Meditate with the artists of Papua (1st millennium)

Father of prehistory, Abbot Henri Breuil (1877-1961) patiently and meticulously recorded on paper frescoes observed in the decorated caves that he visited. Since these pioneering works, the art of scientific copying has developed. The German ethnologist Leo Frobenius, for example, accomplished an immense work by traveling repeatedly across the African continent between 1913 and 1935. He surrounded himself with expert teams that he masterfully directed. Albert Hahn, a German scientific cartoonist, was one of them. The latter also carried out masterful surveys based on works seen in Indonesia, in the Moluccas archipelago and in West Papua. Frescoes all the more fascinating as these caves are still used by current indigenous populations.

On this immense wall almost five meters long, for example, dozens of shapes of hands and feet are stenciled, recalling practices found in much older Western caves. The projection of ocher powder gives this cloudy effect from which the traces of the hands that were placed there emerge. The rock then tells the story of the succession of generations, the lives of the adults and children of these ancient communities, their rites of belonging and communion.

Animal shapes also emerge from this composition, testifying to artistic genius, the fruit of memory and imagination. These white hands continue to beckon to us. They greet us through the centuries, witnesses of our common humanity.