San paintings display the profound expressiveness attributed to certain animals, thereby reflecting a universal feature of Palaeolithic art. The presence of animals in human life, and then their incorporation into a different body – one of line and colour – are the sign of a relationship whose meanings seem to be sealed within the core of the picture. Painting contains those meanings, but does not always reveal them – they are simultaneously visible and veiled, just as they are in the animals’ markings. This is the paradox of appearances, the paradoxical background to paintings that lack a background: images let an inner meaning surface, even when the surface is likely to cover and hide that interiority. By following the artist's methods, however, we can enter into the physical formulation of pictures, embarking upon a path that indicates, in the distance, a direction. Appearance is both a threshold and a horizon.

Detaching

Of the few sketches I have managed to see, one revealed that figures often began with an partial outline that, with a single stroke, reconstituted the animal's head, neck, back and thigh, as seen from the side. Even unfinished, this outline is primordial; for that matter, many painted animals are given a very thin border, sometimes in a different colour from their coat, which follows neck and back and thereby encapsulates their silhouette. This line along the back seems to be the most powerful manifestation of painting's particular capacity to impart life. In the Brandberg, some klipspringer were sketched differently: they emerge from an ochre line describing an ear that extends into a flat area of colour representing the neck. Their silhouette was then painted in solid colour. Beyond those different techniques, what struck me was that corrections were so rare: the animal leapt forth in a line whose continuity was fundamental, indicating the seriousness of this act of apparition, as though the image demanded to be grasped in its wholeness by a hand unhindered by nervousness or hesitation. It could not be scribbled or sketched with the awkward strokes of a beginner's hand. These are works by accomplished artists who had practised drawing, for example, in the sand or dirt of shelters.