Art History Teaching Resources



Chapter 27 – Art of the Pacific Cultures

SLIDE: Map of the Pacific Region

• There are four distinct regions: Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia

- Europeans started arriving in 18th century

- How do people study Pacific Art?: scholars rely on the accounts of the Islanders themselves; on the accounts of outside observers: explorers, missionaries, merchants, earlier scholars, recordings, paintings, photographs, drawings

Australia: Australia (continent) + Tasmania (island on S. coast of Australia)

Melanesia: New Guinea and surrounding islands, as far as Fiji and New Caledonia

Micronesia: “small islands” to the North of New Guinea

Polynesia: “many islands” inc. New Zealand and Easter Island

• The Pacific region is a vast geographic expanse (Polynesia alone covers 7.7 million sq miles, of which only 130,000 sq miles are dry land!), and the visual arts constitute just one element within many varied cultural traditions that encompass music, dance and oral literature.

• Many of the objects we will see today might not seem like “visual art” objects in the same way we might think of a Renaissance painting or sculpture in the Western European tradition.

• However, both types of object – a Da Vinci painting or an Australian bark painting – hold cultural value, follow an aesthetic tradition that is often specific to the geographic region, and respond to the religious or spiritual beliefs of the time and place in which they were created.

• Both certainly confer a sense of status on the user of the work, and sometimes the maker too. The role of the artist is perhaps the most variable in terms of prestige, rather than the status of the object created.

• In the same way we have looked at, for example, the traditions of an elite ruling class interested in Literary Humanism in Italy, Pacific Cultures objects are used for or created within social groupings.

• Often they are gendered, for use exclusively or predominantly by one sex, and frequently used in initiation rites for boys on the cusp of manhood, or men initiated into a higher level in society – like the original, pre-tourist masks we saw last class used in Mali.

• We’re going to look at just a few objects from the Pacific region, including the object that Neil MacGregor focuses on,

• Theme/Key Question: How do available resources affect the different types of material culture in Oceanic/Pacific art and architecture? What is the impact of the contact with Western society on these cultures?

1) Easter Island Moai, Hoa Hakananai'a statue, c. 1200 AD – Polynesia

PAIR AND SHARE (What do you see here? What did MacGregor’s reading highight?)

• First of all, where are we? It's 1,200 miles (1,900 km) from the nearest inhabited island, and it's 2,000 (3,200 km) miles from the nearest land-mass. It's Rapa Nui - Easter Island - the most remote inhabited island, not just in the Pacific, but in the world

• Polynesians settled both Hawaii and New Zealand, and between 700 and 900, they got to Rapa Nui - and so brought to an end one immense chapter of human history, for Easter Island was possibly the last place on earth to be permanently settled.

• The moai (almost 900 of them on the island!) were probably carved from rough hardened volcanic ash to commemorate important ancestors and were made from around AD 1000 until the second half of the seventeenth century, when the birdman cult became more central to the Easter Islanders.

• REAL OR IDEAL? They were not individualized portrait sculptures, but standardized representations of powerful individuals. The moai may also hold a sacred role in the life of the Rapa Nui, acting as ceremonial conduits for communication with the gods. Their physical position between earth and sky puts them on both secular and sacred ground; secular in their representation of chief and their ability to physically prop up the sky, and sacred in their proximity to the heavenly gods. The moai thus mediates between sky and earth, people and chiefs, and chiefs and gods

• BIG AND BOLD: basalt rock; almost nine feet (2.7m) high (some are 13 or 14 ft); hard stone worked with only stone tools to chip away with = can't do detail, so everything about this giant had to be big. And bold.

• DESC: “The heavy rectangular head is huge, almost as wide as the torso below. The overhanging brow is one straight line, running across the whole width of the head. Below it are cavernous eye sockets, and a straight nose with flaring nostrils. The square jaw juts assertively forward, and the lips are closed in a strong frowning pout. In comparison to the head, the torso is only sketched in. The arms are barely modelled at all, and the hands disappear into the stone block of a swelling paunch. The only details on the body are the prominent nipples.”

