Achim Kriechel makes reference to the great cave paintings in southwestern France. He brought to mind one of my most appalling missed opportunities. In December 1954 I was driving my tiny motorcycle south from France on my way to Rome. I spent the night in Perigueux, a mere 50 km west of Lascaux where at that time the famous Paleolithic cave paintings were still open to the public. Despite the fact that I had spent endless hours in high school visiting the Museum of Natural History on the upper West side of Manhattan to stare at the displays of Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal skulls, I failed to make a brief side trip to see the cave paintings. Years later, when I returned to France, they had been closed to the public in order to preserve them. Talk about stupid!
You can console yourself with the thought that at least your personal off-gassing did not contribute to the deterioration of those great works.--There used to be available on VHS, DVD, and YouTube a marvelous 35' film of Lascaux (Return to Lascaux?) made around the time it was closed, though it seems to have disappeared from the internet and my local library. Norbert Aujoulat's expensive book Lascaux: Movement, Space and Time is a thorough and awesome documentation of the cave and its works.
ReplyDeleteI can cap that though in this case it was not stupidity but bad luck that led me to miss out on the the great art work. When I was 21 we went for a family holiday to Anzio (an easy train journey from Rome ) where one of my Dad's colleagues had a seaside place.. Now I have always been a big-time Michelangelo fan and on the designated day I set out on the Rome train for what I thought of as the highlight of my sight-seeing holiday – a trip to the Sistine chapel to see both the Ceiling and his magnificent The Last Judgement. But as the train rolled in a series of newspaper headlines caught my eye: Il papa รจ morto. Paul VI had died and the Chapel had been commandeered for the conclave. No Michelangelo for me. Not then and now not ever. For the last thirty-three years I have lived in New Zealand and I have climate-related scruples about foreign travel., so it looks as though I will never visit Italy again and my date with the Sistine Ceiling has been definitively missed.
ReplyDeleteI had the pleasure of seeing Werner Herzog's film "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" (on the Chauvet cave) in 3-d in the theater. If you ever get a chance, it's absolutely wonderful. I imagine even in 2-d it must be spectacular, but if you get a chance to see in 3-d it is not to be missed.
ReplyDeleteCharles Pigden,
ReplyDeleteBecause air travel contributes to global warming you will not travel?
That's a genuine question. I have no intention of polemicizing with you one way or another.
To S Wallerstien: Yes. I have drastically cut back on my foreign travel since 2008. I plan to give it up for good after my Mother (who lives in the UK) dies.
ReplyDeleteCharles Pigden,
ReplyDeleteGood for you!! That's admirable. I wish your mother many more years of life in any case.
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