Encyclopaedia of Silences: Prehistory and Modernity

As he emerged from the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc Cave in the Ardèche 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. In the cave, all is silent and obscure. 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 bef..