Tag Archives: Australian Kimberley art

Rock Art from the Dreamtime.

Kimberly-rock-art

Wandjina  rock painting – ( Kimberley Foundation )

Aboriginal rock paintings in the Kimberley

 

Bradshaw/ Gwion Gwion

 

The Kimberley mountain ranges stretch across the northern tip of Western Australia. Joseph Bradshaw, an English pastoralist  found the original rock art sites in 1891 on the Roe River in the north-west Kimberley. They became known as the Bradshaws, but currently the figures are more commonly known by their local Aboriginal name Gwion Gwion or Gwion, a name derived from one of the Aboriginal beliefs in the Kimberley that explains their origins.  The Bradshaws are significant to world history because instead of depicting animals, they use humans as the primary subject. The use of humans as subjects is very rare for paleolithic art. This  mysterious form of rock art could legitimately be referred to as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

 

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Ancient Bradshaw cave art paintings

( Bradshaw Foundation )

 

The late Graham Walsh, documented and studied the art for over 40 years. The combination of the pictures themselves and the oral history of the local tribes led Walsh to conclude that they were painted by an unknown Asiatic race before the last ice age. Walsh also concluded that they were a form of iconography. Walsh based his conclusions on the fact that the paintings showed no signs of development and simply appeared in their most advanced form.

It is an Aboriginal understanding that the fauna and flora of the landscape possess an ‘increase centre’ or an area of high electro-magnetic energy where the performance of correct rituals will increase the life essence or Kurunba stored. The natives know that it is not the actual paintings in the caves that activate the Kurunba but the rocks on which they are drawn; the rocks being imbued with the ‘spirit’ of the entities depicted. Sacred works of art such as the Wandjina act as powerful images, capable of stimulating and intensifying mind power during rituals, similar in nature to Vantras or designs used in Tantric meditative techniques. Bradshaw/Gwion rock art  is best recognised from the depiction of graceful, active, long-bodied humans, often of a mulberry hue with tassels, hair adornments, and possibly clothing .

 

 

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 Bradshaw rock art figures

( Bradshaw Foundation )

 

 

Out-in-the-Back-Country Ancient Australian rock painting

Bradshaw rock art in the Kimberleys

( photo – Hugh Brown  )

 

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 Bradshaw Tassel figures

( Kimberley foundation )

 

 

 

Bradshaw-Paintings Gwion rock painting at King Edward River black figures on red rock walls

 Gwion rock painting  at King Edward River

 

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 Bradshaw/Gwion  rock paintings

( Chris O’Connel photo )

 

Australian aboriginal rock paintings.- vivid figures painted on rock

 Bradshaw rock art – Graham Ezzy – flickr

 

Bradshaw-art in the kimberley

Bradshaw Art of the Kimberley

 

 

Wandjina

 

Here, in some distant age, mysterious enigmatic images of mouthless beings, some clad in robes and surrounded by what appears to be a halo, were inscribed on the rock faces of numerous caves. Sacred to the Aboriginal of the Kimberleys, the images are revered as awesome beings who in primeval times, wandered around the landscape, instructing the indigenous people in the use of weapons and tools and initiating the tribal laws, rites and customs, and after completing their task they disappeared into the heavens or into the ground. They called themselves Wandjina, sometimes spelled Wondjina.

Wandjinas, the other rock art style for which the Kimberley has long been famous, were first recorded by the explorer George Grey in the Kimberley in 1837 . These Wandjina sites are found in the Glenelg River area.

At least 4,000 years old, it is a living art form representing ancestral beings originating in the sea and the sky.  Images of Wandjina are characterised by halo-like headdresses and mouthless faces with large round eyes, fringed with eyelashes, set either side of an ovate nose

The large scale, and solid or static appearance of the Wandjina art contrasts with the Bradshaw/ Gwion art, with its more delicate images of a usually smaller scale, and its less tangible connection with contemporary indigenous culture.

