Artsy Traveler

Let’s Go to Lascaux IV in the Stunning Dordogne

Last updated on October 26th, 2023 at 03:06 pm

In this post, I’m sharing my experience at Lascaux IV near the charming town of Montignac in the Dordogne region of France in October 2023.

Some Background

We first visited Lascaux II in 1995 almost reluctantly. The original cave closed to visitors in 1963 after they’d been allowed to crowd through for about fifteen years. Unfortunately, bacteria from their breath was eradicating the paintings at an alarming rate.

Lascaux II

Lascaux II opened in 1984–an almost exact facsimile created to show tourists the paintings in the Great Hall of the Bulls and the Painted Gallery. Purists as we were back in those days, we didn’t think a facsimile could be as good as the real thing.

We were very wrong.

Lascaux II was small, cramped, and fabulous. The magnificence of the prehistoric paintings blew us away, particularly inspiring Gregg (my husband & an artist–meet him on the About page) to create several paintings related to our visit. We could hardly believe the paintings were in fact almost exact replicas of the real thing.

Lascaux III and IV

The Lascaux cave’s fame as the premier destination for prehistoric art lovers in France, or indeed all of Europe, continued to grow. In 2012, reproductions of the paintings, called Lascaux III, were taken on the road. Then, in 2016, the massive complex that now houses Lascaux IV and its accompanying museum opened to the public.

Preparing for Our Visit to Lascaux IV

We secured our reservations for the English tour weeks before leaving Canada—and a good thing. There were only three English tours available daily during the three days we were in the Dordogne. Even a month out, only a few spots remained in the time slot we wanted (11:10 am). We snapped them up, printed off our tickets, and looked forward to the ultimate prehistoric treat. We knew the paintings themselves would not have changed since we saw them in Lascaux II, but were interested to see how the Lascaux IV iteration had enhanced the experience.

Buy Tickets in Advance at https://www.lascaux.fr/en

Touring Lascaux IV

We arrive about twenty minutes before our designated time slot and park in the huge lot across from the long, low modern building housing Lascaux IV, built below the hill that houses the real Lascaux cave.

In the airy atrium, we spend the time before the tour starts browsing the gift shop and discovering a whole new level of Lascaux-themed merch. We resolve to return after the tour and make our choices.

But before leaving the gift shop, I can’t resist snapping a pic of a whole wall of prehistoric animal stuffies. Is life truly worth living without a stuffed mammoth? I think not.

The tour begins with a flurry of English-speaking people affixing headsets and audio receivers as the cheerful guide asks if we are “hearing my voice in your head?” After several minutes all thirty or so of us are kitted out and the tour begins in an elevator.

Starting Outside Lascaux IV

We zip up to the roof of the low-slung building and learn about the discovery of the Lascaux cave in 1940. A man was out with his dog Robot (yep, that was the dog’s name) and discovered the narrow entrance to the cave at the top of the wooded hill behind the building. He returned the next day with three boys. They entered the cave through a 15-metre-deep shaft and discovered cave walls covered with depictions of animals—aurochs, bison, deer, horses, and more.

Our guide plays up the drama of the discovery and then invites us to cast ourselves back 30,000 years to imagine leaving the fresh air to clamber into a dark cave. He reminds us frequently that the humans who created the paintings in Lascaux are the same as is, biologically speaking. They were Cro-Magnon, relatively recent arrived in the area which had been inhabited for several hundreds of thousands of years by their Neanderthal cousins.

Entering Lascaux IV

With a flourish, the door slides open and we troop into the narrow cave. Our guide exhorts us to proceed in total silence and with reverence for what we are about to witness. He does a good job of setting the scene.

My art sensors are on high alert.

The door slides shut behind us and we are in the first room. Arching high above us and on the walls either side are an awe-inspiring jumble of painted animals. Some overlap, and the prevailing impression is one of constant, joyous movement. Looking up in the eerie light cast by the guide’s flashlight, the animals sway and gallop across the uneven surfaces of the cave. Each bump and swell of the simulated rock has been incorporated into the bodies of the animals in exact imitation of how the animals appear in the real cave.

Description of Images

The images of animals cavorting above us are not primitive scratchings on a rock wall. This is the prehistoric Sistine Chapel. The beauty and freshness of the vividly colored animals explode in front of us. We gasp with wonder and respect. These early painters truly were artists.

