They returned along with the Abbé Henri Breuil on 21 September 1940; Breuil would make many sketches of the cave, some of which are used as study material today due to the extreme degradation of many of the paintings.

Like similar artwork found in other western European nations — notably Spain — the Lascaux paintings represent an early sign of man’s desire to make sense of his surroundings through artistic expression.

The caves where paintings have been found are not likely to have served as shelter, but rather were visited for ceremonial purposes. The second category, “mobiliary” art, includes small portable sculpted objects which are typically found buried at habitation sites.

Lascaux, also called Lascaux Grotto, French Grotte de Lascaux, cave containing one of the most outstanding displays of prehistoric art yet discovered. Located above the Vézère River valley near Montignac, in Dordogne, France, the cave is a short distance upstream from the Eyzies-de-Tayac series of caves.

Archaeologists believe that the cave was used over a long period of time as a center for hunting and religious rites.

More than 600 animals are depicted on the walls of the Lascaux cave and almost a fourth of them are horses. The walls of the cave are very hard so the artists could not engrave an outline into the rock as they did in some other caves. They painted with mineral-based pigments like iron oxide, which has a reddish color.

Anonymous. The Caves of Lascaux, France are filled with prehistoric paintings including this horse. It is one of the oldest paintings in the world, created during the Paleolithic (belonging to the cultural period known as the Stone Age, marked by the use of stone tools) era, sometime between 15,000 and 10,000 BC.

Is the Lascaux cave open to the public? No. Lascaux was closed to the public in 1963. In 1983 the first replica, Lascaux 2, was opened to the public.

The Lascaux cave became a popular tourist site after World War II. But it had to be sealed off to the public in 1963 because the breath and sweat of visitors created carbon dioxide and humidity that would damage the paintings.

Lascaux is famous for its Palaeolithic cave paintings, found in a complex of caves in the Dordogne region of southwestern France, because of their exceptional quality, size, sophistication and antiquity.

Lascaux is a complex cave with several areas (Hall of the Bulls, Passage gallery) It was discovered on 12 September 1940 and given statutory historic monument protection in december of the same year.

The paintings for this site were duplicated with the same type of materials such as iron oxide, charcoal and ochre which were believed to be used 19 thousand years ago. Other facsimiles of Lascaux have also been produced over the years.

Lascaux IV is a new copy of all the painted areas of the cave that forms part of the International Centre for Parietal Art (Centre International de l’Art Pariétal).