-like Lanzón survives, because it was put deep inside the Castillo. It’s also called the “Smiling” or “Snarling God”. There was a small hole above the Lanzón. Priests could’ve convinced drugged visitors that the “god” was speaking. It was all part of the sensational experience. The structural and emotional movement united man and god.
Work Cited
Moseley, Michael E. “The Initial Period and Early Horizon” In The Incas and Their Ancestors, 123-160. London: Thames & Hudson, 1992.
Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia was first built as a Christian church. In contrast to paganism, Christians practiced religion indoors. The builders of Hagia Sophia used more than sight to show God’s glory. Stanford’s professors Dr. Pentcheva and Dr. Abel studied the beauty of the church.
Watery marble animation
In ancient Greek, the words for marble, water, and glitter were all connected. Marble was marmaron. “Sparkling water” was marmairo. “Glitter” was marmarygmon. Aristotle and Theophrastus thought marble was stone formed in water. Late Antique builders used colored marbles as metaphors of the sea. We now have an idea of shimmering movement in Hagia Sophia.
O Come, All Ye Faithful
Paul the Silentiary said Procennesus Island “gave its marble back to Christ”. When the sun shone on the marble, viewers thought of the Bosphorus waters. This was the strait right outside Constantinople. The marble of Hagia Sophia “melted” into a living river. It was a river which washed and quenched the faithful.
Paul imagines the Hagia Sophia’s ambo as a lone island at sea. Reaching for the true Word was like finding safety on shore. The strength and wisdom needed to find this shore were in the Eucharist.
There are additional visual metaphors. The walkways of Hagia Sophia are bathed in green marble. Paul the Silentiary likened them to flowering forests and meadows. The comments on the marble focus on light absorption and reflection. In Christian eyes, this light smoked out from the marble as a wholesome charis.
Sight with Sound Animation
To study acoustics, Dr. Abel popped a balloon in the building. This gave insight into the church’s sound-reflecting abilities. Marble as a material reflects most sounds aimed at it. Hagia Sophia was a big reflection of light and sound.
Hagia Sophia would’ve brimmed with a series of delayed echos. The Greek chants used 2 techniques for enhancement: melismas and intercalation. Melisma is when one syllable of text extends over a series of notes. Intercalation is the insertion of non-exhaled sounds between syllables. Both these techniques obscured the precise wording of chants. In addition, the walls and domes all acted as structural enhancements of sound.
Cappella Romana, led by Alexander Lingas, recreated the Greek chants. With all the information above, they adjusted their voices as they practiced.
Evocation
The chant, marble, and incense invoked the Holy Spirit and highest angels. The effects brought out a pneuma, or living breath.
It’s as if Hagia Sophia came alive with divine feedback.
“It’s actually something that is beyond humanity that the sound is trying to communicate”. ~ Dr. Pentcheva
Works Cited
PENTCHEVA, BISSERA V. “Hagia Sophia and Multisensory Aesthetics.” Gesta 50, no. 2 (2011): 93–111. https://doi.org/10.2307/41550552.
Pentcheva, Bissera V., and Jonathan S. Abel. “Icons of Sound: Auralizing the Lost Voice of Hagia Sophia.” Speculum 92, no. S1 (2017): S336–60. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26583716.
Cultural Significance to Anthropology
Here, we’ve covered several diverse types of “architectural movement”. We may interpret all as “early” animation and/or motion pictures. All the structures I reviewed were physically static. None of the 4 structures here had moving stone parts, such as in Disney’s “Atlantis”. However, their designers ensured that they were much more than piles of stone. Some acted like immersive simulators of the ancient and medieval cosmos.
In addition, the article explored emotional impacts. This is sometimes known as “affect theory“. Ancient experience-to-emotion feedback was more advanced and refined than we think. Studies of all these structures enhance historical studies and psychology.
Without a doubt, our ancestors, no matter where or when, knew of ways to make their world come alive.