Throughout the tour, the guide emphasizes that we have no idea why the long-ago artists made these paintings. The prevailing theory is that they were made because the artists wanted to make them. In other words, these cave artists were not much different from an artist in any period. They created the animals they saw outside the cave in all their kinetic glory because, well, they just kinda felt like it. Perhaps they painted during the winter when game was scarce. Being inside a relatively warm and cozy cave was better than being outside in the snow.

Who knows!

Types of Images in Lascaux

The cave contains nearly 6,000 figures, the vast majority of which are animals. One bird-headed human figure appears in a shaft that they don’t include in Lascaux IV (but show in the museum). The cave also includes various symbols whose meaning archeologists have yet to determine.

There are no images of the surrounding landscape or the local vegetation. The animals charge across the cave walls and ceiling unencumbered by gravity.

Creating the Images

The artists used three colors: red, yellow, and black made from minerals and sometimes mixed with grease. Tools used include early versions of brushes along with tubes for blowing the paint onto the rock. The museum we enter after touring the replica cave provides many more details.

Hall of the Bulls

First up is the Hall of the Bulls. The clarity, brightness and size of the many images is spectacular. Each animal looks like it was painted yesterday, which is sort of true since it’s a replica, but it’s a replica of what the real caves look like.

The Hall of the Bulls contains 130 figures, including cows, horses, aurochs, and the only bear in the cave. One of the bulls is enormous. Spanning 5.5 meters, it’s the world’s largest known prehistoric representation of an animal.

Also in the hall is the first unicorn—a representation of an animal that never existed in nature. What was the artist thinking? Why did he or she choose to paint it? We’ll never know. The guide spends a lot of time focusing on the unicorn and speculating.

Axial Gallery

We keep going through the hall to the axial gallery, a 30-meter passage dubbed the Sistine Chapel of Prehistory. My favorite is the line of small horses merrily cantering along one wall. Called the Frieze of the Small Horses, they face the direction of the entrance to the Axial gallery. Each one is different in color, size, and shape. I unfortunately did not snap a picture of the little horses later when we entered the museum.

Overhead flow more horses and bulls and cows and aurochs and even two ibexes in a joyous celebration of movement and color. Below is a photo of one of the ceilings, taken from Canva. Photography inside the replica cave is forbidden so I wasn’t able to snap my own pics.

The Nave

Five large stags follow in a row, only their heads and antlers visible as if they are swimming. Also there are two black bison facing back to back with the rump of one placed just ahead of the other to give a 3D effect. They look like they are galloping off in opposite directions.

Where Are the Reindeers?

Being inside the replica cave is somewhat claustrophobic and yet wondrous at the same time. I tried to imagine what compelled people just like me to lower themselves into a cave and use tools and pigments to cover walls with a riot of animals in motion. And what’s even more astonishing is that not one of the animals depicted is a reindeer—the most plentiful animal roaming the landscape at the time.

Why did the artists only depict the less common animals instead of the one they depended on most for food? Again, no one knows.

The population of France during the time when the paintings were created was less than 50,000 people. And yet a fair number of them must have been artists, considering the large number of painted caves in the Dordogne area, elsewhere in France, and in northern Spain. The guide tells us that all the painted caves in existence will never be discovered.

Ending the Tour

At the end of the tour, we emerge into the sunlight to the sound of running water. The guide asks us to consider the role water played in creating caves of hollowed-out rock beneath the earth.

After answering questions, the guide leads us into the museum. Here, each of the main panels in the caves is reproduced so we can study them more closely and also take pictures. As mentioned, photography is forbidden within the caves.

Exploring the Museum

The museum is very high-tech and stylish. I would like to stay longer, but it’s already one o‘clock and tummies are rumbling. After snapping pictures of my favorite parts of the cave, I check out some of the interactive stations where people are invited to try “painting” on the screen using the colors and tools available to the cave artists. It’s all very cleverly done.

Once out, we make a quick pit stop at the gift shop and load up on Lascaux-themed merch. I buy myself a Lascaux mouse pad, a fridge magnet to add to our growing collection, a stylized figurine of an auroch, and a book about Lascaux so we can read about what we’ve just seen.

Conclusion

A visit to Lascaux IV is a must if you’re traveling in the Dordogne area. It’s located close to the charming village of Montignac. Have you visited? Share your impressions and your tips for other artsy travelers in the comments.

Tour Options for the Dordogne

Here are some options for touring the Dordogne area of France. Allocate at least a week for the area. We stayed for just three days and it was not long enough!