How old is ancient Aboriginal art?
Aboriginal art is part of the oldest continuous living culture in world history, with Australian Aborigines having settled on the Australian continent somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago. Evidence of Aboriginal culture is found in the rock art, which so far has been dated back at least 20,000 years, while archaeology has dated ancient campsites back to 50,000 to 65,000 years.
Read More: Aboriginal Rock Art of the Kimberley
How old is contemporary Aboriginal art?
Contemporary aboriginal art is considered to start at the desert community of Papunya in 1971, when senior desert men began to paint their cultural stories using modern materials. This was prompted by school teacher Geoffrey Bardon requesting that school children paint their own stories, leading the senior men to open up their deeply held cultural knowledge to outside observers. The Papunya Tula desert art movement then influenced other communities to join the art movement through the following decades.
Read More: Contemporary Aboriginal Art.
Does Aboriginal art use symbols?
Aboriginal art is based on story-telling, using symbols as an alternate method of writing down stories of cultural importance, as well as transmitting knowledge on matters of survival and land management. The tradition of drawing in the sand as a teaching method reflects the powerful use of symbols as a recognised conveyor of meaning, even across vastly different language groups. Story-telling and symbols provided the starting point for contemporary Aboriginal art.
Read More: Aboriginal Art Symbols
Who paints Aboriginal cultural stories?
Aboriginal artists inherit rights to paint certain cultural stories. Artists need authority and permission to paint traditional stories, and this authority is vested in the custodians of the knowledge of these stories. Ownership of stories is transmitted down generational lines, held within certain skin groups or moieties. Therefore stories are often managed within family groups.
Read More: Aboriginal Art Stories
What is the Dreamtime?
At the heart of Aboriginal culture and therefore of Aboriginal art, is the Creation law set down in the Dreaming, which provides the identity for traditional Aboriginal people and their connection to the land. Dreamtime is one translation of the Creation time for Aboriginal people, other terms often seen are Jukurrpa and Tingari - the term used varies according to the particular local language. Many Aboriginal artists paint aspects of their Dreaming, which forms part of their inheritance and their identity.
Read More: Aboriginal Art and the Dreamtime
Where is Aboriginal art created?
Aboriginal art is regional in character and style, so different areas with different traditional languages approach art in special ways. Much of contemporary Aboriginal art can be readily recognised for the community where it was produced. Dot painting is specific to the Central and Western desert, cross-hatching and rarrk design and x-ray paintings come from Arnhem Land, Wandjina spirit beings come from the Kimberely coast. Preference for ochre paints is marked in Arnhem Land and east Kimberley. Other stylistic variations identify more closely to specific communities.
Read More: Aboriginal Art Regions in Australia
What colours are used in Aboriginal art?
Colour for Aboriginal art was originally sourced from local materials, using ochre or iron clay pigments to produce red, yellow and white, and black from charcoal. When the modern desert art movement began in 1971 these four colours made up the basis of the artists’ colour range, referring back to traditional role of art in ceremony, body painting, sand painting, story-telling and teaching. Other naturalistic colours were quickly adopted – smoke greys, saltbush mauves, sage greens. During the mid 1980s with the advent of more Aboriginal women artists, a wider range of modern colours were chosen by the artists, and bright desert paintings started to arrive on the market. Choice of colour continues to be an identifier of style for some communities – Papuny