SDES 9211: Integrated Studio: Culture and Identity
Task 2: Examining National Identity (part 1)
Qing He Z5123897
Contents Introduction / 2 Part 1 - Rock Art: The Aesthetics of Aboriginal Australians / 3 Part 2 - Rock Art in Contemporary: Vanish or Remain? / 7 Conclusion / 10 Reference List / 11
1
Introduction Because of the specific geographical condition, the emergence of Japanese culture is based on the absorb of different cultures from different countries. As similar as Japan, Australia is a multicultural country which comprised by the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. Due to the historical background, the formation of Australian culture can be divided into aboriginal culture and colonial culture, which aboriginal culture records the development history of indigenous Australians and the colonial culture shows the change within the country during British colonization. As the way to know a different country better is to learn its traditional culture, this paper will focus on one of the subcultures within Australian aboriginal culture, its background and development will be involved with few examples, and its impacts in both sociological and psychological will be discussed.
2
Part 1 - Rock Art: The Aesthetics of Aboriginal Australians By referencing the meaning ‘aboriginal’ in Oxford Dictionary that ‘in habiting or existing in a land from the earliest times or from before the arrival of colonists; indigenous’, the word was used to describe Australia’s indigenous people and soon became to the common name to refer to all indigenous Australians because the original formation of indigenous Australians includes aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people. (Indigenous Australians 2018)
The emergence of Australian aboriginal culture is due to a vast accumulation of people’s lifestyles and habits because aboriginal people have arrived Australia as early as 60,000 years ago. (Indigenous Australians 2018) And, one of the areas within aboriginal culture for further investigation in this paper is aboriginal rock art, which is the most important and impressive prehistorical art in the world. (National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, n.d.)
If paper is the canvas for contemporary artists, rock is the canvas for Australian aboriginal artists to record aboriginal people’s living habits, beliefs and narratives, such as rock art in Arnhem Land. Arnhem Land is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia, it is in the north-eastern corner of the territory. (Arnhem Land 2018) Because of Arnhem Land’s spectacular rocky landscape, its rock art belongs to one of the most notable aboriginal rock arts. (David et al. 2017, p. 27) Based on the styles of rock art, Arnhem Land rock art can be distinguished into two main types: xray art and Mimi art, and, x-ray art is the most known one (Brandl 1973, p. 92)
The recognition of x-ray art is based on its description of anatomical details of animals and human beings such as bones and organs and its application of various colours. (Brandl 1973, pp. 94-97) For example, as figure 1 shown below, the inside structures of bones of the fish are clearly displayed in x-ray art; 3
besides, according to the description in Brandl’s (1973, p. 93) article ‘The art of the caves in Arnhem Land’ in book The Australian Aboriginal Heritage that “the paints were mainly mineral pigments, such as red and yellow ochres of varying shades, black manganese and white pipeclay, charcoal was also used”, the application of various colours makes the painting in figure 1 becomes vivid and lively. And, Brandl (1973, p. 93) also mentioned that some of paintings were done in blood or a mixture of blood and ochre.
Figure 1. x-ray art painting (Tacon n.d.)
By comparing colour application in Australian x-ray painting with colour application in Japanese traditional painting, the huge difference indirectly shows the identity of Australian culture. Influenced by Chinese five-colour theory, Japanese traditional colours are derived from white, green, red and black, (Sui 2014, sec. 3, par. 1) blue colour is also added into the traditional colours because it used to represent sea and ocean. (Mathers n.d.) As the painting in figure 2, the distinct oriental style is shown through the combination of green, red and white, which the red, yellow and white colour in figure 1 contain a wild and natural Australian style.
4
Figure 2. Thunder God (Korin n.d.)
