I’ve been looking at styles of cave painting. Below is a table from Marc Groenen’s, ‘Pour une histoire de la Préhistoire’ (1994) showing the types of animals depicted and styles of painting in caves in France and Spain.

Tableau des principaux caractères du style IV. A. Nord : Arcy-sur-Cure. B. Poitou-Périgord : (1) Les Combarelles, Angles-sur-l’Anglin, Cap-Blanc, Lascaux (Puits) ; (2) Les Combarelles, Rouffignac ; (3) Teyjat. C. Pyrénées : (1) Marsoulas, Niaux, Labastide ; (2) Les Trois-Frères, Le Portel. D. Espagne : (1) Altamira, Santimamiñe; ; (2) Las Chimeneas, El Pindal, Los Casares.

The columns left to right are:

Signs, Bison, Aurochs, Horses, Ibex, Reindeer, Mammoths/Deer, Rhinoceros.

Hi Ron, thanks for this.

Look great. It’s such interesting material in the rebus of ideas and images. i.e. both visually and ideationally – the business for me will be to put it to work in a way that finds a gap and nudges the field along. This forum / platform is nice for the assembly and the interplay.
Have you read Barbara Maria Stafford’s Visual Analogy: Consciousness as the Art of Connecting? You may find it useful / relevant / interesting. J.Hillis Miller’s Illustration is v relevant to your area here too.
Also: W.J.T. Mitchell’s Picture Theory. Also his Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology.
I particularly liked your whimsical looks at line with that slippage of indexical marking versus agreed conventional coding – i.e. the agreed idea that one thing might stand (in) for another – and the seemingly unconscious translation of one thing for another. It seems to me that there are several things going on in these areas you are looking at / into :). It will be interesting to see how you might categorise them and then put them to the test as it were. cheers, Patrick

It is interesting how even very sparse sketches can be instantly recognisable and full if information about a scene or object. This is, admittedly, a Turner sketch.

Did it take a second or so for the scene to emerge from the lines when you first looked at it? Or did you get it as quickly as if it was photograph?