• ABORIGENI AUSTRALIANI: L’ARTE DI DIPINGERE CON LA TERRA •

The Australian Aborigines they are the native people of Australia. This is a group of nomadic populations from the Indian sub-continent. They had already inhabited the island for several millennia before James Cook's arrival in Botany Bay in 1770 and the subsequent colonization.
The Australian aboriginal one is the oldest continuous culture in the world, boasting well 65.000 years of history. Naturally, in this story we also find art: Let's discover some notions together!

Aboriginal art

The first testimonies of Aboriginal art they date back to the dawn of the civilization of the same name. There are sites in Australia where the ocher rock paintings they date back at least 65.000 years ago, confirming the hypothesis that the Aboriginal one is one of the oldest continuous cultures on the planet.
However, Aboriginal art as we know it today he was born alone 50 years ago. I symbols which we now see painted on canvases and boards hanging in museums, they were once depicted on rock walls, on the body or on ceremonial articles e, above all, drawn in the sand or on earth accompanied by songs or stories.
It was only in 1971 That Geoffrey Bardon, a teacher who worked with Aboriginal children in Papunya, he noticed that Aboriginal men, as they told stories to others, they drew symbols in the sand. He then encouraged them to put these stories on board and canvas, and from there the Aboriginal art movement began. It's about, to all intents and purposes, of an artistic movement Contemporary, since it developed in the 20th century.

What material do Australian Aborigines use to paint?

Australian Aborigines have used l’ocher as the main material for their paintings. Precisely for this reason it is considered one of the main foundations of Aboriginal art.
Before the arrival of the English colonists, il the value of ocher was very high and its trade took place via routes that crossed all of Australia, comparabili alla via della seta in Asia.

Ocher is nothing more than a set of natural pigments and minerals that are found in the ground, or even in coal. If you have some Aboriginal artwork in mind or even simply by looking at the photos in this article, you will notice that the colors of the works are similar to each other and recurring. This is due, precisely, at limitations of ocher: despite blending and mixing, the resulting palette predicts only six colors. 

In a certain sense, such a limited palette gave birth to a more art form rigorous, teaching Aboriginal artists to balance the use of color. 
Ocher is still used in different contexts: body painting, rock painting, on artifacts and sometimes even on sand.

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