• CONVENTIONS: Hoa Hakananai'a is similar in appearance to a number of Easter Island moai. It has a heavy eyebrow ridge, elongated ears and oval nostrils. The clavicle is emphasized, and the nipples protrude. The arms are thin and lie tightly against the body; the hands are hardly indicated.

Hoa Hakananai'a - the name has been roughly translated as 'hidden friend'.

• The statues were placed on specially built platforms ranged along the coastline,

• Moving these statues would have taken days, and a large workforce.

• Hoa Hakananai'a (hoe-a-hakan-an-eye-a) would have stood on his platform with his giant stone companions in a formidable line, their backs to the sea, keeping watch over the island.

• Ancestor figures = daunting to any potential invaders, and a suitably imposing welcoming party to any visiting dignitaries.

Anthropologist and art historian Steve Hooper:

• "It was a way of human beings who were alive relating to, and exchanging with, their ancestors, who have very great influence on human life. Ancestors can affect fertility, prosperity, abundance. As you can imagine, they are colossal - this one in the British Museum is small! There is one unfinished in a quarry in Easter Island which is over 70 feet (20m) tall - how they ever would have erected it goodness only knows. And it does put me in mind of medieval cathedral building in Europe or in Britain, where you have these extraordinary constructions involving enormous amounts of time and labour and skill... and it's almost as if these sculptures scattered around the slopes of Easter Island, large sculptures, are almost equivalent to these medieval churches. You don't actually need them all, and they are sending messages not only about piety, but also about social and political competition."

( Video BBC:

What does MacGregor tell us about the contact between the culture of Easte Island and outsiders?

• Captain Cook reached Rapa Nui on Easter Day 1722

• When Captain Cook's crew visited Easter Island in 1774, William Hodges, Cook's artist, produced an oil painting of the island showing a number of moai, some of them with hat-shaped stone 'topknots'. Hodges depicted most of the moai standing upright on stone platforms, known as ahu. With the adoption of Christianity in the 1860s, the remaining standing moai were toppled.

• The British Museum example was collected by the crew of the English ship HMS Topaze on a visit to Easter Island in 1868 to carry out surveying work. The population had been Christianized by this point.

• Islanders helped the crew to move the statue, which has been estimated to weigh around four tons. It was moved to the beach and then taken to the Topaze by raft.

• The figure was originally painted red and white, though the pigment washed off in the sea.

What does MacGregor tell us about the way in which the use of the statue changed? ( “ecological change recorded in stone”

• Quite suddenly, around 1600, the monolith-making stopped. No-one has a very clear idea why but probably because of overpopulation.

• The islanders responded by changing their religious practices, turning to a ritual that, not surprisingly, was all about the scarce resources. The Birdman cult focused on an annual competition to collect the first egg of the migrating sooty tern from a neighboring islet.

• The man who pulled off the feat of bringing an egg back, unbroken, through the sea and over the cliffs, would for a year become the Birdman.

• Invested with sacred power, he would live in isolation, grow his nails like bird talons, and wield a ceremonial paddle as a symbol of prestige.

• Rather than being abandoned along with the other monoliths, Hoa Hakananai'a was moved, placed in a hut, and entered a new phase of his life, now part of the Birdman cult.

• All the key elements of this later ritual are present in our statue. They're carved on the back.

• The back of the figure is carved with designs, believed to have been added at a later date. The back of the head shows a bird flanked by ceremonial paddle.

• We know it was originally painted in bright colors, so that this cluster of very potent symbols could be easily recognized and understood.

Total number of moai on Easter Island: 887

Total number of maoi that were successfully transported to their final ahu locations: 288 (32% of 887)

Total number of moai still in the Rano Raraku quarry: 397 (45%)

Total number of moai lying 'in transit' outside of the Rano Raraku quarry: 92 (10%)

Less than one third of all carved moai actually made it to a final ceremonial ahu site. Was this due to the inherent difficulties in transporting them? Were the ones that remain in the quarry (45%) deemed culturally unworthy of transport? Were they originally intended to remain in place on the quarry slopes? Or had the islanders run out of the resources necessary to complete the Herculean task of carving and moving the moai?

( GREAT PBS VIDEO on MOAI:

2) Te Hau Ki Turanga, 1842–1843, NEW ZEALAND

*compare to Toguna Meeting House, Mali

Captain James Cook (1728-79) was a British explorer who became the first Westerner/outsider to come into contact with the shores of Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii in the 1760s and 70s. He claimed Australia for Britain, and it still remains part of the British Commonwealth today, like Canada.

• Te Hau Ki Turanga—now in the Museum of New Zealand, Wellington – is in New Zealand which was similarly colonized by Cook & the British although unlike Aboriginals (indigenous Australians), the indigenous Maori of New Zealand claimed the same rights as British subjects.

• Turanga, today Gisborne, was on the North East coast of the North island of New Zealand. This house was carved under the direction of Raharuhi Rukupo in 1842–1843 and was restored in 1935.

• It is said to be the first Maori house carved with steel tools. These tools were made by the Maoris from such things as hoop iron and spike nails.

• The meeting house was a site for the males of the Maori tribe to meet, greet important visitors and discuss issues of governance (LIKE TOGUNA)

• The tribal history and genealogy of the clan are displayed in the decorations of the interior – ancestors form the ground level decorative masks and carved faces, literally supporting the structure.

• CONVENTIONS: The figures face frontally, and have large heads, open eyes, and figure of eight-shaped mouths. Tongues are stuck out in defiance and hands are often placed on bellies.

• What is the relationship between material culture of the Maori and the contact with incoming entities from Europe? The government assumed possession of the house in 1867 and it has been subsequently displayed as a museum piece. The Maoris have called for its return to them, saying it was taken illegally rather than bought, as was asserted.

[READ WAITANGI TRIBUNAL ASSESSEMENT]

The anthropomorphic details of the carvings in the Meeting House are seen today in the Maori dances that are still performed in NZ, and famously, by their rugby team as well.

• VIDEO – All Blacks Rugby Team:

3) Long Yam Festival and the Korambo House – New Guinea, Melanesia

Architecture can tell us a lot about the ecology and environment of the area in which it is built. What does it need to withstand in terms of weather, what materials are available locally to build it with – or what is shipped in as prestige building material, and how do its decorations tell us about its use function?

Slide: Interior of a ceremonial house (KORAMBO), Abelam People, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea

• this is the traditional ceremonial house that is the locus of rituals that link present with the past. Their A-frame Haus Tambarans start low in the back and soar up to heights of 80 feet (27 meters) under the pitched, overhanging front with thick thatch roofs sweeping down to the ground. Their culture has been extensively documented, partly because of their spectacular Haus Tambarans and picturesque hamlets strung along the ridge lines of the hills. However, in recent years, most of the large Haus Tambarans have fallen and not been rebuilt.

• the circular clearing in front of the korambo serves as a dance ground and arena for display of the decorated long yams that are the focus of men's cult

• the palm bark facade of the korambo is decorated with spiritual figures

• the anthropomorphic figures represent clan-specific ancestral spirits

• inside one finds and elaborate installation of paintings and sculptures that repeat the ornaments from the facade

• elders gather the initiates inside and teach them about the meanings and symbolism of each element

• in this way the young learn about the mysteries of the spiritual world

• the men's houses declined in importance since 1925 because of Protestant missionaries who introduced school education

• Basket yam masks are an essential part of the elaborate yam harvest ceremonies and festivals for the Abelam people of the East Sepik Province. 

• Rituals associated with yams form the basis of the spiritual life of the Abelam.

The Abelam cultivate gardens of yams (mami in tok pisin) as their main staple crop. The yams can be stored for up to six months. They also grow beans, taro, bananas, tobacco, maize and sweet potatoes, as well as small cash crops of coffee, rubber and cocoa.

