Thursday, March 12, 2009

My husband and I recently acquired a copy of, " The Intellectual Devotional" by David S. Kidder and Noah D. Oppenheim, and have begun to pledge ourselves to each day's entry. For those of you whom haven't heard of the aforementioned book, it is a secular compendium in the same tradition of religious daily devotionals and includes the topics of history, literature, visual arts, science, music, philosophy, and religion. Each theme has a specific day and the overall goal of the book is to , as the authors claim, "Revive your mind, Complete your education, and roam confidently with the cultured class." For some time, I have greatly anticipated purchasing this book and am now greedily absorbing each day's subject. Today's passage was on visual arts and covered the Lascaux cave paintings, shown above. After contemplating the topic, I used the web to research more about the paintings and was struck firstly, by the beauty and craftsmanship of these paleolithic creations, and secondly by the thought that it seems as though man has always needed to have some form of self-expression. Even before the creation of any kind of alphabet, man needed a way to inform and explain his thoughts, beliefs, and daily life. I find a kind of solace and kindership with these ancient people, through the idea that even though there are eons seperating them from us, the bridge of man's compulsion and desire to be heard and understood spans the great divide of time. If you haven't checked it out before here's a websitehttp://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/index3.html that will give you more information about the paintings and how they were discovered. Enjoy!

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