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Coloured wooden Uli statue, New Ireland,
Melanesia. Berggruen
Collection, Geneva.
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Australia
The Aboriginal people of Australia grouped themselves into small
nomadic groups of hunter-gatherers, who, though they used only a few
simple tools, had a very complex social structure and a rich vein of
myths and religious beliefs. Art and religion were closely linked in
these Australian cultures and were constant features of their daily
lives -sacred and everyday objects alike were decorated with
engravings and paintings, while myths served as a code of reference
from which both the individual and society as a whole drew
inspiration. These traditional themes found expression in Aboriginal
art, music, and dance. The decoration of sacred objects, even when
it appeared to be highly stylized, had a complicated symbolic
meaning that varied from one group to the next. For example,
concentric circles represented living creatures or their internal
organs, while a series of dots might stand for the footprints left
by dancers. Rock paintings showed scenes of daily life inspired by
popular myths, as well as sacred subjects that were to be viewed
only by those who were initiated. The great rock paintings of
Kimberley, in northwest Australia, are highly symbolic. According to
the Aboriginals, these paintings contained the essence of water and
life. The mouths of the mythological creatures, which they believed
to be the source of rain, were repainted annually to ensure
continued rainfall and prolong life on Earth. Paintings on tree bark
were also very common - especially those of Arnhem Land - and
typically depicted legendary creatures, tribal forebears, and themes
from mythology. At the heart of Aboriginal art lay the deep link
that existed between myths and society, between humans and the
earth. However, the arrival of the European colonists in the 18th
and 19th centuries almost shattered this link. Despite this damage.
Aboriginal art is now flourishing and today enjoys huge popularity
in the international art world.
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Painted tree bark, Australia. Museo Preistorico ed Etnografico
Luigi Pigorini, Rome.
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Melanesia
The term Melanesia applies to the group of islands and archipelagos
that extend to the northeast of Australia. They are inhabited by a
population that lives on subsistence farming and still retains much
of its traditional culture. Although no single art form dominates
Melanesia, a large number of local styles and a wide variety of
materials and techniques are used.
Individual groups and villages have their own cultural identity,
their own spirits, and their own ancestral beliefs, and each has
developed a recognizable style and form of artistic expression. Yet
several common features can be identified: for example, throughout
Melanesia, even the most ordinary objects are decorated with
extraordinary delicacy, no matter what technique is applied -
carving, engraving, weaving, painting, or "feathering".
The decorative themes and motifs employed all have extremely complex
symbolic and allegorical meanings. For this reason, Melanesian art
has been the subject of wide study and interpretation by art
scholars, and yet, in many cases, the true meaning of the decoration
remains a mystery. The principal themes are mythical ancestors,
depicted in both human and animal form, and supernatural beings,
such as the spirits of the waters and the forests.
New Guinea is the most important centre of Melanesian art. It is the
largest island in the southern hemisphere and hosts more than 700
different languages. Within this vast mosaic of races, three major
areas exhibiting different styles of art have been distinguished.
Among the most important of these are the areas around the Sepik
river and the Massim (eastern New Guinea). In the Massim, artists
are professional figures who enjoy high social prestige; the region
is noted for its impressive ceremonial canoes, on the prows of which
are panels with elaborately carved or painted symbolic decoration.
The individual parts are highly ornamental and are laden with
mythological and ritual meaning. Melanesian culture, despite its
contacts - sometimes destructive - with the Western world, is still
thriving and is capable of expressing itself through many original
art forms, even though these now differ considerably from the
traditional art of earlier generations.
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Canoe ornament, New Guinea.
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SEPIK ART
The great basin of the Sepik, the principal river of northern New
Guinea, is home to people with many different languages and
cultures. The extraordinary forms of art that have been developed
here make this one of the richest and most important areas of native
artistic production. In spite of the cultural and linguistic
differences, the homogeneous body of styles renders Sepik art
immediately recognizable. The dominant elements, especially in the
sculpture and painting, are representations of humans and animals
(mainly crocodiles, snakes, and birds), which are depicted in a
variety of ways, ranging from realistic to extremely stylized. These
images appear on numerous objects, such as amulets, masks, drums,
shields, orators' stools, and the prows of canoes. They can also be
found on the painted facades and carved posts of the great
ceremonial houses. The human and animal figures are generally
associated with the spirits (both of forests and rivers and of
ancestors) and totemic antecedents. Most of these works are guarded
inside the ceremonial "houses of men", which are the focal point of
the group's social and religious life. Sometimes these houses are
shaped in an idealized representation of the crocodile, the creature
regarded as the mythical Creator. Although strongly connected with
religion, Sepik art does not appear to be a manifestation or
representation of a myth or ritual; its deep significance, which is
not always a conscious one, lies in the expression of ideas that are
fundamental to native culture. These include the place of human
beings in the universe, the roles of males and females, and the
display of power.
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Wooden mask, Sepik basin, New Guinea. Museo Preistorico ed
Etnografico Luigi Pigorini, Rome. |
Spirit of war and the hunt, New Guinea. Museo Preistorico ed
Etnografico Luigi Pigorini, Rome |
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Papuan ceremonial house, Sepik basin, New Guinea.
