ARTSENSE
Elementary Art |
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ARTSENSE
Elementary Art |
Geography: Arid land is depicted in reds, yellows, black and white. Australia is the flattest, driest continent in the world! Three quarters of the land is a plateau of dried-up volcanic rock. With no high mountains, there is not much fresh water for the rivers. Coastal land is tropical, but the majority of the continent - the outback - is arid (dry and dusty.) The only mountains in Australia are ridges of red-colored sandstone. Ayers Rock, a monolith, is an exposed dome of red sandstone. The sands of the outback eroded over thousands of years to reveal this giant dome of stone. Red and yellow clay provided colors for Aboriginal art. Black was created with charcoal and white from lime mud. Animal Life: Look for animal images in Aboriginal art. Evolution in isolation profoundly affected animal life in Australia. Centuries ago, the seas receded and the continent became an island, the animals already there had no natural enemies and grew in population and variety. Marsupials, who carry their young in pouches, are the best example. Large gray and giant red kangaroos, wombats, koalas, wallabies, tree kangaroos, and bandicoots are a few of the marsupials that live in Australia. The emu is a flightless bird that looks like an ostrich. Monotremes are living fossils - caught between two evolutionary cycles. There are three that live in Australia! They are the platypus and lung fish, who can live in and out of water, and the spiny anteater. A variety of interesting lizards and snakes live in Australia. Lizards there are called gohannas. The People: Art was a means for connecting to The Dreamtime. Ab means from and origin means beginning. Capitalized, Aborigine refers to the original people of Australia. They came to the land over land bridges or in dugout canoes. When the seas receded, they were stranded. They had to carve out an existence in an arid wasteland. They lived a semi-nomadic life, traveling around tribal territories to hunt and forage for food. They believed that in the beginning of the world, ancient superheroes walked about and created the land, rivers and rocks. They called this period The Dreamtime. They created art, music and dance to commemorate these superheroes. They did not value their visual art as a product but used it to "transport" these mythical creatures into everyday life to help them survive. They believed that Dreamtime or The Dreaming was a very real - parallel existence to their lives. It wasn't time past, but time ongoing. |
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