The clearer identification of x-ray art can be seen through the comparison with Mimi art. Firstly, the colour application in Mimi art is monochromatic, red ochre is mostly used; secondly, the emphasis in Mimi art is on the surfaces of subjectmatter, structures inside the body is invisible; thirdly, the “no scenes with interrelated subjects to equal” in x-ray art made the difference in pictorial composition between these two styles; fourthly, difference in some motifs is one of the identifications for Mimi art and x-ray art, that according to the definition from western Arnhem Land aborigines of Mimi that it represents spirits or wild people with slender bodies live in inaccessible rocky country, so motifs in the paintings of Mimi art are mostly natural creatures and things, differently, because of the connection with Europeans and ‘Macassans’, motifs in x-ray art are contain both natural things and contemporary elements such as ships and pipe-smoking man. (Brandl 1937, pp.95-97) Example of Mimi art painting can be seen in figure 3, which is from Darrell Lewis’s (1988, pp. 121-124) article ‘The Tasmanian devil in Arnhem Land rock art’, the description of the creature focuses on its appearance include its fur, limbs and tail, and although the figure is in black and white, based on Lewis’s (1988, p. 121) words, the original colour 5
of the painting is in monochrome red.
Figure 3. Red ochre painting identified as a Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii (Lewis 1979)
To understand the significance of rock art to aboriginal people, Brandl’s (1937, p. 107) perspective is referenced, that art in aboriginal society was used to fulfil a purpose or to reinforce the connection between individual and community. This definition seems as similar as the meaning of art in Japanese traditional culture or even other countries’ traditional culture which is to express people’s expectations and aspirations.
6
Part 2 - Rock Art in Contemporary: Vanish or Remain? However, following the development of environment and technologies, rock art seems gradually become more and more associated with the past, because recent Arnhem Land artists are mostly paint on bark instead of rock. (Brandl 1937, p. 92) Hence, the discussion of aboriginal rock art in contemporary society may concentrated on whether it is vanishing or not.
Within the area of contemporary art, aboriginal rock art seems like a historical review which tell people the stories of ancient period, but, as Hayley Megan French (2015, p. 11) reference Terry Smith’s (2008) view in her essay that “the term contemporary calibrates a number of distinct but related ways of being in or with time, even of being in and out of time at the same time”, aboriginal rock art is actually one of the specific symbols and a recording of aboriginal culture for international society to recognise and know Australian own culture, as French (2015, p.14-15) stated that “art was used as a force to mediate the differences between different cultures from the beginning of colonization, (Morphy 1998, cited in French 2015, p.15) but because of the increasing focus on aboriginal histories, settler Australians have understood the history of their nation.”
Nowadays, because of the frequently communication between Australia and other countries, modern aboriginal artists using modern materials in their artworks to continue the tradition (Indigenous Australians 2018), it is shown that although the technologies and materials of the rock art are changed, the form of rock art is as a continuous culture for contemporary people to learn through its symbolic motifs and specific colour theory. Furthermore, exhibitions of aboriginal art in museum and gallery held by aboriginal artists also show the transformation of the form of aboriginal rock art in contemporary society.
7
Another example of the representation of aboriginal rock art in contemporary society can be seen in tourism. Following the development of global tourism, aboriginal rock art is added into the tour plan for tourists to know Australian culture; through taking car, boat or helicopter, tourists can get a depth rock art experience (Henly 2018) instead of viewing the rock art paintings and photos in museum or gallery. But, the problems may lay on the less protection of rock art because of its natural environment and some threats from tourists. However, for aboriginal descendants, tourism solves the job problems and provides opportunity to spread aboriginal culture to the world because during the rock art tour, there have aboriginal descendants who will give explanations and cultural interpretations of each rock art work’s meaning to people. (Henly 2018)
Screen Capture. The webpage in Tourism Australia official website
As Paul Tacon, professor in Griffith University, said in Deborah Marshall’s (n.d.) article that rock art sites are “museums and art galleries embedded in natural landscapes, with ongoing cultural connection for contemporary Indigenous peoples”, vanish is not the destiny of rock art in contemporary society because rock art is a national heritage for contemporary Indigenous people and settler Australians to learn and understand their culture. Besides, as Tacon mentioned rock art “can have economic benefit not only in terms of health but also tourism 8
and the development of sustainable tourism industries�, aboriginal rock art is like a symbol for non-Australians to identify Australian culture.
