Revisiting Our Very First Post: Lascaux....the Original Man Cave
LASCAUX....THE ORIGINAL MAN CAVE: It was back on October 14 of 2011 that Studio of Style launched with the first post about the original of all interior designs: that fabulous cave with six halls at Lascaux in southwestern France that we at Studio of Style still consider to be among the very best "rooms" created...ever. 17,000 years later and they are still amazing to look at and to try and wrap our brains abound. All told, the cave contains 2,000 animal, human and abstract figures, with 900 being animals and among those are 605 precisely identified species! The organic nature of the art at Lascaux integrating with its environment can still teach us a big lesson about design. Consider this: no one taught these Paleolithic painters about form, style, technique -- they just did it from their gut. Without art schools, design courses, books. And you can create like this too. How you ask? Well, start first with the big picture and everything else will come from that. You can make the focal point of your room a mural instead of paint or wallpaper that is usually punctuated by the obligatory pieces of artwork placed here and there where you think they ought to belong because that is how we learned to perceive spaces. Instead, be bold. Don't try to be a designer -- be a human with human needs. What is it that you really want in your world and where do you see it being placed -- and in what sizes, shapes and colors? Will it be purely decorative or thoroughly functional? You see, it's when we get caught up in what we think design is that we can lose sight of what it is we're trying to accomplish and that's when our creative instincts become shackled by convention. That's just a fancy way of saying that it's possible to push our design vision further to the point that originality makes its appearance. Now, for a moment, study the images of these caves and see if you can imagine yourself being among the original people painting these images in place for the very first time -- grinding and mixing the pigments, brushing and smearing them onto the wall, all it of being done by torchlight or a roaring central fire. How exciting that must have been to decorate for the first time -- it must have caused a lot of talk in that part of the country. And to think that you can have that kind of "first time excitement" when you create your own living space drawn from imagery in your fertile mind. Our final tip to you: Don't cave in to conventionality.
