Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carving, rock carving, watercolour painting, sculpting, ceremonial clothing and sandpainting. The traditional visual symbols vary widely among the differing peoples' traditions, despite the common mistaken perception that dot painting is representative of all Aboriginal art.
Traditional Aboriginal art There are many types of and methods used in making Aboriginal art, including rock painting, dot painting, rock engravings, bark painting, carvings, sculptures, weaving, and string art. Australian Aboriginal art is the oldest unbroken tradition of art in the world.Worms, Ernest Contemporary and prehistoric rock paintings in Central and Northern North Kimberley Anthropos Switzerland 1955 p. 555
Stone art
Rock art, including painting and engraving or carving (petroglyphs), can be found at sites throughout Australia. Examples of rock art have been found that are believed to depict extinct megafauna such as Genyornis and Thylacoleo in the Pleistocene era as well as more recent historical events such as the arrival of European ships.
The oldest examples of rock art, in Western Australia's Pilbara region and the Olary district of South Australia, are estimated to be up to around 40,000 years old.Rock Art , Aboriginal Art Online, retrieved April 2008. The oldest firmly dated evidence of rock art painting in Australia is a charcoal drawing on a small rock fragment found during the excavation of the Narwala Gabarnmang rock shelter in south-western Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Dated at 28,000 years, it is one of the oldest known pieces of rock art on Earth with a confirmed date. It is thought this decorated fragment may have once formed part of a larger ceiling artwork, however, the shape of the original motif is unknown. The oldest reliably dated unambiguous, in-situ rock art motif in Australia is a large painting of a macropod from a rock shelter in Western Australia's Kimberley region, radiometrically dated in a February 2021 study at approximately 17,300 years old.
Gwion Gwion rock art (the "Bradshaw rock paintings", also referred to as Giro Giro"), initially named after Joseph Bradshaw, who first reported them in 1891, consists of a series of rock paintings on caves in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.Doring, Jeff Gwion Gwion: Chemins Secrets Et Sacrés Des Ngarinyin, Aborigènes D'Australie (Gwion Gwion: Secret and Sacred Pathways of the Ngarinyin Aboriginal People of Australia) Könemann 2000 p. 55 A 2020 study puts this art at about 12,000 years old.
The Maliwawa Figures were documented in a study led by Paul Taçon and published in Australian Archaeology in September 2020. The art includes 572 images across 87 sites in northwest Arnhem Land, from Awunbarna (Mount Borradaile) area across to the Wellington Range. They are estimated to have been drawn between 6,000 and 9,400 years ago. The find is described as very rare, not only in style, but in their depiction of bilbies (not known historically in Arnhem Land) and the first known depiction of a dugong. The art, all paintings in red to mulberry colour apart from one drawing, and in a naturalistic style, had not been described in the literature before this study. They are large, and depict relationships between people and animals, a rare theme in rock art. Bilbies, thylacines and dugong have been extinct in Arnhem land for millennia. The art was first seen by the 2008-2009 researchers, but were only studied in field research lasting from 2016 to 2018. The figures were named by Ronald Lamilami, a senior traditional owner. According to Tacon, "The Maliwawa back-to-back figures are the oldest known for western Arnhem Land and it appears this painting convention began with the Maliwawa style. It continues to the present with bark paintings and paintings on paper". Taçon draws comparisons between the Maliwawa Figures and George Chaloupka's Dynamic Figures style, where the subject matter consists of about 89 percent humans, compared with 42% of the Maliwawa Figures. There is, however, much complexity and debate regarding the classification of rock art style in Arnhem Land.
Other painted rock art sites include Laura, Queensland, Ubirr, in the Kakadu National Park, Uluru, and Carnarvon Gorge.
Rock engraving, or petroglyphs, are created by methods which vary depending on the type of rock being used and other factors. There are several different types of rock art across Australia, the most famous of which is Murujuga in Western Australia, the Sydney rock engravings around Sydney in New South Wales, and the Panaramitee rock art in Central Australia. The Toowoomba engravings, depicting carved animals and humans, have their own peculiar style not found elsewhere in Australia.
The rock engravings at Murujuga are said to be the world's largest collection of petroglyphs and includes images of extinct animals such as the thylacine. Activity prior to the last ice age until colonisation is recorded.
The first European discovery of Aboriginal rock paintings took place on 14 January 1803. During a surveying expedition along the shores and islands of the Gulf of Carpentaria, British navigator and explorer Matthew Flinders made landfall on Chasm Island.
Within the island's rock shelters, Flinders discovered an array of painted and stenciled patterns. To record these images, he enlisted the ship's artist, William Westall. Westall's two watercolour sketches are the earliest known documentation of Australian rock art.