9
Conclusion Aboriginal culture is an important component in the formation of Australian culture, to better learn aboriginal culture, aboriginal rock art as a specific area within the culture is investigated and its development and influence in contemporary society is discussed. The inheritance of aboriginal rock art in contemporary society shows that to inherit is not only limited on the inheritance of the object itself, but also can be the inheritance of its form and spirit, like the transformation of the form of rock art in contemporary society. As a part of aboriginal culture, rock art has ongoing cultural connection for contemporary Indigenous, thus instead of vanish, rock art is an unique tool for people to learn and understand Australian culture. Moreover, although the formation of rock art is not in contemporary period, its form is a contemporary art because of its specific national features. And, these representative characteristics of rock art create one of the identities of Australia.
10
Reference List 1. ‘Indigenous Australia’, Indigenous Australians, wiki article, May 6 2018, accessed 7 May 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians 2. ‘History’, Indigenous Australians, wiki article, May 6 2018, accessed 7 May 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians 3. National Film and Sound Archive of Australia n.d., Australia’s rock art heritage, media release, accessed 7 May 2018, https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/land-lightning-brothers 4. ‘Arnhem Land’, Arnhem Land, wiki article, March 24 2018, accessed 7 May 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnhem_Land 5. David, B, Tacon, P, Delannoy, JJ, Geneste, JM 2017, The Archeaology of Rock Art in Western Arnhem Land, Australia, e-book, accessed 7 May 2018, https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/series/terraaustralis/archaeology-rock-art-western-arnhem-land-australia-terra 6. Brandl, EJ 1973, ‘The art of the caves in Arnhem Land’, in RM Berndt & ES Phillips (eds), The Australian aboriginal heritage, Ure Smith, Sydney, pp. 92-107 7. Sui X 2014, ‘Application of the consciousness of simple colors in Japanese visual communication design’, Popular Literature and Arts, vol. 2014, no. 18, accessed 7 May 2018, https://wenku.baidu.com/view/1e54085d240c844769eaeec5.html 8. Mathers C n.d., What Is the Meaning of Color in Japanese Culture? People of our everyday life, accessed 7 May 2018, http://peopleof.oureverydaylife.com/meaningcolor-japanese-culture6730.html 9. Lewis, D 1988, ‘The Tasmanian Devil in Arnhem Land Rock Art’, Australian Archaeology, no. 27, accessed 7 May 2018, www.jstor.org/stable/40286667 11
10. French, HM 2015, ‘See Where Drifts: The Influence of Aboriginal Art on an Australian Ontology Painting’, PhD thesis, University of Sydney 11. ‘Society, language, culture, and technology’, Indigenous Australians, wiki article, May 6 2018, accessed 7 May 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians 12. Henly, SG 2018, 7 Breathtaking Places to Find Aboriginal Art, Tourism Australia, accessed 7 May 2018, https://www.australia.com/en/things-todo/aboriginal-australia/7-breathtaking-places-to-find-aboriginal-rockart.html 13. Marshall, D n.d., Australia’s Stunning Rock Art Uncovered, We Are Gold Coast, accessed 7 May 2018, https://wearegoldcoast.com.au/arts-andculture/uncovering-rock-art-gold-coast-professor-makes-history/
Figures 1. Figure 1: Tacon, P n.d., x-ray art painting, digital image, We Are Gold Coast, accessed 7 May 2018, https://wearegoldcoast.com.au/arts-andculture/uncovering-rock-art-gold-coast-professor-makes-history/ 2. Figure 2: Korin, O n.d., Thunder God, digital image, Facts and Details, accessed 7 May 2018, http://factsanddetails.com/japan/cat20/sub129/item697.html 3. Figure 3: Lewis, D 1979, Red ochre painting identified as a Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii), digital image, Australian Archaeology, accessed 7 May 2018, www.jstor.org/stable/40286667
12