An analysis of theoretical concepts in the study of Australian aboriginal art

Abstract

The analysis and characterisation of styles of non-Western cultures have been strongly influenced by standards of recent Western art. Nevertheless it may be said that values of modern art have led to a more sympathetic and objective approach to exotic arts than was possible one hundred or even fifty years ago. The Australian Aboriginal system is one of most complex known among any people living today; while other hunters and foragers have little religious elaboration and none of complexity of kinship organisation. Problems arise in interpretation of their form of representation on cave walls and barks. One most clearly be on one's guard against enforcing one's own Western culture-based conditioning as a basis of understanding of non-Western arts. All art originates in human mind, in our reactions to world, then in visible world itself, and it is precisely because all art is conceptual that cultural origins of all representations are recognisable. E.H. Gombrich states that the form of a representation cannot be divorced from its purpose and requirements of society in which visual language gains currency. It is not their standard of craftsmanship which is different from ours, but their ideas …… story of art is not a story of progress in technical proficiency, but a story of changing ideas and requirements. To early settlers of Australia paintings and carvings of Australian Aborigines were meaningless except as curiosities symptomatic of a primitive way of life. Among those who came to new continent during early years of colonization there were very few whose education or interest predisposed them to take such things seriously. A century was to pass from time of first European settlement in Australia before observers stepped over threshold into a deeper understanding of meaning and importance of art of Australian Aborigines. And yet specimens of this art were earliest fixed signs and removals of Aborigines that newcomers saw. The outward forms of an indigenous culture were as difficult to understand as Aborigines themselves. The Europeans had to accept an alternative form of art.