Cave paintings to treasure

June 10, 2009 3:42 PM

Can anyone recommend a book with excellent photographs of the Lascaux cave paintings?

I'd like to order a book about the Lascaux cave paintings but can't decide between these offerings at amazon.ca. Does anybody know if one stands head and shoulders above the rest? Is there one not on the list I should consider? I'm looking for a big, beautiful coffee table book with really great, detailed images. I'd like it to be full of modern colour photos but it there is some kind of older, classic book with oversized black&white prints, that'd be good also.

posted by bonobothegreat to Shopping (4 answers total)

I don't know of any books in particular. Try just borrowing every one you can find from your library and through inter-library loan and then buy a copy of the best one.

I went to Lascaux when I was a kid living in Bordeaux in the late 50s and the experience affected me profoundly. I have strong concrete and abstract memories of it fifty years later.
posted by mareli at 4:39 PM on June 10, 2009

I like Cave Art. Its published by Phaidon, so you know the pictures will be pretty good. Of course, it only has say 20-25 pages on Lascaux. I did not do an exhaustive survey.
posted by shothotbot at 4:46 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Georges Bataille wrote a book about Lascaux.

Lascaux, or the Birth of Art by Georges Bataille. First published by Skira in 1955.
posted by crazylegs at 6:14 PM on June 10, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks all. I'll probably start with Cave Art and see how it is.
posted by bonobothegreat at 1:24 PM on June 11, 2009