National Museum exhibition

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"Old masters", Arnhem Land, bark painting, National Museum of Australia

From the external ultra-modern assertive geometry and scale, I moved into the National Museum of Australia, and the quietness and detail of bark paintings by “old masters”. For most of the two hours I spent in the galleries I was alone, so I could stand and look without interruption, a rare treat in front of such masterpieces.

All the paintings in the exhibition were made between 1948 and 1988, representing landscape, skyscape, rituals and animals of Arnhem Land. Their creators were not only supreme artists with a stunning mastery of colour, design, composition and fine detail. They were also ceremonial leaders of their clans and the stories their paintings tell are a complex of history and ritual. I could see the building of bark huts; and patterns of flying foxes or stingrays, axe heads or possums and sugar gliders. I could notice the fine white lines like stitching that gave the paintings the appearance of fabric or the thick white almost enamelled dots. But my appreciation was of the surface.

The names of these Old Masters are unfamiliar: Yirawala, David Malangi, Narritjin Maymuru, Peter Marralwanga, Valerie Munininy (the only woman), Birrikitji Gumana, Mithinarri Gurruwiwi, Mawalan Marika – forty of them. Even to call them “old masters” diminishes them by placing them in a eurocentric world, intruding our non-Aboriginal perspective.

I paused halfway through my homage to watch three videos of the artists at work: a group of young men learning how to cut and prepare the bark; an older artist teaching how to use the fine brush of a few human hairs to do the delicate white cross-hatching; and a master artist at work.

I ended my pilgrimage watching a slide show of the Arnhem Land landscape: rugged escarpment, swamp and beach. A glass case displayed the simple tools used by these consummate artists: a tin of rough ochres waiting to be crushed, a stick brush. A note mentioned that until the 1960s artists used egg as fixative, as did the painters of medieval manuscripts, but they also used juice from a native orchid (the bracket orchid according to one reference, but it doesn’t appear in my orchid bible, David Jones' Native orchids of Australia.)

 

 

Birrikitji Gumana - Stingray dance

Yirawala - Birth of a Mimih (c 1970)

 

 

 

Bardayal Nadjamerrek - Possums and sugar gliders feeding

Mungurraway Yunupingu - The great brushfire dreaming of the Gumatj People

George Milpurrurra - Stringy-bark houses

George Milpurrurra - Flying fox dance

 

John Bulunbulun - Creatures of the Arafura swamp

 

Mithinarri Gurruwiwi - Stone axe heads (1965)

Valerie Munininy - Djang'Kawu Sisters at Gariyak

Mawalan Marika - Sydney from the air (1963)

 

I asked for permission to use these images saved from the NMA website. Permission was given in the following words: “We actually licence our use of the images of the barks for all our uses including website, which also means low resolution versions are available for download. This enables people to use the images for ‘personal’ and ‘research’ purposes. I consider your proposed use is of a ‘personal’ nature.”

Many more images from the exhibition, and videos of the artists at work, can be found at

nma.gov.au/oldmasters

As I looked through this site to find images to share, I realised how many paintings I'd failed to see. I need to visit again.

 

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National Museum of Australia – outside

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architecture, National Museum of Australia

My tendency to arrive early served me well yesterday. Despite a wrong turn which had me speeding with peak traffic out towards Tuggeranong, wondering how I could ever turn back, I got to the museum early enough for a photo-prowl outside. As I headed up the orange curl, careful of my feet on the surface bulges, my path intersected with that of a procession of five ducks. At the top I had a splendid view out over Lake Burley Griffin.

A slow amble took me past grey walls made up of hundreds of rounded breast-like shapes, wooden moths with beautifully textured surfaces, and tantalising glimpses of the lake. A great angular curved loop that looked like an escapee from a funfair marked the beginning of museum terrain. Geometry, both curves and angles, sharp reds and oranges, shadows and light, were all part of the drama of its architecture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Visiting Pompeii

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Herculaneum, Pompeii

This week I spent a morning amongst the treasures and artifacts of Pompeii. I was in the hands of expert guides who were sometimes also “frisky”. I didn't have to hop on a plane for London. All I had to do was drive to Narooma and, along with a meager five other people, pay my $11 at the door of the Kinema. For the first time the British Museum was presenting an exhibition for the world live in HD. This luxury in an obscure town on the NSW south coast, which includes coffee delivered to your seat, never fails to amaze me.

 

Gripes first. The two MCs were far too excitable and prurient and tended to interrupt. I could have done without the giggling about phalluses and the persistent talking-over.

 

However there were many things I could not have done without. Starting the tour with dogs was a master stroke. The mosaic dog on a leash in the atrium was charmingly real; the Beware of the Dog mosaic was suitably savage; and the form of a dog preserved in ash began the long journey into the horror of the eruption and its aftermath.

 

 

For me in museums the simple things often have the most impact. A round loaf of bread converted to charcoal expressed the dailiness of lives cut short. An Italian baker had tried to replicate the loaf and explicate its features. The imprint of a name indicated communal oven where people brought their own mix to bake. The ridge around the base? He created that with string which could then be used to carry the loaf home, where the rim gave a good grip when using the bread for dipping or lifting food.

 

 

After following people in Pompeii through a normal morning of breakfast and toilette, we finally reached the eruption; the descent of the lethal cloud hurled so high in the air; and the burying in the pyroclastic flow. The exhibits become excruciatingly moving: the family found under the stairs, mother, father and two children; the objects those trying to escape took with them to the beach (a wooden money box with a few coins; a set of medical instruments; a bracelet weighing half a kilo; a sword, dagger and woodworking tools); the child's cot turned to charcoal.

 

A few striking things emerged from the commentary: slavery was the foundation of Roman life, 50% of the population were in fact freed slaves. These two facts were demonstrated through a heavily decorated goblet (Who cleaned it? Who filled it? Who put it away?) and a noble-looking statue (not an emperor: a business man who had been a slave.) The questions that exercise me every time I read a historical novel (how much are we like the people of the past? And how can we know?) were well aired. The experts were totally engaging: I think particularly of the Oxford professor who made her favourite one of mine by her colloquial translation of the Latin written above the images of drinkers and quarreling card players. The dilemma of diggers was also debated: do you keep excavating sites where there is still plenty buried, or do use limited resources to process and preserve what has already been dug up?

I emerged into the bright sun and roadworks of a Narooma morning and headed off to buy a life jacket, accompanied by images from lives cut short nearly 2000 years ago.

 

 

 

 

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