In 1879, de Sautuola and his daughter claimed and announced that inside the Altamira Cave, near Santander in Spain, there were paintings created by prehistoric humans. Prehistory scholars laughed at the notion—and they kept laughing for at least twenty years. Then, Abbé Breuil and Cartailhac visited the site, and laughter turned into astonishment: the paintings were authentic, undoubtedly the work of prehistoric humans, and in terms of beauty, they had nothing to envy from any modern painting.
Astonishment, at least on the surface, is an attitude that has little scientific value, and perhaps for this reason, scientists tend to be horrified by such a sentiment.
After all, science seeks truth, or at least sincerely strives for it. Poetry, on the other hand, seeks wonder, and it dedicates itself to this pursuit with equal sincerity.
We have come to believe that perhaps within wonder, there is something of truth.
Andrea Benetti is an artist, and therefore a poet. One evening—certainly not as a joke but in a joyful spirit, for art must also be a source of joy—the idea of Neorupestrian Art was born.
In the months following that conversation, which stretched into the night, we studied and reflected on how, over two hundred centuries ago, humans expressed the highest aspirations of their hearts and spirituality through painting. This led to the need to draft the Manifesto of Neorupestrian Art, which does not advocate for a return to the past, nor is it a nostalgic Rousseauian vision. It is not an operation of mere revival or recovery; rather, it is a reflection meant to reconsider artistic evolution from a different perspective.
For instance, when visiting Lascaux, it becomes evident why this site—home to a multitude of painted masterpieces—has earned the title of the Sistine Chapel of Prehistory.
And when we consider how many millennia ago these works were created, we are faced with an issue of enormous proportions, which becomes even more staggering when we examine cave art on a global scale, realizing that everything—from figurative to abstract—had already been explored.
Then, in other conversations that lasted through day and night, Benetti and I tried to break free from the misleading notion that our ancestors—naked or clad in animal skins and leaves—spent millennia idiotically banging stones together, waiting for a spark. The stereotype of semi-demented shamans, obsessed with hunting, primitive figures frantically dancing around a totem, had to be discarded.
The art they left behind is infinitely richer in abstraction than the simplistic idea of mere survival instincts.
Their art reveals a sophisticated mastery of drawing, an advanced quality of graphic expression.
The Manifesto of Neorupestrian Art seeks to reclaim kindred spirits lost in the abyss of time, to at least imagine who these metaphysical beings were—individuals who possessed extraordinary artistic techniques and expressed them with a deep concern for eternity.
In simple terms, I can say that the Manifesto of Neorupestrian Art represents an absolute novelty. It refers to an undeniable archetype, one that a true artist can no longer ignore.
Picasso once declared: “After Altamira, all is decadence.”
The Manifesto of Neorupestrian Art acknowledges the wonders and masterpieces of the past, but at the same time, it compels us to approach contemporary novelties, clamor, and provocations with a disenchanted gaze.