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Ceremonial mace, Marquesas Islands, Polynesia.
Museo Preistorico
ed Etnografico Luigi Pigorini, Rome. |
Polynesia and Micronesia
Contact between visiting Europeans and the peoples of Polynesia had
a devastating effect on native cultures. As a result, Polynesian art
became virtually extinct long before the end of the 19th century and
so today examples of this work can be seen and studied only in the
display cases of the world's museums.
Despite its distant scattering of islands and archipelagos,
Polynesia is inhabited by people who speak similar dialects and
whose cultures had many common features. One of the characteristics
of the native society was its strict hierarchical structure, and
Polynesian art to a large extent reflected these divisions of ranks,
both in its ritual and its decorative aspects. Social hierarchy was
conveyed through a wide variety of insignia of rank displayed by
members of the classes concerned. Among these objects of rank were
ceremonial clubs (particularly those of the Marquesas Islands) and
sceptres, cloaks and feathered headdresses from the Hawaiian
Islands, earrings made from whales' teeth, and breast ornaments. The
materials most frequently used were wood, bone or ivory, shells,
plant fibres, and feathers. The decoration of these objects featured
both highly stylized human figures and geometric motifs.
Very few examples remain of the wooden sculptures, especially those
from Hawaii representing divine beings, as many of them were
destroyed by missionaries in the course of their evangelical work.
However, still extant are the immense megalithic heads of a
ceremonial nature, notably the famous carved stone heads of Easter
Island (ad400-1680). and similar examples from Tahiti, Hawaii, and
the Austral Islands. The art of tattooing may also be considered a
form of artistic expression. It was frequently very rich and
elaborate, particularly in the Marquesas Islands and New Zealand.
High-ranking individuals often had their entire bodies tattooed in a
mass of abstract curved motifs. The art of Micronesia was far less
complex in form than that of Polynesia and was expressed mainly in
the craft production of attractive artefacts for everyday use.
Notable exceptions, however, were the wooden statues produced by
craftsmen in the Caroline Islands. Carved in human form, these
sculptures rank among the finest examples of their kind to be found
anywhere in the world. In these highly-stylized pieces, the
conceptualization of form has been elevated to a high level of
abstraction that is remarkably "modern" in feel.
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Wooden statuette, Caroline Islands, Micronesia. |
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Part of a wooden door-jamb in the form of a manaia,
New Zealand.
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MAORI ART
The Maori are a group of peoples of Polynesian language and culture
who live on the islands of New Zealand, the most southerly part of
Polynesia. Situated to the southeast of Australia, these islands
have fostered the development of complex societies by means of their
varied and abundant natural resources. The islands of New Zealand
are the most recently populated of the Polynesian archipelago,
between the 10th and 14th centuries ad. Because of their
geographical situation, thev have verv different climatic
conditions. Hence, although Maori art exhibits similar themes to
Polynesian art, it has evolved an individual and independent style
that is easily recognizable. The creative talent of Maori artists is
most evident in their use of elaborate decoration and adornment,
culminating in the so-called "Maori curvilinear style". Wooden
statues are very common, but fully rounded figures are rare in
comparison with the perforated friezes that adorn ceremonial houses
and canoe prows. Human-style figures usually represent ancestors,
but a very typical conventional figure is the manaia — a stylized
human form with the head of a bird, which is depicted both on large
wooden friezes and ceremonial objects. Like other forms of
Polynesian art, Maori art was largely" destroyed with the collapse
of traditional culture during the second half of the 19th century.
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Wooden canoe prow, New Zealand.
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CONTEMPORARY ABORIGINAL ART
The art of the Australian Aborigines was inextricably linked with
their social organization and mythology. Contact with the Europeans
meant that much of this culture was destroyed, and the few remaining
Aboriginal groups were forced to adopt lifestyles that were entirely
foreign to them. In some cases, traditional culture was partially
retained, resulting in a form of artistic expression that
reinterpreted traditional Aboriginal motifs through the medium of
new industrial techniques and materials. The earliest forms of this
new art dated from the 1930s, but it developed most significantly
during the mid-1970s throughout the regions of central Australia.
The distinctive painting style originated among a group that was
driven from its native territory in the early 1970s. It then spread
to other groups, each of which had an individual style that
reflected their differing social and political situations and their
different settlement procedures. Mythological themes are represented
by symbolic motifs - concentric circles, curved and wavy lines -
painted in a decorative pattern of dots. Contemporary artists, who
often have no formal training, now use acrylic colours on canvas
rather than the traditional vegetable dyes -and, again contrary to
the usual practice in traditional art, they paint exclusively for
the Western market. Although their work is destined for a very
different outside world, these artists remain part of the community
and reaffirm their role as guardians of the earth (often represented
in the pictures). Their role is vital in re-establishing broken
links and in expressing the longing for the sacred places that have
been lost. Yet their paintings also address issues that have
affected their people from the past until the present day.
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Alan Winderoo Tjakamarra
Dreaming of the Water in the Artist's
Land
1989
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Fred Ward Tjungurrayi
The Journeys of the Three Ancestral Snakes
from Jupiter Well to Karrilwarra
1990
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