thefuzzysasquatch: Being Human: Art

After my post about the Australian Megafaunal Extinction (see here), I got to thinking about Aboriginal Art. Having looked into it a bit further I was awestruck by the nature of the paintings: the sure and masterly style making their subjects immediately recognisable, their expressive nature and most of all the huge variety of subjects covered.

The period I find most pleasing on a primal and instinctive level is the earliest, known as the Irregular Infill Animal Period. It dates to between greater than 10,000, and possibly up to 50,000 years old. Here is a little detail from the Kimberley Foundation (1):

‘The earliest visible Kimberley rock art paintings

The art is dominated by large, sometimes life-size animals, fish, plants, and some human forms painted mostly in mulberry and red. Long flowing brushstrokes are used for motif outlines, solid infill to head, tail and limbs while body cavities have stippled irregular infill. Sometimes found beneath other paintings, suggesting an earlier age, perhaps from the Pleistocene.. This tradition may also include handprints/stencils and paint impressions of string and grass. Also called: Archaic Period and Naturalistic.’

After digging around a little I came across some wonderful images by Walsh (2), below I present a selection.