Clancy Tucker's Blog: ART

Showing posts with label ART. Show all posts

1 September 2022 - PREHISTORIC CAVE ART - INDONESIA

PREHISTORIC CAVE ART

- INDONESIA -

G'day folks,

A torch beam finds a stencil of a hand, its ochre outline surprisingly vibrant given its age. Next to it, a sketch of a babirusa—a type of wild “pig-deer” found in Indonesia—shows such attention to detail that the gender of the animal (female) is still clear nearly 36,000 years after its creation. It’s thought to be the oldest known example of figurative art in the world.

The Pleistocene-era rock art is spread throughout the karst caves within the Maros and Pangkep regions in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Researchers from Australia’s Griffith University used uranium series dating and found that one of the handprints was roughly 40,000 years old. The collection of paintings, which includes the handprint and the babirusa, contains artwork that is slightly older than the images found in European caves.

The rock art’s ancient age shattered the preexisting notion among many Western archaeologists and historians that the cave art originated in modern-day Europe. While little-known, these Indonesian cave drawings are even older than the famous stenciled caves in France and Spain.

But though it wasn’t celebrated until recently, the cave art wasn’t unknown. H.R Van Heekeren, a Dutch archaeologist, documented the figures and published his work in 1950. However, the paintings were deemed to be of no real significance and subsequently no additional exploration was done until nearly 60 years later.

The purpose behind the rock art is unclear. It’s commonly thought that sites with rock art are ceremonial, but there’s no actual evidence to say whether this is truly the case. One theory is that the rock art was an early library cataloging the animals and fish eaten by the people who dwelled here. Another theory is that the stenciled hands may have more symbolic meanings, such as protecting a house, expressing a person’s connection to the place, or attempting to communicate with the spiritual realm.

Getting to the karsts requires boating down the narrow river before an hour long walk through rice paddies. A monkey or two may shriek from the tops of the strange palm trees—described by the guide as “shrimpfingers”—before disappearing. Nearby, cows laze and graze under the monolith overhangs and ducks forage for huge snails in the rice paddies.

19 June 2022 - THE ROUTE OF FACES - SPAIN

THE ROUTE OF FACES

- SPAIN -

G'day folks,

Intricate faces sculpted into the natural facade of the environment merge with the already-beautiful and symbolic landscape of the swamps of Buendia in a place known as the Ruta de las Caras. The name translates to “Route of the Faces,” where a series of hiking trails or “routes” take visitors along a cultural and artistic journey of spiritual discovery.

The Buendia swamps are thick with dense pine forests and sandstone rock, into which some 18 sculptures and bas-reliefs have been carved. Several artists have combined over the years to create the impressive collection, which features works ranging from 1 to 8 feet high.

Art and nature lovers alike come from miles away to enjoy these sculptures, which break the bounds of traditional museums and leave more commonly artistic urban areas behind for the quiet serenity of the forest. The art serves to explore and magnify the deeply complementary relationship between sculpture and nature, forth both artist and viewer.

Reflection on this symbiosis is enhanced by the spiritual nature of the art, as the faces have a mystical-religious meaning. The concept of human forms written onto natural contexts, fully integrated into sandstone in this case, is a notion deeply rooted in the human condition. Cultures have always considered our relationship with the wider world by trying to integrate the two, often through artistic sculpture, found all the way from Pharaonic Egypt to these modern-day statues.

Buendia, Spain is a municipality in the province of Cuenca, near Madrid. This was a perfect location for such a sculpture park, as Cuenca and Guadalajara already offered an ideal environment for hiking. Hiking trails include some for children, taking over 1 scenic hour to complete but having a lower difficulty as hikes go, and flanked by unique artwork all along the way.

