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Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia

Anisfield-Wolf Book Award

Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia

George Lipsitz

An exhibition catalog that presents Indigenous Australian art across traditional designs and contemporary expression. It reconsiders artistic meaning through the relationship among works, land, ritual, and community.

Indigenous Australian artexhibition catalogethnic cultureart historyAboriginal Australia

Work Information

Dreaming imagery becomes a shared language linking tradition and the present.

Rather than treating Aboriginal art as a single tradition, the book presents it as a diverse set of practices shaped by region and making context. Its museum-linked structure gives the images and commentary considerable density.

Review Summaries

  • The book is valued for its documentary richness and for presenting Indigenous art from both traditional and contemporary perspectives.

Book Information

Publisher
George Braziller
Published
1997-08-01
Pages
266 pages
Language
英語
Size
24.77 x 3.18 x 29.85 cm
ISBN-13
9780807612019
ISBN-10
0807612014
Price
5500 JPY
Category
洋書/Arts & Photography/Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Amazon配送商品ならDreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australiaが通常配送無料。更にAmazonならポイント還元本が多数。Sutton, Peter作品ほか、お急ぎ便対象商品は当日お届けも可能。

Reviews

  • Excellent value!

    This ex-library book was delivered well on time and is in very good condition. Thank you!

  • Book arrived in excellent condition

    Great Service, I got exactly what we paid for Thank you

  • Best Book on Aboriginal Art 🩵💜HUMONGOUS collection‼️

    Definitive Collection of Aboriginal Art❤️I Couldn't be more impressed with this valuable and unprecedented album of photography. Extensive display, without parallel - essentially mind blowing with the extensive number of photos. I feel fortunate to have this book in my collection.‼️

  • Excellent book

    A good wide-ranging introduction with a large number of excellent reproductions and some awareness of the complexities of the intersection of cultural, historic and aesthetic factors.

  • Paintings that talk

    With over 300 illustrations and 155 color plates, coupled with in-depth analysis of Australian history and culture, this book provides an excellent overview of Aboriginal art. There are great examples of bark paintings, sculptures and shields, in addition to the more recent acrylic paintings. The essays by five different authors/curators take a respectful, appreciative and knowledgeable look at the worlds oldest art and some of the artists who are still following its imperatives. Though, as Peter Sutton explains, it is not so much art as it is a religion made visible. The paintings are also living maps of the natural and psychic world of the people who made (and continue to make) them. There are many fine samplings included here, both contemporary and historical. Peter Sutton starts with an explanation of the power-filled ground of existence, the Dreaming, (or the Dreamtime) and moves on to define the Dreamings, who are the Ancestral Beings who inhabit both our present world and the Dreamtime. The Dreamings are known by their names and they are represented by particular sets of symbols and signs and patterns. Thus, each painting is a story to be read. It is a mythology and a history of the Ancestral Beings, their gifts, their travels and their experiences. Well, sort of. It's more complicated than that, but the authors of these essays dive into the subject and try to clarify it for non-anthropologists. What needs no clarification is the beauty of the paintings themselves; they communicate directly with their vibrant colors, energetic forms and sure lines, even if one doesn't know the esoteric significance of these elements. This book came out in 1988, when this art was just beginning to find an appreciative audience here in the US. There may have been advances--in the evolution of the art and in photographic reproduction--since then, but this book remains a sound introduction to the Australian landscape and mythology, and the fine artists who express both so vividly.

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