• A man's status is judged by his ability to grow ceremonial long. These yams grow up to 9-12 feet (3-4 meters) long. During the 5 month growing season, a man spends all of his time in the garden tending his best yams. The men perform specific rituals to encourage the yams.

• At the harvest yam festival, the best yams are prominently displayed in the plaza in front of the Haus Tambaran. The biggest ones are tied horizontally on long poles and leaned in rows along each side of the display area. There may be hundreds of other yams of all sizes presented in decorated mounds for viewing and distribution.

• These yams are named as ancestral spirits (nggwal) and decorated with woven basket masks or fans, or with wooden masks and plaques. In addition, shell money, feathers including cassowary and the Lesser Bird of Paradise, bright flowers like the red hibiscus, small bright orange or green decorative fruits (mban), colorful leaves like the croton and ritual paint are added make the display more powerful.

A man does not keep his own long yams, but exchanges them with his traditional trading partner from another village. 

• Whoever has the largest yams is considered to be the better man of the moment. The exchange creates ties between villages and clans and also shares the best breeding stock throughout the area. During the yam lining, which is a major social and ceremonial occasion, all the trading partners come in from their villages to the host village.

• The village women prepare huge quantities of food for everyone. 

• Basket yam masks are woven by the men. They take a large grass and using their teeth, strip out the center. The pliable outer edges are used as weft to cover the foundation coils of the mask. Very complex 3-dimensional and filigreed shapes are formed. Most masks are painted with local clay pigments and natural dyes, although trade store enamel or acrylic paints, especially red, are occasionally used.

• Contemporary material such as red labels from mackerel tins and the red and yellow cellophane Twisties bags are added for color. 

Each local area has its own specific style. Although some are made for sale, few tourists or dealers come into the area and most are made for village use.

4) Asmat Spirit Poles – Melanesia

Just as the yams relate to the ancestral spirits of the Abelam culture in New Guinea, the Asmat culture make spirit poles to honor ancestors who have recently died.

Located in southwestern New Guinea, the Asmat have an estimated population of 70,000, divided into several hundred villages ranging in size from 35 to 2,000 inhabitants.

• The Metropolitan Museum has an outstanding collection of Asmat art, the majority of which was collected in 1961 by Michael C. Rockefeller. 

Wood carving is a flourishing tradition among the Asmat, and wood carvers are held in high esteem. The Asmat also believe that there is a close relationship between humans and trees, and recognize wood as the source of life (think of Masks from mali)

• ORIGIN MYTH RELATED TO WOOD: According to the Asmat origin myth, Fumeripits was the first being to exist on earth, and he also created the first men's ceremonial house, orjeu (a club house for men where community issues are discussed, artwork is made, and ceremonies are held). Fumeripits would spend his days dancing along the beach, but after awhile grew tired of being alone. So, he chopped down a number of trees, carved them into human figures, and placed them inside the jeu. However, since the sculptures were inanimate, Fumeripits was still unhappy. He then decided to create a drum (1978.412.962), and chopped down another tree, hollowed out the center, and stretched a piece of lizard skin over the top. As he began to play the drum, the human figures miraculously came to life, their elbows came unstuck from their knees, and they began to dance. 

Bis poles (1979.206.1611) are perhaps the most impressive works of art by the Asmat, reaching heights of up to twenty feet. These poles are carved to commemorate the lives of important individuals (usually warriors), and serve as a promise that their deaths will be avenged.

• These works also assist in the transport of the souls of the dead to the realm of the ancestors.

• The mangrove tree, from which the sculptures are created, is actually turned upside down and a single planklike root is preserved (which will ultimately project from the top of the artwork).

• The imagery on the pole itself varies, but usually includes a series of stacked ancestral figures. During carving, all but one root is removed and the tree inverted, so that the remaining root forms the winglike projection at the top that represents the pole's phallus

• Each figure on the poles represents and is named for a specific deceased individual.