For the more advanced, the Buendía swamp and other nearby trails along the Sierra de Altamira offer long-distance views and lovely scenery. Some of these trails are developed to connect the town directly with the Route of the Faces, surrounded by the incomparable landscape of the Sea of Castile, which in times of drought is more like a swamp. In either case, the landscape offers waterways where one can practice watersports, sailing, jet skis, motorboats, fishing and even bathe in its waters, as so many locals do on their way to end from enjoying the faces oddly, yet comfortingly, set in stone.

7 June 2022 - AMAZING ROCK ART in EAST TIMOR.

Rock art found at Nino Konis Santana National Park consists of paintings created using different colors, but with some rare exceptions, only those drawn in black or dark brown are visible to the naked eye. Among the motifs portrayed in these caves are boats, animals, birds, people, the Sun, stars, geometric patterns, and figures featuring a mixture of human and animal traits.

The first caves within the park were explored and studied in 1966. The last nine caves were explored and studied for the first time in 2000. Considering the thick vegetation and rugged terrain, it would not be unfathomable to speculate that more rock art is yet to be found.

Carbon dating tests run on human-made findings from the Lene Hara cave show that humans have been living in this region for at least 30,000 years. The dating of the paintings, however, has proven to be more controversial. Some scholars initially claimed that the paintings date back to the Neolithic Age (about 12,000 years ago), but this view has been challenged by more recent research that suggests these images are from as recent as 2,500 years ago.

These rock paintings exhibit techniques, styles, and motifs also present on other islands in the South Pacific, including Australia. Techniques and styles can travel a long way, adapting to specific and diverse cultural contexts. Yet, the similarities in motifs suggest that in spite of the significant distance among them, these islands may have shared the same symbolic system. If this is the case, these societies must have had more interchanges with one another than previously thought.

23 December 2021 - THE GREAT THANGKA - CHINA

THE GREAT THANGKA

- CHINA -

G'day folks,

China’s Tibetan Medicine and Culture Museum is one of the country’s few museums dedicated entirely to Tibetan culture, history, and religion. It also contains a magnificent artistic treasure.

A nearly 2,000-foot-long thangka (a religious Buddhist painting) wraps around the interior walls of its second floor. The painting is one of the longest thangkas in the world. More than 400 Tibetan artists spent almost 30 years finishing the masterpiece.

Thangkas (also spelled tangkhas) are usually kept rolled up, but this one is stretched for all to see. The colorful blend of religious figures and events creates a visually stunning tapestry of Buddhist knowledge. It’s divided into a continuous and contiguous set of scenes blending one into the other. The thangka shows the entire Tibetan history, the history of Tibetan Buddhism, and famous Buddhist monks, temples, and events. It also depicts the creation of the world, astronomy, technology, science, medicine, architecture, linguistics, and poetry.

You’ll also find scenes showing the creation of humankind, with organisms crawling out of the oceans and evolving into human beings. Another segment portrays a contemporary lama that travelled to the United States, which includes images of an airplane and the American flag. The absence of the current Dalai Lama is also notable.

Clancy's comment: That is extraordinary.

I'm ...

19 August 2021 - BRILLIANT LEAF SCULPTURES

BRILLIANT LEAF

SCULPTURES

G'day folks,

Welcome to the work of another clever artist.

I love art that surprises me, whether it's an unusual technique, using weird materials you wouldn't expect or working on a scale that isn't common. That's why when I saw these, I couldn't wait to share them with you!

Omid Asadi, an Iranian-born artist from Massachusetts, has been collecting fallen leaves and turning them into intricately beautiful works of art with nothing but a knife and a needle!

Clancy's comment: Brilliant work!

I'm ...

14 August 2021 - BRILLIANT GRAPHICS PRODUCED BY YOUNG TURK

BRILLIANT GRAPHICS

PRODUCED BY YOUNG TURK

G'day folks,

What if you could make your most surreal and strange dreams come to life? That's almost what 19-year-old Kerem Ciğerci from Istanbul did. He uses graphic manipulations to create dream-like images, by mixing objects from different worlds, playing with size, proportion, and more.

So sit back, relax, and enter an alternate universe with these unbelievable images you could admire all day.