Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia

by Peter Sutton

Hardback cloth over boards; sewn binding; 266 pp; color and b&w images art, maps, designs, photographs. Essays, catalogue, biographies, bibliography.

Lavishly illustrated and beautifully produced, this book reveals to Western audiences the history of an intriguing art and culture that link the present with humankind's origins. We have here a respectful approach toward the aborigines, whose nonmaterialist culture produced a rich aesthetic integrating artistic, spiritual, social, and intellectual systems.

Dreamings explores Aboriginal art forms based on a belief in the "Dreaming" or "Dreamtime." This spiritual event, infusing the present as well as the past, dates from a time when Ancestral Beings roamed the world and shaped the formless landscape into the distinctive plant and animal life of the isolated continents. Imagery in bark paintings, sculpture, shields, and acrylics shows where aborigines have lived and traveled and how they have experienced the Beings.

Genres: Art

266 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1988

About the author

Peter Sutton is an anthropologist and linguist who has worked with Aboriginal people since 1969. He speaks three Cape York languages and as an expert on Aboriginal land ownership he has assisted with fifty land rights cases. He has authored or edited twelve books, including Native Title in Australia: an Ethnographic Perspective, regarded as the most authoritative work in its field. He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, a Fellow of the Australian Anthropological Society, and Honorary Research Fellow, Institute of Archaeology, University College London.

Reviews

[Frederic · Rating 4 out of 5]

The exhibit this was published to accompany was my introduction to Australian aboriginal art, for any significant understanding, and this has to be considered one of the groundbreaking works in the field. Where many books focus entirely on the contemporary acrylic paintings, this exhibit and book also featured earlier carvings and bark-paintings.

[Sally Edsall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be in every library collection. It is also a handsome volume for the enthusiast or interested person.It is comprehensive, and contemporary.
Gorgeous colour plates, fully annotated.