In the Narrows

Lascaux II and the Geography of Hope

by Leslie Van Gelder

This article is featured in the Autumn 2015 issue of The Wayfarer (Vol 4 Issue 2)

When the replica of Lascaux was built into a low hillside near the original cave in Montignac, France, a decision was made to reverse the ‘sense of the visit’, so that the visitor would arrive immediately into the grand Salon of Bulls and be brought almost instantly into the majesty of the art. While a small interpretive chamber precedes entrance into the cave and allows the guides a teaching space to dispel myths and create interest for those who have come simply because in both senses of the word, on a summer’s day they have heard that the replica is “cool,” the immediacy of arriving in the Salon often leaves people breathless from the shock of being in the presence of so much art and at such a grand scale. At the Sistine Chapel, to which it is often compared, one has already walked the whole length of the Vatican to get there. In Lascaux II it is immediate.

  The chamber itself is…