Stone arrangements Aboriginal stone arrangements are a form of rock art constructed by Aboriginal Australians. Typically they consist of stones, each of which may be about 30 cm in size, laid out in a pattern extending over several metres or tens of metres. Each stone is well-embedded into the soil, and many have "trigger-stones" to support them. Particularly fine examples are in the state of Victoria, where some examples have very large stones. For example, the stone arrangement at Wurdi Youang consists of about 100 stones arranged in an egg-shaped oval about across. The appearance of the site is similar to that of the megalithic stone circles found throughout Britain (although the function and culture are presumably completely different). Although its association with Aboriginal Australians is well-authenticated and beyond doubt, the purpose is unclear, although it may have a connection with initiation rites. It has also been suggested that the site may have been used for astronomical purposes.Morieson, J., 2003, "Solar-based Lithic Design in Victoria, Australia", in World Archaeological Congress, Washington DC, 2003 Smaller stone arrangements are found throughout Australia, such as those near Yirrkala, which depict accurate images of the praus used by Macassan Trepang fishermen and spear throwers.
Wood carvings Wood carving has long been an essential part of Aboriginal culture, requiring wood, sharp stone to carve, wire and fire. The wire and fire were used to create patterns on the object by heating the wire with the fire and placing it on the wood carving.
Wood carvings such as those by Central Australian artist Erlikilyika shaped like animals, were sometimes traded to Europeans for goods. The reason Aboriginal people made wood carvings was to help tell their Dreaming stories and pass on their group's lore and essential information about their country and customs. They were also used in ceremonies, such as the ilma.
Aboriginal people from the Tiwi Islands traditionally carved pukumani grave posts, and since the 1960s have been carving and painting iron wood figures.
Bark painting
Bark painting, where painting is done using ochres on the dried bark stripped off trees, is an old tradition. The earliest European find was in a shelter in Tasmania around 1800, and other painted bark shelters were found in Victoria and NSW. These were drawn with charcoal, and then painted or scratched onto bark which had been blackened by smoke. Painted bark baskets were used in death rituals on Melville and Bathurst Islands, and bark coffins and belts were painted in northeast Arnhem Land. Bark painting has continued into contemporary times.
Styles in bark painting in Northern Australia, especially in Arnhem Land, include cross-hatching, or rarrk, and x-ray style.
Baskets and weaving
Baskets, sometimes coiled baskets, were created by twisting bark, palm-leaf, and feathers; some of the baskets were plain and some were created with feather pendants or feathers woven in the frame of the basket. The artists used mineral and plant dyes to colour the palm-leaves and bark of the hibiscus. These string bags and baskets were used in ceremonies for religious and ritual needs; the baskets might have been also used for carry things back to the village.
Basket weaving has been traditionally practised by the women of many Aboriginal Australian peoples across the continent for centuries.
Jewellery
Aboriginal people created shell pendants which were considered high value and often used for trading goods. These shells were attached to string, which was handmade from human hair and sometimes covered with a type of grease and red ochre. This jewellery would sometimes be hung around a man's neck or waist for use during ceremonies.Morphy, H.; Rosenfeld, A.; Sutton, P.; Keen, I.; Berndt, C. H.; Berndt, R. M.; ... Cavazzini, F. (2003). Aboriginal Australia.
Kalti paarti Kalti paarti carving is a traditional art form made by carving emu eggs. It is not as old as some other techniques, having originated in the nineteenth century.
Symbols and sacred aspects Certain symbols within the Aboriginal modern art movement retain the same meaning across regions, although the meaning of the symbols may change within the context of a painting. When viewed in monochrome other symbols can look similar, such as the circles within circles, sometimes depicted on their own, sparsely, or in clustered groups.
Many paintings by Aboriginal artists, such as those that represent a Dreaming story, are shown from an aerial perspective. The narrative follows the lie of the land, as created by ancestral beings in their journey or during creation. The modern-day rendition is a reinterpretation of songs, ceremonies, rock art, body art, and ceremonies (such as awelye) that was the norm for many thousands of years.
Whatever the meaning, interpretations of the symbols should be made in context of the entire painting, the region from which the artist originates, the story behind the painting, and the style of the painting.
Some natural sites are sacred to Aboriginal people, and often the location where seasonal rituals were performed. During these rituals the Aboriginal people created art such as feather and fibre objects, they painted and created rock engravings, and also painted on bark of the Eucalyptus tetrodonta trees. While stories differed among the clans, language groups, and wider groups, the Dreaming (or Jukurrpa) is common to all Aboriginal peoples. As part of these beliefs, during ancient times mythic Aboriginal ancestor spirits were the creators of the land and sky, and eventually became a part of it. The Aboriginal peoples' spiritual beliefs underpin their laws, art forms, and ceremonies. Traditional Aboriginal art almost always has a mythological undertone relating to the Dreaming.
Wenten Rubuntja, an Indigenous landscape artist, says it is hard to find any art that is devoid of spiritual meaning: