Art of Oceania
Encyclopedia
Pacific Islands
The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania, although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago....
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, including areas as far apart as Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
and Easter Island
Easter Island
Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...
. Specifically it refers to the works of the two groups of people that settled the area, though during two different periods. They would in time however, come to interact and together reach even more remote islands. The area is often broken down into four separate regions: Polynesia
Polynesia
Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...
, Micronesia
Micronesia
Micronesia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It is distinct from Melanesia to the south, and Polynesia to the east. The Philippines lie to the west, and Indonesia to the southwest....
, Australia, and Melanesia
Melanesia
Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia...
. The former two share a common ancestral culture of the Lapita
Lapita
Lapita is a term applied to an ancient Pacific Ocean archaeological culture which is believed by many archaeologists to be the common ancestor of several cultures in Polynesia, Micronesia, and some coastal areas of Melanesia...
, while the latter two comprise settlers of the first wave of people into the area. All of the regions in later times would be greatly affected by Western influence and colonization. In more recent times, the people of Oceania
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
have found a greater appreciation of their region's artistic heritage.
The artistic creations of these people varies greatly throughout the cultures and regions. The subject matter typically carries themes of fertility or the supernatural. Art such as masks were used in religious ceremonies or social rituals. Petroglyphs, Tattooing, painting, wood carving, stone carving and textile work are other common art forms.
Overview
Art of Oceania properly encompasses the artistic traditions of the people indigenous to Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. The ancestors of the people of these islands came from Southeast Asia by two different groups at separate times. The first, an AustraloidAustraloid
The Australoid race is a broad racial classification. The concept originated with a typological method of racial classification. They were described as having dark skin with wavy hair, in the case of Veddoids from South Asia and Aboriginal Australians, or hair ranging from straight to kinky in the...
people and the ancestors of modern day Melanesians
Melanesians
Melanesians are an ethnic group in Melanesia. The original inhabitants of the group of islands now named Melanesia were likely the ancestors of the present-day Papuan-speaking people...
and Australian Aboriginals, came to New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
and Australia about 40,000 to 60,000 years ago. The Melanesians expanded as far as the northern Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
by 38,000 BC. The second wave, from Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
, would not come for another 30,000 years. They would come to interact and together reach even the most remote Pacific islands. These early peoples lacked a writing system, and made works on perishable materials, so few records of them exist from this time. It should also be noted that Oceanic peoples traditionally did not see their work in the western concept of "art", but rather created objects for the practical purpose of use in religious or social ceremonies, or for use in everyday life.
By 1500 BC the Lapita culture, descendants of the second wave, would begin to expand and spread into the more remote islands. At around the same time, art began to appear in New Guinea, including the earliest examples of sculpture in Oceania. The period from 1000 BC on, the Lapita people would consolidate and begin to create the contemporary Polynesian cultures of Samoa
Samoa
Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...
, Tonga
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
, and Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
. They would from there venture further out into the Pacific and settle the Marquesas and northern Cook Islands
Cook Islands
The Cook Islands is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand...
between 200 BC and 1 AD. Additionally from about 1000 BC, trade between the Pacific Islands and mainland Asia was growing, and starting 600 BC, works of the Dongson culture of Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, known for their bronze working, can be found in Oceania, and their imagery has a strong influence on the indigenous artistic tradition. Records to 1000 AD continue to be few, however most artistic tradition are continued to this point, such as New Guinea sculpture and Australian rock art, although the period is characterized by increasing trade and interaction as well as new areas being settled, including Hawaii, Easter Island, Tahiti, and New Zealand. Starting around 1100 AD, the people of Easter Island would begin construction of nearly 900 moai
Moai
Moai , or mo‘ai, are monolithic human figures carved from rock on the Chilean Polynesian island of Easter Island between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the...
(large stone statues). At about 1200 AD, the people of Pohnpei, a Micronesian island, would embark on another megalithic construction, building Nan Madol
Nan Madol
Nan Madol is a ruined city that lies off the eastern shore of the island of Pohnpei that was the capital of the Saudeleur dynasty until about AD 1500. It is in the present day Madolenihmw district of Pohnpei state, in the Federated States of Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean. The city...
, a city of artificial islands and a system of canals. By 1500, the first European explorers begin to reach Oceania. Although previous artistic and architectural traditions are continued, the various regions would begin to diverge and record more distinct cultures.
Prehistoric
The rock art of Australian Aborigines is the longest continuously practiced artistic tradition in the world. These sites, found in Arnhem LandArnhem Land
The Arnhem Land Region is one of the five regions of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around 500 km from the territory capital Darwin. The region has an area of 97,000 km² which also covers the area of Kakadu National...
, Australia, are divided into three periods: Pre-Estuarine (c. 40,000?–6000 BC), Estuarine (c. 6000 BC–500 AD), and Fresh Water (c. 500 AD–present). They are dated based on the styles and content of the art. Pre-Estuarine, the oldest, is characterized by imagery in a red ocher pigment. However, by about 6000 BC, increasingly elaborate images begin to appear, marking the beginning of the Estuarine period. These rock paintings served several functions. Some were used in magic, others to increase animal populations for hunting, while some were simply for amusement. One of the more elaborate collections of rock art in this area is the site of Ubirr, a favored camping ground during wet seasons which has had its rock faces painted many times over thousands of years.
Sculpture in Oceania first appears on New Guinea as a series of stone figures found throughout the island, but mostly in mountainous highlands. Establishing a chronological timeframe for these pieces in most cases is difficult, but one has been dated to 1500 BC. The content of the sculptures fit into three categories: mortars, pestles, and freestanding figures. The tops of many pestles contain images, often of birds or human heads. Mortars show similar imagery, or sometimes geometric patterns. Freestanding figures again portray similar themes: humans, animals, and phalluses. The original significance of these pieces however, are unknown, but were perhaps used in the context of rituals.
Another early culture with an artistic tradition are the Lapita, dating from about 1500 BC to 500 BC, who are thought to be the ancestors of the modern day cultures of Polynesia
Polynesia
Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...
, Micronesia
Micronesia
Micronesia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising thousands of small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It is distinct from Melanesia to the south, and Polynesia to the east. The Philippines lie to the west, and Indonesia to the southwest....
, and some parts of Melanesia
Melanesia
Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia...
. The culture was formed by the second wave of Oceanic settlers. The name comes from the site of Lapita in New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
, which was among the first places its distinctive sculpture would be found. It is debated exactly where the culture developed, but the people themselves originally came from Southeast Asia. Their art is best known by its ceramics, which include elaborate geometric motifs and sometimes anthropomorphic imagery. It is thought some of the designs may be related to modern Polynesian tattoos and barkcloths. They were created by firing a comblike tool that stamped the designs on to wet clay. Each stamp would have one design and would be layered until an elaborate pattern was created. Their usage was primarily, in cooking, serving, and storing food.
Micronesia
Micronesia comprises second-wave settlers of Oceania, encompassing the people of the islands north of Melanesia, and has an artistic tradition attested to the Lapita culture. Among the most prominent works of the region is the megalithic floating city of Nan Madol. The city began in 1200 AD, and is still being built when European explorers begin to arrive around 1600. The city however, undergoes a decline by around 1800 along with the Saudeleur dynasty, and is abandoned altogether by the 1820s. The 19th century would see the region divided up amongst the colonial powers, however art continued to thrive. Wood carving by men in particular flourishes in the region, creating richly decorated ceremonial houses in BelauBelau
Belau is a municipality in the district of Plön, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany....
, stylized bowls, canoe ornaments, ceremonial vessels, and sometimes sculptured figures. Women on the other hand created textiles and ornaments like bracelets and headbands. Stylistically, Micronesian art is streamlined and of a practical simplicity to its function, but is typically finished to a high standard of quality. This was mostly to make the best possible use of what few natural materials they had available to them.
The first half of the 20th century saw a downturn in Micronesia's cultural integrity and a strong foreign influence from both western and Japanese Imperialist powers. A number of historical artistic traditions, especially sculptural, simply ceased to be practiced. However other art forms continued, including traditional architecture and weaving. But by the second half of the century, independence from colonial powers allows their traditional arts to find a renewed interest and respect from within the region, and a new generation are taught these art forms. There is also a notable movement of contemporary art within Micronesia toward the end of the 20th century.
Polynesia
Tahiti
Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...
, and Easter Island, had only relatively recently been settled by indigenous peoples. The most famous Polynesian art forms are the Moai
Moai
Moai , or mo‘ai, are monolithic human figures carved from rock on the Chilean Polynesian island of Easter Island between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the...
(statues) of Rapa Nui/Easter Island. Polynesian art is characteristically ornate, and often meant to contain supernatural power. However the period beyond 1600 AD had seen intense interaction with European explorers, in addition to continuing earlier cultural traditions. The collections of European explorers during the period show that classical Polynesian art was indeed flourishing. In the 19th century, depopulation of areas due to slave raiding and Western diseases disrupted many societies and cultures. Missionary work in the region caused the conversion to Christianity, and in some cases the destruction of traditional cultural and artistic heritage of the region, specifically sculpture. However more secular art forms continue, such as carving and textile work. With the end of colonialism however, Polynesians increasingly attempted to assert their cultural identity.
Australia
Australian Aboriginal people are most known for their rock art, which they continue to practice after their contact with Western explorers. Other forms of art however, reflect their lifestyle of often moving from one camp to another and is utilitarian and portable, albeit still highly decorated. They used rocks and other natural sources mixed with water to make their paint. Often using sticks to make their famous dot paintings. Even today we still see Aboriginals making these. When dancing, they paint their bodies with white "paint" and apply it to their body in patterns and meaningful shapes and lines. Their dancing uses native Australian animals as inspiration.Melanesia
Melanesia, comprising New Guinea and the surrounding islands and people of first wave settlers, has perhaps the most striking art of all Oceania. Stylistically art is typically highly decorative and portrays exaggerated forms, often of sexual themes. It is mostly made in connection with ancestors, hunting, and cannibalism. Commonly they would be used in the context of spiritual rituals, such as the creation of elaborate masks. However, few examples of Melanesia art exist on the islands today.After 1600, like the other regions of Oceania, saw increasing encounters with European explorers. What they witnessed was a flourishing tradition of art and culture, such as the first record of the region's elaborate wood carving. It isn't until the latter half of the 19th century however, that westernization begins to takes its toll. Some traditional forms of art go into decline, but others like sculpture survive and even thrive in the region. Not until more of the islands were explored by the western powers that the sheer diversity of Melanesian art begins to be seen. By the 20th century, Melanesian art begins to find its way to the West and has a profound impact on contemporary artists. However a great cultural disruption would follow the second World War, and much traditional art would begin to decline or be destroyed. This would be followed decades later by a new found appreciation for their native art forms.