HISTORY OF ABORIGINAL PAINTING
Picture instead of words. The amazing history of Aboriginal painting.
For years, visitors to Australia have been dazzled by abstract paintings made by indigenous tribes and excited to discover the deep meaning of these works - the spiritual, mystical connection of Aboriginal people with the land, its flora, fauna and natural elements.
Aboriginal art has both artistic and anthropological value. This is one of the reasons why it is so special and important. It is part of the oldest, continuously living culture in the history of the world. Australian Aborigines settled in the antipodes sometime between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago. Evidence of their civilization can be found in rock art dating back at least 20,000 years, while archeology dates ancient Aboriginal camps to 50,000 to 65,000 years ago.
This ancient and highly symbolic form of expression, describing the birth of the world (Dreamtime) and relating to celestial phenomena and astrology, was originally hidden: drawn in sand or applied to rocks in territories forbidden to lay people. It saw the light of day relatively recently, in the early 1970s. Amidst struggles for recognition of Aboriginal identity, in 1971 the Papunya Tula community recorded their cultural practices and symbolic knowledge on canvas using paint for the first time. And so the famous Aboriginal art movement was born.
It all started with the determination of a man named Geoffrey Bardon, who came to Papunya, located about 155 miles northwest of Alice Springs, to work with Aboriginal children. Observing tribal customs, he noticed that Aborigines, while telling stories, also drew symbols in the sand. He decided to encourage them to transfer the paintings from the surface of the sandy soil to more durable materials: canvas and board. He also introduced them to paints and brushes. This was a milestone for Native artists who began to paint their stories on the white man's materials. Since then, over the decades, Aboriginal painting has emerged as one of the most exciting contemporary art forms of the 20th century.
In the 1980s, Australian museums began to organize the first major exhibitions of Aboriginal painting. Today, this work is at the center of discussions about Australian art, and also - and perhaps even above all - plays a leading role on the Australian art market. It is estimated that up to 3/4 of sales are Aboriginal works, while Aborigines themselves constitute only less than 3% of the Australian population.
Aboriginal paintings have gained recognition around the world. Exhibitions in galleries in New York, Paris, Berlin, Brussels and Amsterdam are constantly selling out, and the renowned auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's run special sections of Aboriginal art and devote separate auctions to it. Stories about pictures bought in the Australian bush in the 1970s for 5 or 10 dollars, which today are worth tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars, are now legendary in the art market. One of the best kept secrets of contemporary art is no longer a secret.
In May 2007, the first work of Australian Indigenous art sold for over $1 million. This was achieved with Emily Kame Kngwarreye's work "Earth's Creation", also sold in 2007 to a private buyer for $1.056 million.
The record for the most expensive work of Aboriginal art ever auctioned is still held by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, whose painting Warlugulong (1977) was purchased for $2.4 million by the National Gallery of Australia in 2007.
Born in the lands of Anmatyerre in the dry bed of the Clifford Possum stream, Tjapaltjarri became the most famous Aboriginal artist of his generation, received the Order of Australia and was a guest of the Queen of England visiting Buckingham Palace (he presented himself to the Queen in an impeccable morning suit and flip-flops painted with Aboriginal patterns).
Aboriginal art is expressed mainly through paintings. Due to the lack of literature and numbers in Aboriginal culture, drawings are a way to pass on to subsequent generations all the data necessary for survival, as well as legends, stories and histories that constitute both the sacred part of the life of a given tribe and specific law codes. The images function as a chronicle to convey knowledge about the land, events and beliefs of the Aboriginal people. The use of symbols is an alternative way of recording stories with cultural significance, teaching survival, land use and navigation in the desert.
Therefore, a non-Indigenous Australian cannot create an Aboriginal work of art. Even Aboriginal artists need permission from their elders to paint certain elements of history about the Aboriginal world.
Each tribe has the right to paint an element of history that is part of their heritage and identity. Within the tribe, history is divided into further, smaller pieces and the rights to store and cultivate these elements are given to specific families. History rights are inherited and as such have economic value. Once a year, the elders of all tribes meet together and exchange their parts of history (in the sense of Western law, copyright), lending them to each other to tell for some time. While lending, you can draw the stories of another tribe. When time passes, rights also expire. However, an Aboriginal artist cannot capture on canvas a history that he did not inherit from his parents. Just as a woman cannot paint a story that belongs to a man. Stories painted by women always refer to collecting, caring for children, and cooking. Men preserve part of the history regarding sacred knowledge and hunting.
This makes Aboriginal paintings unique and not just art in the strict sense, as it is understood by representatives of the Western world. In addition to their aesthetic values, they also perform many other functions.
So if someone asked me if painting Aboriginal art is illegal, my answer would be yes and no. Copying original Aboriginal images will be a violation of copyright as well as property and sacred rights. Painting using the dotting method, but not any motifs that are not borrowed from Aboriginal culture - it is not a story about the world or Aboriginal spirituality.
Moreover, dots themselves as a painting technique began to be used by Aborigines only after the drawings were transferred to canvas, i.e. in the early 1970s. They turned out to be useful in hiding certain information and associations hidden under the dots from the uninitiated. During this time, Aboriginal artists negotiated which aspects of the story were secret or sacred and which could be revealed to the public domain.
The current authentic indigenous painting available in galleries in Australia, Europe and America represents a carefully balanced compromise between what is sacred and guarded and what can be shown to the white man.
Art experts believe that it was thanks to the emergence of new directions in post-war painting, such as minimalism or abstract expressionism, whose most important representatives were Pollock and Rothko, that the aesthetic values of Aboriginal paintings were fully appreciated and accepted as part of contemporary art. Currently, they are appreciated and desired by painting connoisseurs and interior designers, they decorate commercial buildings, walls of banks and international institutions in Australia, Europe and America.
Trivia
Aborigines have inhabited Australia for at least 60,000 years. For most of this period, their civilization had no written language or number system (it was only introduced after Europeans colonized the continent), so drawing and sound were the main forms of communication.
Aboriginal culture is based on strong ties to the land, nature, astrology, spirituality and law. It refers to the topography of sacred places, the laws of nature, and activities accompanying everyday life.
Paintings relating to spirituality and the Time of Dreams (Time of Creation) are carriers of sacred content to which only the most initiated group has access. In order to acquire this knowledge and be able to paint it, a man must undergo many initiations, which is why this aspect of art is usually performed by mature artists, 70 or 80 years old. Only men are allowed to paint spiritual themes, the spirits inhabiting their country, the history of creation and legends related to it.
Paintings depicting sacred patterns associated with men's ceremonies have been hidden from the eyes of women and children for centuries. It was only in the 1990s that the female part of the community got involved in painting and began presenting their own rituals and history. They mainly concern everyday life, seasons, the location of water reservoirs, herbs, animals, and rituals related to caring for children. Women have no right to paint the history and knowledge of men and vice versa.
Individual artists, inheriting specific myths related to their place of birth from their ancestors, become their "custodians" - people authorized to paint them, while at the same time protecting the secret content from the uninitiated.
Body painting, sand drawing and the art of ritual and ceremony were central to Aboriginal life, but it is rock art that has survived and is best known.
For non-Aboriginal people, it is easy to view rock art as individual images - looking at one and then moving on to the next, like in a Western art gallery. But early Aboriginal art was not created to be admired. Rock works, sometimes many kilometers apart, are always part of a well-thought-out whole. They create an interconnected network of places deeply interconnected through the stories they tell about the Dreamtime common to all Aboriginal clans. The rock paintings also constitute a topographic grid of the area.
The diversity and richness of early Aboriginal art is distinct for each language group and region.