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Authors: Eric Chevillard, Alyson Waters
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desires. He added nothing new to it; his first revolt led him toward destruction – later they would build. He eliminated a lot, there was an urgency to do away with everything that threatened his life, everything that spelled danger and that challenged his power had to be torn out, removed, disposed of. His painting, destined to weaken his prey with its magic, failed in its aims but was in itself the real miracle: through his painting he in effect took over the world. From then on we see him extracting juice from stones. He changed the color of the water. And the light was what he made of it.
The headless woman by herself fills a narrow recess of the upper gallery, christened an alcove on the map, where the artist clearly must have also been by himself, with just enough space to work; you cannot drive a flint into a limestone wall without a little elbow room. But why did he choose this sitewhen the neighboring chambers, much vaster and more comfortable, have not been decorated? Was he working unbeknownst to his fellow creatures, flying in the face of some taboo? Did the animal art that prevailed exclude all human representation, considered pointless or anecdotal? Stupid questions, obviously; in fact no one has ever asked a really good question, whatever the subject. Because we cannot escape our own system of explaining the world, all our alleged questions are in reality tentative but peremptory answers transposed in interrogative form to allow for dialogue that, surprise, surprise, will hardly advance knowledge. What remains is the sincere, infinite amazement from before the questions. And I find quite astonishing the contradictory relationship between the almost aggressive sensuality of the headless woman and the way she is shamefully hidden in a hole. She will be the first one I visit as soon as I enter the cave.
Y ET IT WOULD be wrong to believe that nothing happened during prehistoric times. Nothing but our faulty memory is to blame. We erroneously fill in its gaps by imagining that humanity slowly disengaged itself from the animal world, perhaps by recruiting and then crossbreeding the most intelligent members of each species, or at least that man made use of all this time to distinguish himself from the others, a primate refined from generation to generation, the son having nothing to learn from his father then outstripped by his own offspring, the mental age of members of the same family being inversely proportional to the real age of each of them, until that last kid, who finally entered History, founder of all traditions who for the first time sired children less resourceful than their father but to whom he gave an excellent education and who became men worthy of this name, and then old soldiers, what a magnificent adventure.
You know your History. We have the documents. The documents confirm one another. Often they repeat each other. Thus we can be sure. Reading these texts is no doubt a bit boring, precisely because they repeat each other, because the truth is unique. Of course you can notice a few variations from one text to another, the story is not always exactly the same, the authors of thedifferent texts sometimes disagree over details. But it must be said in fairness that we can find our bearings from one to the next, everything we read in one text will be confirmed by another. Thus we can be sure. An episode read in one text had already appeared in another with which we were familiar, and there are other texts in the pipeline that will be certain not to omit it, although they might not always put it back where it belongs, for sometimes authors disagree about the chronology of events. But the events took place, the facts are there, always the same, which is the main thing. What does it matter, after all, where you situate one episode of history, as long as it is there? The authors make it a point of honor not to disappoint us in this matter, the reader’s expectation is rewarded, for the reader would
The headless woman by herself fills a narrow recess of the upper gallery, christened an alcove on the map, where the artist clearly must have also been by himself, with just enough space to work; you cannot drive a flint into a limestone wall without a little elbow room. But why did he choose this sitewhen the neighboring chambers, much vaster and more comfortable, have not been decorated? Was he working unbeknownst to his fellow creatures, flying in the face of some taboo? Did the animal art that prevailed exclude all human representation, considered pointless or anecdotal? Stupid questions, obviously; in fact no one has ever asked a really good question, whatever the subject. Because we cannot escape our own system of explaining the world, all our alleged questions are in reality tentative but peremptory answers transposed in interrogative form to allow for dialogue that, surprise, surprise, will hardly advance knowledge. What remains is the sincere, infinite amazement from before the questions. And I find quite astonishing the contradictory relationship between the almost aggressive sensuality of the headless woman and the way she is shamefully hidden in a hole. She will be the first one I visit as soon as I enter the cave.
Y ET IT WOULD be wrong to believe that nothing happened during prehistoric times. Nothing but our faulty memory is to blame. We erroneously fill in its gaps by imagining that humanity slowly disengaged itself from the animal world, perhaps by recruiting and then crossbreeding the most intelligent members of each species, or at least that man made use of all this time to distinguish himself from the others, a primate refined from generation to generation, the son having nothing to learn from his father then outstripped by his own offspring, the mental age of members of the same family being inversely proportional to the real age of each of them, until that last kid, who finally entered History, founder of all traditions who for the first time sired children less resourceful than their father but to whom he gave an excellent education and who became men worthy of this name, and then old soldiers, what a magnificent adventure.
You know your History. We have the documents. The documents confirm one another. Often they repeat each other. Thus we can be sure. Reading these texts is no doubt a bit boring, precisely because they repeat each other, because the truth is unique. Of course you can notice a few variations from one text to another, the story is not always exactly the same, the authors of thedifferent texts sometimes disagree over details. But it must be said in fairness that we can find our bearings from one to the next, everything we read in one text will be confirmed by another. Thus we can be sure. An episode read in one text had already appeared in another with which we were familiar, and there are other texts in the pipeline that will be certain not to omit it, although they might not always put it back where it belongs, for sometimes authors disagree about the chronology of events. But the events took place, the facts are there, always the same, which is the main thing. What does it matter, after all, where you situate one episode of history, as long as it is there? The authors make it a point of honor not to disappoint us in this matter, the reader’s expectation is rewarded, for the reader would
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