• In Asmat cosmology, death was always caused by an enemy either directly in war or by malevolent magic. Each death created an imbalance that had to be corrected through the death of an enemy. After a number of individuals in the village had died, the male elders would decide to stage a bis feast. In the past, the feast was held in conjunction with a headhunting raid. Today, the Asmat no longer practice warfare and a bis feast may be staged to alleviate a specific crisis or in connection with male initiation.

Despite the enormous time and effort that goes into their creation, bis poles are made for one-time use. At the conclusion of the bis feast, the poles are taken down and left to rot or are ritually destroyed. As the poles slowly decay, their supernatural power seeps into the ground, strengthening the palms and ensuring an abundant harvest.

5) Nan Madol – Micronesia

The many, varied populations of Micronesia and Polynesia are wedded to the ocean, and this is demonstrated quite powerfully in the city of Nan Madol and the wave charts used in some Micronesia communities.

SLIDE: The Complex of Nan Madol, Pohnpei, Micronesia

• The ruins of Nan Madol are termed megalithic architecture, literally meaning buildings or architecture on a grand scale.

• Evidence of the earliest human activity dates back to the first or second century BC. The construction of artificial islets started probably about 8th and 9th century AD. However, the megalithic structures were built in period of 12th to 13th century, about the same time as the stone construction of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

• There are 92 artificial islands within a network of canals covering about 170 acres – often termed “The Venice of the Pacific”.

• The complex is constructed in the shallow water next to the eastern shore of the Pohnpei island, an island surrounded by coral reefs

• Nan Madol seems to have housed the ruling elite caste of the time. It was a political and ceremonial seat of power. As a means of control of their subjects the ruler had succeeded in uniting the clans of the adjoining islands. The ruler then forced local chieftains to leave their home villages and move to the city where their activities could be more closely observed. THINK OF VERSAILLES & Louis XIV!

• Most of the islets served as residential area, however some of them served special purpose, such as food preparation, coconut oil production or canoe construction. The mortuary sector contains 58 islets in the northeastern area of Nan Madol. The centerpiece of the whole complex is the royal mortuary with its 7.5m high walls surrounding the central tomb enclosure.

• The population of Nan Madol was probably more than 1000 at a time when whole population of the local islands community barely reached 25,000. There are no sources of fresh water or possibilities to grow food on Nan Madol so all supplies had to be brought in from the mainland.

• According to local legend, the stones used in the construction of Nan Madol have been flown to the location by means of black magic. Archeologists have located several possible quarry sites on the main island, however the exact method of transportation of construction material is still not determined. The rocks are black lava rocks that are naturally hexagonal in shape and long – sometimes up to 20ft.

• Nan Madol had been abandoned by the time the first Europeans arrived, early in the 19th century, most likely declining around 1450.

Source:

Additional Source:

6) Wave Charts – Micronesia

MICRONESIA – MARSHALL ISLANDS

SLIDE: Wapepe Navigation Chart. Marshall Islands. 19th Century. Sticks, coconut fiber, shells.

• Long before modern day navigational instruments were brought to the Marshallese, they travelled the ocean, maintained courses and determined positions of islands by the use of wave patterns that are depicted in the stick charts. These charts were in common use until the 1950s but today, although some islanders know how to make the charts, only a few elders know how to use them.

• In the Pacific, navigation was mainly by the position of the stars and the sun and moon (celestial navigation), and secondly by waves. The Marshall Islands are set at right angles to the ocean swell built up by the predominant trade winds. This orientation of the islands lends itself to navigation based on wave patterns – the islands are perfectly located – close enough to one another and at the right angle to the incoming and outgoing winds to make wave patterns an effective navigational tool.

• These stick charts were never taken out to sea, as our modern charts are, but were used a memory aids to rehearse wave patterns that might be encountered, to learn the voyage plan by rote before actually setting out to sea.

• While modern charts are universal and can be used to navigate from any location on the chart to any other location on or even off the chart, the Marshallese stick charts are predominantly uni-directional. They explain how to get from a given starting point to one or more target points.

