A Brief Introduction To Aboriginal Art
It’s ancient. It’s native. It’s artistic. We are talking about Indigenous Art by the Aboriginal people of Australia of course! 🙂
The Aborigines migrated to what is now known as Australia approximately 50,000 years ago and brought their rich tribal culture, spiritual beliefs and their art. According to the 2011 Census, there are 548,370 who consider themselves to be Aborigines, which is around 3% of Australia’s total population.
Aboriginal paintings are a very sacred form of art because they contain so much value and importance to the Aborigines who paint them. To this day in many cases an artist has to be granted permission in order to paint specific stories if that story belongs to another artist or tribe in a particular area, especially if it contains sacred or secretive details.
In addition, if the story was not a part of the artist’s family lineage, they were typically not ever permitted to paint the story. Although this practice does not strictly apply to contemporary artists today, it definitely demonstrates the sacredness of this form of painting.
Aboriginal art is heavily based upon the ancient stories of the Aboriginal people. For example, the stories found in most artistic works, also known as Jukurrpa, are sometimes filled with symbols of ‘the Dreamtime’ period, which represents the creation of the world. These stories date back 50,000 years and have travelled their way through many generations.
Visual art has been used by the Aboriginal people to teach. The symbols in the painting are also interpreted differently depending upon who is teaching and the area that they are from. The story behind the same exact painting can actually have a more in depth explanation when being told to an elder versus a young child. While a story may have a heavy emphasis on education and behavior when being told to child, it can on the other hand, also have an emphasis on moral value when told to an adult.
Since early Aborigines did not have a formal written language, paintings were their written language and it also contained their history. The visual art portion of Aboriginal art includes rock art, bark paintings, body decorations, wood sculptures and sand sculptures. The paintings you could say are comparable to an encyclopedia that is filled with the rich history and details of the people.