 

 

 

Bigge Island rock art by indigenous Australians

 Bigge Island rock art – Kimberley WA

 

 

 

Kimberley-Wandijina-painting on cave walls

 Kimberly rock art painting  – Wandjina

 

 

 

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Wandjina rock-art at Raft Point in the Kimberley

 

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 Raft Point Wandjina rock art

 

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Wandjina rock art, Australia

( Stevo850 Flickr )

 

wandjina rock painting on a vertical wall

 

The Aboriginal people always drew only what they saw. They never expressed any creativity or fantasy in the rock paintings.

They believed the Wandjina’s are  the originators of all human customs, and the inventor of all implements.

 

 

wandjina cave art in Australia

Aboriginal cave painting of a Wandjina

 

 

Exploring the Australian Kimberly rock painting

Moran River 2002

( bradshaw foundation )

 

 

Introduction-to-the-Bradshaws - outback native art

 Graham Walsh and Robert Hefner III

( bradshaw foundation )

 

Narwala Gabarnmang cave art Australia

Narwala Gabarnmang is covered on its ceiling and pillars with rock art, and only accessible by a 90 minute helicopter journey from the outback town of Katherine. Researchers consider the site one of the most extensive rock art sites in the world, described as the ‘Sistine Chapel’ of Australian rock art sites.

 

 

The-art-sites-of-Ubirr,-Nourlangie-Rock-and-Nanguluwur-are-internationally-recognised-as-outstanding-examples-of-Aboriginal-rock-art

 Ubirr, Nourlangie Rock and Nanguluwur are  outstanding examples of Aboriginal rock art

 


Ubirr, Kakadu rich red Australian landscape

Ubirr, Kakadu, Northern Territory

 

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 Kakadu rock art

 

 

 

The-Aborigine-Corroboree body painting in Australia

  Corroboree dance with String Cross

( bradshaw foundation )

 

Australian Aboriginal-art-painting

 Edward Blitner ?

 

 

 

Australian bark painting

  Bark painting from western Arnhem-land depicting a woman with two dilly bags and a digging stick. The design was probably associated with ceremonies to increase fertility.

( Scala Archives )

 

australian-indigenous-bark-painting whits figures on a dark background

 Bark painting depicting two pairs of male and female figures, possibly spirit beings, with two snakes

 

 

 

Wandjina Serpent rock painting large serpent with a human figure

  Wandjina Serpent rock painting

 

 

 

The-Kimberley-Region rock art paintings of cranes

  Grahame Walsh views a painting of Cranes

( bradshaw foundation )

 

 

mysterious-mountains sculpture by Thanakupie

Mysterious Mountains  – late Tapich Gloria Fletcher ( Thanakupi ), an Indigenous ceramicist and sculptor born in the remote Aboriginal community of Napranum, near the tip of Cape York Peninsula.

( Cairns Airport )

see more from a post on Thanakupi here

 

Australian Bardi Dancers at Stonehenge

 Bardi dancers from Western Australia at Stonehenge, the first Aboriginal dance group to stage a performance there.

Photo: Julian Andrews

 

Bark aboriginal painting of hunter and kangaroo

 Bark painting in X-ray style depicting a kangaroo and a hunter. The specific form of cross hatching served to associate paintings with individual clans and to endow the objects painted with spiritual force.

( Werner Forman Archive )

 

bark-painting-lightning-man Australian aboriginal

   Bark painting from western ArnhemLand, depicting a legendary ‘Lightning Man’ or Wala-Undayna, one of the super-natural beings of the Dreamtime.

( Werner Forman Archive )

Australian-aboriginal-sacred disk - carved stone

  Churinga. It was believed that the ancestors of the Dreamtime and their weapons had become these sacred discs.They represent each person’s immortal spirit, while the design is a totemic pattern of the associated sacred site.

 ( Werner Forman Archive )

Wandjina-rock-art

 The Wandjina weren’t depicted with mouths because they never spoke, they only communicated telepathically, according to ancient beliefs.