Encyclopaedia of Silences

As he emerged from the Chauvet-Pont d'Arc Cave in the Ardche department, discovered in December 1994 when a breath of air was detected coming out of a crevice, the British art critic and writer John Berger remained dumbstruck in front of the camera. How can one describe the drawings produced almost 31,000 years ago -15,000 years before Lascaux and Altamira -without disrupting any kind of chronological narration? How can one render the incredulity before the black charcoal lines, preserved in such a dazzling state of freshness by the damp atmosphere, they could almost have been drawn the day before? How to recount and share the feeling of connection with an immemorial time in a sealed-off space, the impression of understanding the enigma of Cro-Magnon people -the ultimate "Homo Pictor" (Hans Jonas) -on which so much is still to be discovered

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