Art of Oceania
Constellation of microworlds
“Do people in most of Oceania live in tiny confined spaces? The answer is ‘yes’ if one believes in what certain social scientist are saying. (…) When they see a Polynesian or Micronesian island, they naturally pronounce it small or tiny. Their calculation is based entirely on the extent of the land surfaces that they see. But if we look at the myths, legends and oral traditions, and the cosmologies of the peoples of Oceania, it will become evident that they did not conceive their world in such microscopic proportions. (…) Their world was anything but ‘tiny’”.
Hau’Ofa, Epeli: “Our sea of islands”, 1993
Images: Uli statues, Papua. Dahlem Museum, Berlin. Photo by Dalbera ·· Pacific canoe prow – Vao Island in Vanuatu. Photo by Didier Descouens ·· Ahu Tongariki (group of moai) on Easter Island. Photo by Ian Sewell.
It is clear that the geographical setting has been a determining factor in the shaping of all the world’s cultures, and therefore of their art, but this is especially clear in the case of the art of Oceania. The insular nature of the continent meant that most of the peoples who inhabited it lived practically isolated from the outside world, giving rise to an enormous number of different cultures, usually small in size, which created an interesting artistic production in which the common points are their generally magical/religious character and the geometric simplification that sometimes borderlines on abstraction.
Oceania is generally divided into four distinct areas, although the boundaries between some of them vary according to the source consulted: Australia (which some authors consider a continent in itself), Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Just as the geographical boundaries between these areas (with the exception of Australia) are blurred, so too are the artistic differences between them. In a very general way, we can draw on the classification made by the Museum of Modern Art in New York on the occasion of the major exhibition “Arts of the South Seas” presented by the museum in 1946, in which the exhibition catalogue characterised the art of Melanesia as “exaggeration of natural forms“, that of Micronesia as “simplification of natural forms” and that of Polynesia as “geometrization of natural forms“.
The art of the Indigenous Australians includes cave paintings, which rank among the world’s oldest figurative art ever found. In particular, the paintings in Gabarnmung Cave have been dated at 28,000 years old. In Melanesia, the varied artistic production of New Guinea (Papua), the largest island on the continent after Australia, is particularly noteworthy. The exaggeration of natural forms mentioned above can be seen in the Uli statues.
The most celebrated works of Polynesian art, and perhaps of all the Pacific area, are the moai, monolithic statues from Easter Island (Rapa Nui), created between 1250 and 1500. The Maori art of New Zealand is well known for its whakairo, a traditional carving technique in wood, stone or bone. The art of the Hawaiian Islands is notable for its wood carvings and textiles with geometric shapes and vivid colours.
Although the Oceanian and Pacific art did not have the same influence on modern European art as African art, it cannot be overlooked. Artists such as Picasso and Matisse had works of Pacific art in their private collections. However, “Oceanic art, however, had perhaps its most profound impact on the Surrealists. In the fanciful geography of the famous ‘Surrealist map of the world’, published in 1929, the large greatly enlarged archipelagos of the Pacific occupy a central position, reflecting the crucial role of Oceanic Art in the movement.” (“Oceania: Art of the Pacific Islands in the Metropolitan Museum of Art“, published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007)
G. Fernández · theartwolf.com
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