Aboriginal art

Art of the Australian Aborigines. Traditionally almost entirely religious and ceremonial, it was directed towards portraying stories of the Dreamtime, a creation mythology reflecting the Aboriginal hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Perishable materials were used, as in bark painting and carved trees and logs, and few early works of this type survive. A great deal of rock art remains intact, however, and forms one of the richest continuing traditions in the world. Abstract patterns and stylized figures predominate. Ground and body painting were also practised, chiefly as part of secret initiation rites.

Although modern Aboriginal artists use a full range of colours, early Aborigines used only earth colours, naturally occurring pigments in the soil that produced reds, browns, and yellow ochres. Large amounts of white, made from pipe-clay, were used, as well as charcoal from burnt sticks. Their art reflected images of the world around them, including kangaroos, crocodiles, and kookaburras, as well as stories and myths, many of which took the form of a journey. In some areas people and animals were depicted ‘X-ray’ style, showing their inner skeleton and organs. The surface around the main designs and figures were densely hatched, dotted, and patterned – areas were rarely left blank. Stencils, frequently of hands, are found in all rock-painting areas and were produced by placing an object against the rock wall and then blowing a mouthful of paint over it.

Rock engravings are found throughout the continent. The earliest, such as those in Koonalda Cave, South Australia, and at the Early Man site on Cape York Peninsula, northern Queensland, are characterized by stylized designs of circles, animal tracks, and meandering patterns, and are between 15,000 and 20,000 years old. In the Hawkesbury River region of New South Wales large figures of animals, birds, fish, and spirit beings have been engraved into the sandstone. Cave paintings include the vast galleries in the Laura district of Cape York, which feature the sticklike Quinkan spirit figures; in the Kimberleys, the Wandjina figures, towering red and white creatures with halolike headdresses; and in Arnhem Land in Northern Territory, the remarkable ‘X-ray’ figures. Trees and logs carved for ceremonial purposes include the burial poles made by the Tiwi people of Bathurst and Melville Islands, which are painted in complex designs using black, white, red, and yellow, and the carved trees of the Darling Basin region of New South Wales, which were used in initiation ceremonies and burial rites. In central Australia, churinga, plaques of wood or stone, were incised or painted with highly stylized images of totem figures.

In July 2001, the National Gallery of Australia paid a world-record price at auction for a work of Aboriginal art. The gallery paid over A$780,000 for a painting by Rover Thomas, All That Big Rain Coming from Top Side.