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How To Read Oceanic Art

What are the characteristics of Oceanic art?

The overarching themes, however, include a bent toward the supernatural, fertility, ritual, and religion. Oceanic mediums were myriad as well and included carving in stone and wood, painted and carved petroglyphs, tattooing, and textiles.

What is the meaning of Oceanic art?

Oceanic art or Oceanian art comprises the creative works made by the native people of the Pacific Islands and Australia, including areas as far apart as Hawaii and Easter Island. Specifically it comprises the works of the two groups of people who settled the area, though during two different periods.

What media do oceanic artists work in?

Oceanic art and architecture, the visual art and architecture of native Oceania, including media such as sculpture, pottery, rock art, basketry, masks, painting, and personal decoration.

What factors influence Oceanic art?

The diversity and variety of cultures and language are the factors that influenced oceanic art.

What is Melanesia and Polynesia?

Early white visitors divided the South Sea region into three great areas which they called Polynesia (“many islands”), Melanesia (“black islands”), and Micronesia (“tiny islands”).

Why do you think art in Polynesia has a spiritual side?

Polynesian arts visually express the values and organization of life, belief, power, and knowledge within the region. The pieces in this lesson relate to three major themes: the paired concepts of mana and tapu, community and prestige, and genealogy, concepts that govern the aesthetic structures and use of objects.

What forms of art come from Polynesia?

Polynesian Sculpture by Area HawaiianArt. Hawaiian free standing sculpture made for tribal use is exceedingly rare. Cook Island Sculpture. Cook Island Art. Easter Island Art. Easter Island Polynesian Art. Austral Island Art. Tahitian Art / Society Islands Art. Marquesan Sculpture. Tongan Art. Fijian Polynesian art.

What is Native Hawaiian art?

Traditional Hawaiian Art This art includes wood carvings, feather work, petroglyphs, bark cloth (called kapa in Hawaiian and tapa elsewhere in the Pacific), and tattoos. Native Hawaiians had neither metal nor woven cloth.

Where is Oceania?

IUCN’s Oceania region covers Australia, New Zealand and the 24 countries and territories of the Pacific Islands making up Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The region stretches almost 12,000km from East to West and 6,000km from North to South, with a combined Exclusive Economic Zone of close to 40 million square km.

Is Polynesia a continent?

no

When was Oceanic art made?

While the earliest examples of Oceanic art—the richly hued rock paintings of Aboriginal Australians—are believed to be more than forty thousand years old, the vast majority of extant material culture dates from the eighteenth century to the present day.

What is Oceanic art made of?

Crafted for ritual purposes, a large proportion of Oceanic art is associated with spiritual properties and made from both hard and soft wood, depending on its geographic origin. It can also be ornately embellished with detailed carving, feathers, beads, or shells.

Why is Oceania important to the world?

Due to colonial neglect and historical isolation, the Pacific Islands, home to the world’s most diverse range of indigenous cultures, continue to sustain many ancestral life-ways. Fewer than 6.5 million in all, the peoples of Oceania possess a vast repository of cultural traditions and ecological adaptations.

What is the culture like in Oceania?

Cultures in Oceania reflect the native people peoples of Oceania. The four groups are Australian Aboriginals, Polynesians, Melanesians, and Micronesians. Each group and culture is distinct, but with some interaction and blending of ideas.

Is Melanesian black?

Melanesians of some islands are one of the few non-European peoples, and the only dark-skinned group of people outside Australia, known to have blond hair.

What are the 5 Pacific islands?

For more detailed discussion of the land and people of individual island groups and states, see the articles American Samoa, Caroline Islands, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Line Islands, Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Midway Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue.

Is Hawaii part of Polynesia?

The Polynesian Triangle is a region of the Pacific Ocean with three island groups at its corners: Hawaii, Easter Island (Rapa Nui) and New Zealand (Aotearoa). It is often used as a simple way to define Polynesia.

Is Guam a Polynesia?

The islands are situated in different regions of the Pacific, with Hawaii in Polynesia and Guam in Micronesia. Historians trace the origins of Hawaiians to Polynesian navigators. Another distinguishing factor: Hawaii is a state.

Did Polynesians originate Africa?

The direct ancestors of the Polynesians were the Neolithic Lapita culture, which emerged in Island Melanesia and Micronesia at around 1500 BC from a convergence of migration waves of Austronesians originating from both Island Southeast Asia to the west and an earlier Austronesian migration to Micronesia to the north.

What God do Polynesians believe in?

They call on a personal god, an aumakua, who acts as a healer, spirit guide, and someone that will warn when danger is near. Polynesians believe them to be deceased relatives who have the ability to shape shift as needed. These deities can take on the form of an animal, a human, or even a place.

What is Aztec art?

The Aztecs created a rich variety of art works from massive stone sculptures to miniature, exquisitely carved gemstone insects. They made stylized hand crafted pottery, fine gold and silver jewelry and breathtaking feather work garments. Textiles too, are destroyed by time, and pottery is fragile.

What are Polynesian carvings called?

By extension, a tiki is a large or small wooden or stone carving in humanoid form, although this is a somewhat archaic usage in the Māori language. Carvings similar to tikis and coming to represent deified ancestors are found in most Polynesian cultures.

What is Samoan art?

Traditional Samoan arts include tatau, siapo, and ie toga, which are body art, decorative fabric, and fine mats. Current Samoan artists, like Fatu Feu’u are inspired by traditional Samoan art and share it with the world.

How do you say lavender in Hawaiian?

lavender — Māmaka Kaiao, Eng to Haw , Poniʻala.

What is kapa cloth?

Kapa is bark cloth made into beautiful textures, patterns, and colors. It included planting, gathering, striping, beating, and dying kapa. Wauke or the paper mulberry tree was the most preferred material or bark for making kapa as it was capable of becoming soft and almost pure white when pounded.

What is the ʻaihaʻa style of hula?

The ʻaihaʻa is a low-postured, vigorous, bombastic style of hula that springs from the eruptive volcano personas of Pele and Hiʻiaka, characteristic of Hawaiʻi Island’s creative forces. Hālau o Kekuhi has earned local, state, national, and international recognition for their art.