academic thought has shifted to see southern African rock art as more often reflecting spiritually and culturally significant images and motifs, according to the British Museum. Some images have been understood to reflect visions seen by shamans when they entered trance-like states to perform communal tasks like healing the sick. “When they painted, they were not just doing that for decoration – there was always a story behind it. When they went (into a trance), the only way they could explain to the others what they saw was to paint these beautiful or funny figures.”

By Jack Bantock and Sean Coppack, CNN

In the early 1970s, South African summer sun searing his back, 14-year-old Stephen Townley Bassett dutifully followed his uncle into the shade offered by one of myriad caves dotted among the Cederberg Mountains of the Western Cape. Then he stopped and gawked.

Splashed across the rock face in red and yellow hues was a striking collage of half-animal, half-human shapes. Dumbfounded, the teenager’s head swam with thoughts: Whose work was it? When, and why, did they create it?

Yet one question in particular demanded his attention: How was it done? Ever since exiting that cave, Townley Bassett has been “obsessed” with finding answers.

The Cape Town-born artist has spent decades visiting many of the thousands of ancient rock art sites that dot South Africa, in order to meticulously produce millimeter-accurate copies of humanity’s early forays into painting.

Reproductions are nothing new, but Bassett’s works are no ordinary replicas. You won’t find commercial paint or paint brushes in his work – only the materials and tools that would have been available to the indigenous hunter-gatherer San people when they created their designs as far back as 10,000 years ago.

“I’m a scribe, I document someone else’s art,” Bassett told CNN. “We don’t know the name of that particular artist so, in that sense, I’m a forensic artist.

“It’s understanding what was in the hearts and minds of the people who created the paintings … I don’t just want to create copies or curio art. From the beginning I wanted my work to be so exacting that researchers and academics could use it as reference material.”….

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/south-africa-rock-art-townley-bassett-spc-intl

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++