Aboriginal Art: Five Most Fascinating Facts

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Aboriginal Art Five Most Fascinating Facts
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Based on their 'Creation Myths' Every art form
that is Aboriginal, is primarily based on their
ancient myths and legends. Even the modern pieces
of Aboriginal art are based on 'the Dreamtime', a
set of their creation myths. These 'Dreamtime'
myths, which are more than 50,000 years old, are
a great storehouse of their oral heritage which
has been handed down from generation to
generation. Interestingly, our only source of the
'Dreamtime' stories, of course other than the
Aborigines themselves, is Aboriginal art, owing
to the fact that we have no written sources of
the same. More than just Art The Aborigines did
not seem to believe in the philosophy of 'art for
art's sake'. On the contrary, the Aborigines
wrote through their arts. We get a large number
of references with respect to their day-to-day
lives, festivities and celebrations, modes of
pastime, religious beliefs, social structure,
hunting practices and so on. Apart from being a
mode of expression and depiction, art was also
used as a platform to maintain secrecy. After the
colonization of Australia, the Aborigines felt
that their spiritual and clandestine knowledge
was in danger, and so it was thought that there
needed to be a system with which they could hide
it from the eyes of 'outsiders'. The famous
Aboriginal dot paintings resulted from this fear.
It is believed that the dots were purposely made
over holy symbolic depictions so that they could
obscure the sacred knowledge.
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More than what Meets the Eye
The depictions of Aborigines were naturalistic,
as well as abstract in nature. The term
'naturalistic' refers to the depiction of natural
surroundings, flora and fauna. So, we have
depictions of animals, plants, people and other
natural phenomena in various forms. On the other
hand, the term 'abstract' refers to depictions,
which may seem unrealistic at a first glance, but
may in actuality possess much deeper
connotations. So, we also have a huge array of
drawings with geometrical shapes and symbols,
which we, as the 'other' may not understand, but
the Aborigines would definitely do.
Use of Natural Colors and Stabilizers
The colors used for their paintings were obtained
from natural and locally available materials,
predominantly ochre, a natural mineral, which was
ground on a stone slab while adding small amounts
of water and stabilizing agent. Red, yellow and
white colors were obtained from different
pigments of ochre, and so we see a wide usage of
these colors in Aboriginal paintings. Black was
obtained from charcoal, but was rarely used owing
to the complicated procedure of making it. Olive
color, which can be seen in some of the paintings
was obtained by mixing black and yellow colors.
It is very fascinating how the ancient Aborigines
figured out a natural resource in the juice of an
orchid plant, which could be used as a fixative
to avoid flaking or peeling of the paint. Modern
Aboriginal artists on the other hand, use
artificial colors as well.
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The Aboriginal Art Movement
Modern techniques of depicting Aboriginal art
forms on canvas and paper, came into being some
40 years ago in 1971, when a school teacher named
Geoffrey Bardon, noticed a group of Aboriginal
men telling stories and drawing symbols in sand.
This caught his interest and he encouraged those
men to depict their stories on canvas and paper,
two media, which were completely alien to them
before that day. Thus started the famous
'Aboriginal Art Movement' which encouraged more
and more Aboriginal artists to present their
works before the world and become famous. Some
non-Aboriginal artists also showed their interest
in this art form, and began to practice it. Not
surprisingly, Aboriginal art is considered to be
the most inspiring contemporary art of the 20th
century.
Source http//www.buzzle.com/articles/5-facts-on-
aboriginal-art.html Images http//www.mukmuk.co
m/