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Since its discovery in 1901, dozens of polychrome paintings have been found in the tunnel-like
Grotte de Font-de-Gaume
(daily except Wed: March & Oct 9.30am-noon & 2-5.30pm;
April-Sept 9am-noon & 2-6pm; Nov-Feb 10am-noon & 2-5pm; €5.34;
tel 05.53.06.86.00, fax 05.53.35.26.18; maximum twenty per tour), 1.5km
along the D47 to Sarlat. Be aware that tickets sell out fast and only
two hundred people are allowed to tour the cave each day; advance
booking, several days ahead in peak season, is essential.
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The cave was first settled by Stone Age
people during the last Ice Age - about 25,000 BC - when the Dordogne
was the domain of roaming bison, reindeer and mammoths. The cave mouth
is no more than a fissure concealed by rocks and trees above a small
lush valley. Inside, it's a narrow twisting passage of irregular
height, and you quickly lose your bearings in the dark. The first
painting you see is a frieze of bison, at about eye level:
reddish-brown in colour, massive, full of movement, and very far from
the primitive representations you might expect. Further on a horse
stands with one hoof slightly raised, resting. But the most miraculous
of all is a frieze of five bison discovered in 1966 during cleaning
operations. The colour, remarkably sharp and vivid, is preserved by a
protective layer of calcite. Shading under the belly and down the
thighs is used to give three-dimensionality with a sophistication that
seems utterly modern. Another panel consists of superimposed drawings,
a fairly common phenomenon in cave painting, sometimes the result of
work by successive generations, but here an obviously deliberate
technique. A reindeer in the foreground shares legs with a large bison
behind to indicate perspective.  
Stocks
of artists' materials have also been found: kilos of prepared pigments;
palettes - stones stained with ground-up earth pigments; and wooden
painting sticks. Painting was clearly a specialized, perhaps
professional, business, reproduced in dozens and dozens of caves
located in the central Pyrenees and areas of northern Spain
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