Yesterday was one for the record books. Sally, Tom (a fellow resident writer from South Africa), Juanita and I piled into Sally's little black Twingo and drove to see the 30,000 year old Pech-Merle cave paintings. Sally brought up the idea of going two days ago and I nearly jumped out of my skin from excitement. I originally learned about the prehistoric cave paintings my sophomore year of college and found them facinating. I remember Google searching the web to see if I could get posters of the paintings- their simplicity as well as their history combine to put these primitive works of art on my top 5 favorite artistic pieces.
This might all sound a little dry to you, but for an art history nerd like me, it was kind of a big deal- like a football fan going to the Super Bowl or a NASCAR fanatic going to the Indy 500.
This might all sound a little dry to you, but for an art history nerd like me, it was kind of a big deal- like a football fan going to the Super Bowl or a NASCAR fanatic going to the Indy 500.
I decided to bring Juanita along for the trip as she's been pretty bored just sitting in the room and waiting for me to come back in the afternoons from my painting expeditions. I told her she could go as long as there wasn't any monkey business. I was happy to pack her a banana or two for the road since it kept her quiet on our hour long car ride.
We arrived at Pech-Merle and went on the 50 minute tour, which was completely in French. It was a really good thing that Sally came to translate- I kept hearing 'buh-tum' whenever the tour guide took his laser pointer over a certain part of a drawing. I asked Sally what he was saying... turns out that the drawing he was pointing to was a shilouette of a woman- with a very large 'buh-tum'. One thing I noticed about the drawings of women was that the artists didn't seem to care to include heads on the ladies- they just drew very fertile looking women with lines for heads.... kind of makes me think that these primitive men didn't really value their women's brains too much. They definitely put of a lot of emphasis on the physical attributes vs. anything else. I won't be too judgemental of these artistic men, however, I mean, they did do some works of art that lasted a lot longer than any of my paintings will- and I am SURE a woman played a large part in the cleaning of his animal skin clothes when he returned from his cave expeditions- covered in iron oxide and charcoal.
We arrived at Pech-Merle and went on the 50 minute tour, which was completely in French. It was a really good thing that Sally came to translate- I kept hearing 'buh-tum' whenever the tour guide took his laser pointer over a certain part of a drawing. I asked Sally what he was saying... turns out that the drawing he was pointing to was a shilouette of a woman- with a very large 'buh-tum'. One thing I noticed about the drawings of women was that the artists didn't seem to care to include heads on the ladies- they just drew very fertile looking women with lines for heads.... kind of makes me think that these primitive men didn't really value their women's brains too much. They definitely put of a lot of emphasis on the physical attributes vs. anything else. I won't be too judgemental of these artistic men, however, I mean, they did do some works of art that lasted a lot longer than any of my paintings will- and I am SURE a woman played a large part in the cleaning of his animal skin clothes when he returned from his cave expeditions- covered in iron oxide and charcoal.
After we got done with the tour, I asked if we could do it all over again. Sally said 'no' because it was well past lunch time and we were due to have a bite in St. Cirq Lapopie- noted the most beautiful village in France. St. Cirq Lapopie is famous as the gem of the Lot region of France and, in one tour guide, it was referred to as one of the most beautiful places not just in France, but in their entire world. Well over 800 years old, this town is built on a rock outcropping that looks over the gorgeous Lot river. It once had three castles in the village- just ruins are left now, but a lot of the other buildings in the town are almost a thousand years old... which makes our puny little stick homes back in Ferry County look like short-term investments. If you really want something to last, it's gotta be build out of limestone, have a roof of limestone, and be build on a foundation of limestone.
On our way to 'Lapopie, we passed a massive field of sunflowers. Tom and I begged Sally to pull over and let us take some photos. When I think 'France' I think 'sunflowers', and I admit I was disappointed to hear that they'd all bloomed by September and the locals told me that I probably would only see one or two individual flowers still yellow... but this patch proved the locals wrong. I joked that walking on the road above the sunflowers, with them 'looking' in my direction made me feel like a rockstar going on stage to face adoring fans.
"HELLO SUNFLOWERS! I LOVE YOU! Here's a new song I wrote, just for you..."
There's no real use in my trying to desribe the town of St. Cirq Lapopie to you, because I just won't do it justice. Let me just say this: if I could pack things up and move there, I'd do it without hesitation. There are just some places in the world that actually do take your breath away- St. CL is one of those places. You might want to Google it if you want some really good photos. I am just showing you one of the best ones I took.. and I will post more pictures later.
Another gentleman I met at the panini shop told me he used to be a bank manager in Champagne and then said "You know... CHAMPAGNE!" and then pantomimed popping a cork- he and I got along really well after that.
Juanita looks over the Lot River with St. Cirq Lapopie Church in the background.
Well, I have to go to bed. It's 10:19pm here. I have a full day of painting in Puy l'eveque tomorrow- I hope to do one good painting of the city. Wish me luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment