domingo, 8 de março de 2009

ABORIGINAL ART



Naturalistic art style. Man spearing a kangaroo, Kimberley.

Religious and ceremonial aspects of life, being so important, are the inspiration for much art. Aboriginal art and decoration is an integral part of traditional life, and occurs as body decoration in ceremonies, on bark shelter and rock shelter walls, on trees (dendroglyphs), carved on rocks (petroglyphs), weapons, utensils, and sacred objected both natural and carved.

There is an enormous variety in the styles of Aboriginal art, with both regional variations and a time depth, where for each region the styles have varied as one goes back in time. For example, studies of Kimberley (north Western Australia) and Kakadu (in the Northern Territory) rock art show many evolving styles dating back tens of thousands of years.

Much of the painted and carved art can be divided simply into two broad categories or styles – naturalistic or figurative and non-naturalistic or non-figurative. However, Aboriginal art is much more complex than this and includes stencils, thread-cross strings on poles, free standing carvings and objects including beeswax models, charcoal drawings, drawings and designs in sand, the application of feathers and feather down, and so on.

The difference between these two styles is rather basic: a naturalistic style or figurative style means that any person looking at the art is able to recognize what basic subject is being depicted. It looks basically natural or is a figure of the intended subject.

Non-naturalistic or non-figurative styles include abstract styles and geometric patterns, the most common being those seen in the art of Central Australia. Here, for example, the arc shape might represent a man or woman sitting at their campfire, or it may represent a boomerang. A circle might represent any important person or place, or even represent the story of an important event that took place.

2 comentários: