Why did they do it?

In January 1970, I was 16. I had failed all but one of my 'O' levels and returned to school for one year to try to do better. It wasn't working and I spent much of my time mooching around the art room. One wet afternoon I eavesdropped on an Art History lesson. I shouldn't have been there, but I listened from the edge of the room. The teacher was John Alabone; the subject was the Lascaux cave paintings. At the end of the lesson, I approached his desk and asked:

 

"Why did they do it, sir?

Why did they go down into the depths of those caves, down into the dark, and create those incredible images?"

 

This brilliant man - who became a father-figure to me - simply handed me the large library book he had been teaching from and said: "Take this home and read it". And that was it. I was hooked on a world where magic was done and meaning conveyed by pigments applied to a surface.

 

Since then my interests and studies have taken me into aesthetics and the philosophy of art, and I have gained great pleasure in helping people open themselves to what works of art might have to say to them.

 

I am also a retired Anglican priest (on the very liberal wing of the Church of England), and some of my interest has been in how we engage with God through art. But don't be daunted by that. It will come up in the blog, but maybe not in the way you imagine.

 

Onward ...

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