Aboriginal art developed over 40,000 years in Australia and is closely tied to Aboriginal beliefs and culture, with different styles of art reflecting Dreamtime stories, body decoration, and X-ray paintings depicting animal anatomy. Traditional Aboriginal art includes rock paintings, bark paintings, sand and body paintings, with natural pigments depicting ancestral beings and symbols important to Aboriginal spiritual and cultural practices.

1. Australian
Aboriginal Art

2. Who are the
Aborigines?
•Aborigine means “native”
•Original people of Australia
•Traveled in canoes from SE Asia
•Lived there at least 40,000 years
as the only people
•Developed unique beliefs about
creation
•Survived as hunters and observers
•Many died from disease or starved
when their land was taken from
them by the Europeans in the 1770s

3. What is Aboriginal Art?
•Last traditional art form to be
appreciated
•To understand Aboriginal Art we first
need to learn about Dreamtime
•Dreamtime refers to their beliefs of
how the land and its people were
created
•Believed supernatural beings with
magical powers created the land’s
features, animals and plants during
dreamtime
•Art is a way to stay in touch with their
ancestry and be a part of the natural

4. •Passed down through
generations by word of mouth
•Artworks depict deep meaning
told through dreamtime stories
•Basis of value and belief
system, affects their interaction
with the land and animals
•Land is sacred because it
contains their heritage, history,
and powerful ancestors or
spirits
Dreamtime Stories

5. In Aboriginal culture
everyone is an artist
because everyone
participates in activities
such as dancing, singing,
body decoration, sand
drawing and weaving
baskets.

6. •Unique subject matter and style
•Known for their rock paintings,
bark paintings, sand (or dot
paintings), and body decoration
•Brushes made from bark, plant
fibers, twigs, hair or feathers
•Also used fingers or sticks to paint
•Used natural ochers (minerals) or
clay to make red, yellow, and white
paint
•Black was made from charcoal
How did Aboriginals create art?

7. Aboriginal
Rock Art
•Longest
continuously
practiced artistic
tradition in the
world.
•Ubirr, located in
North Australia,
has very
impressive rock
paintings.

8. "One old man in Arnhem Land
remembered being carried as
a child on his father's
shoulders as his father
climbed up a log leaning
against a rock wall. His father
then sprayed his hand with
red ochre against the rock,
leaving a stencil he could still
recognize many years later.
The main function of the
stencils was to record people's
presence and association with
a site."

9. How are these two paintings similar?
How are they different?

10. Bark Painting
•Tradition for thousands of years
•Bark is cut into a rectangle, after the
wet season, when it’s soft
•Placed on warm coals, pressed flat
with weights and sticks tied to both
ends with string
•Painted with natural pigments mixed
with a natural fixative: sticky gum from
trees
•Style is similar to rock paintings and
illustrates stories
•Painted on bark for ceremonies,
burials, and everyday objects such as
baskets and belts

11. •Traditional dot paintings
were made in sand
•Contemporary dot
paintings are on canvas
with acrylic paint
•Depict a story using
Aboriginal symbols
•When you understand the
symbols it gives a whole
new meaning to a dot
painting
Dot Painting

12. •Aboriginals used
symbols to
represent natural
surroundings.
•They are shown
as tracks left in
the ground and
look like they are
seen from a
plane.
•Represent recent
tracks left by
animals or tracks
made in the past
by ancestors.
Thunder &
Lightening

13. Kangaroo
tracks & tail
Goanna (lizard)
dragging tail,
footprints on side
Emu
Frogs (black)
Water holes
(blue)
Footprints
Snakes Men Hunting
Women’s
Ceremony

14. 2nd
Grade Objectives:
•Learn how dreamtime beliefs and the
Australian landscape inspired the creation of
Aboriginal artwork.
•Create an interesting way to use your space
through size, placement, overlapping, use of
a border or background.
•Illustrate movement using the technique of
Aboriginal dot painting.
•Discuss the purpose of art in Aboriginal
culture.

16. •Developed around 2000 B.C.
•Found in shallow caves or rock shelters particularly in
Western and Northern Australia
•Simple exterior animal shapes that depict internal
organs, bone structure (ribs, back bone), or baby
animal inside
•Created by painting the animal’s silhouette in white
and using red or yellow for the inside
X-Ray Style Painting
•Contemporary artists
continue to paint in X-Ray
tradition

17. 3rd
Grade Objectives:
•Draw an Aboriginal animal of
your choice in the X-Ray style
using anatomy resources.
•Vary the value (lightness and
darkness) of at least one color
when you paint your X-Ray
drawing.
•Create an area of emphasis
(center or focus) in your
artwork using size, color, and
line.
•Associate which artworks
from the Aboriginal culture
were done in the X-Ray style.

19. Body Decoration
•Traditional practice for ceremonies
•Includes scarring, smeared clay or
ochres on face, wearing ornaments
and headdress
•Deep spiritual significance
•Geometric designs
•Use respected patterns of an
ancestor to take on their living
appearance
•Designs may also reflect their role
in the family or important role in
their community

20. Student Objectives for 4th
Grade:
Student Examples:
•Produce an exaggerated close-up portrait of yourself inspired
by the tradition of body painting.
•Discuss how Aboriginal art reflects the relationship between
artists and their beliefs and values.
•Analyze how Aboriginal art serves a function (or purpose) in
their culture.

21. Today’s Objectives:
Student Examples:
•Dip and dot for rich color
•Dot over the entire work, space dots clear and consistent
•Paint black areas for the eye to rest
•Each line or shape should have only one color, unless it’s a
pattern
•Try to keep colors balanced and expressive

22. •What medium is
this an example of?
•What symbol do
you see? What do
you think it
represents?
•How is this artwork
related to the
building behind it?

23. Resources:
•Carol, Finley. Aboriginal Art of Australia. Lerner Publications Company,
Minneapolis: 1999.
•Petersen, David. Australia. Children’s Press, New York: 1998.
•http://66.113.241.131/lessons/envs/live/htdocs/lesson107.htm
•http://www.bardaglea.org.uk/aboriginal/index.html
•http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/xray/hd_xray.htm
•http://www.astonmanor.bham.sch.uk/learningzone/art/movements/aborigi
nal/aboriginalart.htm
•http://goaustralia.about.com/library/graphics/tjapukai1.jpg
•http://www.aboriginalartonline.com/art/body.php
•http://www.bvdrangs.com/dreamtime.html
•http://www.aboriginal-art.com/desert_art_toc.html
•http://www.dickblick.com/multicultural/aboriginal/
•http://people.hws.edu/mitchell/oz/Carnarvon96.html#Art
•www.lclark.edu