The First Drawing by Mordicai Gerstein (review)

Gerstein’s second-person narration follows an imaginative stone-age child, who keeps seeing images of the local animals in firelight flickers on cave walls (“They call you ‘Child Who Sees What Isn’t There’”). The young artist keeps trying to share this artistic vision, but even the truthful account of a real mastodon viewing is dismissed as fantasy. In a triumphant burst of inspiration, the creative kid starts drawing the envisioned animals on the walls with a burnt stick, leading to initial consternation (“This is … MAGIC!”) and eventual celebration of the new art form. Though this is, according to a note, inspired by the Paleolithic era art in the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave in Southern France, it’s less about the stone age than it is about art, and the story offers a creative approach to get kids thinking about that paradigm shift into artistic representation. The illustrations enhance the connection between the young Paleolithic artist and young current artists by framing the stone-age visuals with a contemporary echo, a kid in modern blue jeans drawing away and producing a picture of the contemporary equivalents of the mastodons and wolves. Gerstein’s familiar blues are often steelier than usual, counterpointed with earthen taupes and ochres that emphasize the rocky scarcity of this imagined clan’s existence. Use this in an art class to spark consideration of the time before fingerpaints, refrigerator art, and even sidewalk chalk.