• The square frame supports sticks that delineate the swells of the ocean, and shells are bound in place to denote islands and their place within the wave chart.

• The object is purely functional – there is no embellishment to the framework at all, only the elements that are needed are included – making it an incongruous choice when looked at in the context of “art” history, but perhaps understandable when we think of the manner in which visual elements cross cultures and how art history often encompasses items with a visual impact that function as social items, political items etc.

Source:

7) Bark Painting & Dreamtime/The Dreaming – Australia

SLIDE: Bark Painting

How do we understand much of Oceanic history? Through ORAL HISTORY.

• The first inhabitants of Australia and keepers of the oldest continuous culture in the world, Aboriginal Australians have a rich and often mysterious civilization that we are only just starting to understand and appreciate.

• Aboriginal Australian culture dates back over 60,000 years to a period known in Aboriginal-English as the Dreamtime, but every one of the numerous Aboriginal nation groups spread across the continent and beyond has their own term for it, from Laliya spoken in the Kimberley region to Wongar in northeast Arnhem Land.

• Archaeological studies have revealed much about human origins in Australia, but it is the Dreamtime stories -- passed down by oral tradition -- that provide the most fascinating insight into this ancient civilization.

• Bark paintings are based on sacred designs that include abstract patterns and designs (such as cross-hatching in particular colours) that identify a clan, and also often contain elements of the Eternal Dreamtime. Sometimes the elements of a story are obvious—such as men or animals—but sometimes the elements are symbolic.

How does this history get translated to outsiders?

• What appears to the tourist as a series of wavy lines punctuated by dots may actually be telling a complex Dreaming story describing the path of a creator spirit and events that happened along the way.

• An uninitiated man or woman is only allowed to paint outside stories, the sort of story that might be told to a child. An initiated man can paint an inside story, which is restricted knowledge. Thus, a painting may be displayed in an exhibition, or put up for sale, but the artist, although having the right to paint the story, does not have the right to tell the story to another person.

• Alternatively, the story behind the painting may be one that may not be told to an uninitiated person.

• As buyers often want a story to go with the painting, this puts the artist in an unenviable position. The buyer may therefore receive a watered-down or distorted version of the story.

• A bark painting consists of several components, not all of which may be present in an individual painting, and that are generally applied in the following order:

Ground

• In all cases, the bark is first covered with a layer of ochre, which is usually red or white, occasionally yellow, and rarely black.

Border

• The border, if present, is usually yellow.

Dividing lines and feature blocks

• A painting is often divided into several distinct sections (or "feature blocks") by a series of dividing lines. Each feature block can be regarded as a complete composition, distinct from the other feature blocks. Sometimes different feature blocks depict different scenes in a story, and the painting as a whole tells the whole story.

Figurative designs

• Most commercially available bark paintings contain recognisable figurative designs that often tells a traditional story.

Geometric designs

• Geometric designs are representational symbols, and their meaning often depends on context and on who painted the painting. The same symbol can also have different meanings. For example, a circle might represent a water hole, a campsite, a mat, a campfire, a nut, an egg, a hole left by maggots, etc., depending on context.

Clan designs

• Unlike the previous components of the painting, Clan designs are sacred and initially did not appear on public paintings, although nowadays they can be seen on commercial paintings. A clan design may consist of a combination of symbols, geometric designs, and cross hatching

Cross-hatching

• Cross-hatching is perhaps one of the most distinctive and beautiful features - closely spaced fine lines are drawn in particular colours, intersecting each other. The chosen colours may be a specific to a particular clan

Subject material

• The content depicted by the painting is often either a traditional Dreaming story or a map. Sometimes it will be both, because the ancestral stories and songs often refer to the paths of creation ancestors as they travel across the land.

Watch:

• Learning skills through ancestral stories.

• ANIMISM – What is the Aborigines’ relationship with nature?

EXAM PREP:

• Divide up the register into 8 groups.

• Look at the question. What does compare and contrast mean?

• Slide: Toguna Meeting House vs. Maori Meeting House

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