Australian Art Australian Art Aboriginal paintings are the oldest living art tradition in the world and yet represents one of the most fascinating and popular art investments to date. Art goes to the very core of what it means to be human. And art, whether largely decorative or rich in religious or historic import, is a window into the cultures and individuals who create it.
Art reveals much of how they see themselves, their world, and their place in it.
One of the best ways of deciphering what ancient art has to say about past cultural beliefs and social structures is to study art created by living peoples. Nowhere is that more effective than among the Aboriginal people of Australia, many of whom did not encounter Europeans until well into the twentieth century. Aboriginal people, inheritors of one of the oldest living artistic traditions in the world, came to Australia about 50,000 years ago. They have given us some of the earliest examples of a developed artistic and aesthetic sense. Working with the Aboriginal people of the Barunga region of southern Arnhem Land, Australia, I set out to identify factors that influence the creation of art, asking specifically whether different social activities and materials produce different kinds of art.