Altamira (near Santander) is one of many caves in Cantabria with prehistoric cave art. Unfortunately, the original cave has been over-visited and is now closed to the public. But the main gallery within the cave system has been fully reconstructed and allows you to see the vibrant and sensitive representation of a variety of animals: painted by artists that really understood and captured the nature of their subjects. Altamira’s cave art ranges from signs and symbols (36 000 BP), hand prints (22 000 BP), line drawings with few strokes (18 000 BP) and coloured drawings of bison (14 500 BP). The artists used the surface and cracks in the rock, etched fine lines, added charcoal highlights
and then filled in with deep red ochre to create exquisite bison paintings. Picasso believed these artists had all skills of modern day painters and that all that has come after these paintings has been decadence. Not a bad reference.