At this site, the painting of 'The Sorcerer' can be found. You can see the original, below on the left, and Henry Breuil's (somewhat elaborated) drawing of it on the right.
Henri Breuil was influenced by Spencer and Gillan's study of the Arunta of central Australia, and formed his theories of Paleolithic cave art from them. He emphasised their possible function as ensuring hunting success, and that this figure of 'The Sorcerer' was therefore a shaman, forming his magic hunting hypothesis that lasted into much of the 20th century.
There are criticisms of this view, like the rarity of actual hunting scenes, and that in the Upper Paleolithic, southwestern France was probably 'a human desert stocked full of animals' (Bordes), and so hunting magic wasn't actually needed.
Our view of cave art's moved on from the attitude it was art for art's sake in the 19th century. From the structuralist approaches of the 1960s influenced by Levi-Strauss, such as Leroi-Gourham's quantification and interpretation of cave art and the male/female symbolic oppositions, to structuralist and feminist approaches (Cokey's matrifocal view), ecological perspectives about fish and things (Jochim 1983), and ecology and initiation rituals (Mithen 1988). It appears it's not as easy as saying it's 'just a painting'...
One of the most interesting approaches I found was Lewis William's nueropyschology and trance interpretation. It's all about entoptic and iconic images seen in trance states being reflected in paintings, like dots and zig-zags.
The funniest explanation was the post-entoptic approach of Guthrie (2006), who argues that the art was made by adolescent boys who were a bit testosterone-fuelled and made 'Venus' figurines to represent their fantasies. It's one explanation, but my lecturer was a bit awkward trying to phrase this part...! (Hence it's hilarity, not because it's a bad theory).
I'd really like to research this more, and will hopefully get to see some of these caves up close for myself. I always wonder if there's some simpler explanation... I think this comic did too! (Courtesy of SMBC - pardon the language in the comic):
Our view of cave art's moved on from the attitude it was art for art's sake in the 19th century. From the structuralist approaches of the 1960s influenced by Levi-Strauss, such as Leroi-Gourham's quantification and interpretation of cave art and the male/female symbolic oppositions, to structuralist and feminist approaches (Cokey's matrifocal view), ecological perspectives about fish and things (Jochim 1983), and ecology and initiation rituals (Mithen 1988). It appears it's not as easy as saying it's 'just a painting'...
One of the most interesting approaches I found was Lewis William's nueropyschology and trance interpretation. It's all about entoptic and iconic images seen in trance states being reflected in paintings, like dots and zig-zags.
The funniest explanation was the post-entoptic approach of Guthrie (2006), who argues that the art was made by adolescent boys who were a bit testosterone-fuelled and made 'Venus' figurines to represent their fantasies. It's one explanation, but my lecturer was a bit awkward trying to phrase this part...! (Hence it's hilarity, not because it's a bad theory).
I'd really like to research this more, and will hopefully get to see some of these caves up close for myself. I always wonder if there's some simpler explanation... I think this comic did too! (Courtesy of SMBC - pardon the language in the comic):
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