Canberra’s top six this weekend (29-31 January 2016)

rubaiyat said :

HenryBG said :

nealg said :

Contrary to what you assert aboriginal people have a lot to show. …. Granted it is painted and etched on rock so they can’t be transported to a museum.

Cave art elsewhere is pretty good:
Peche-Merle blew me away when I saw it:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/cave-handprints-actually-women-missions-pictures/images/primary/090626-01-pech-merle-spotted-horses-mural_big.jpg
Lascaux is even better (although they don’t let people in):
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/sacredplaces/images/lascauxmain.jpg
…but these magnificent paintings have been reproduced for exhibition in various places.
(If you have any Basque ancestry, you might be able to claim this stuff as your own cultural heritage…?)

Here’s something that always amuses me: some of the artifacts displayed in the London Science Museum’s “Exploring Space” gallery are older than most of the exhibits in the NMA.

You do realise that the oldest Aboriginal Art is vastly older than these?

Well – reading your comment a bit laterally – I am sure there was plenty of art all over the world that occurred a long time earlier than any art we are currently aware of, however when discussing this, we really need to stick with the facts, which is the art that exists right now, and for which we have scientifically-determined dates.

The oldest known cave art is a bunch of pigment hand-stencils in a spanish cave and is over 40,000 years old.

Here is a 32,000-year-old cave painting from Spain that is so good they have actually created replicas to show in museums:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvet_Cave#/media/File:Paintings_from_the_Chauvet_cave_%28museum_replica%29.jpg

The oldest aboriginal art to have been dated is a charcoal drawing from about 28000 years ago. And the NMA doesn’t bother exhibiting any replica of it. Maybe they should?

HenryBG said :

nealg said :

Contrary to what you assert aboriginal people have a lot to show. …. Granted it is painted and etched on rock so they can’t be transported to a museum.

Cave art elsewhere is pretty good:
Peche-Merle blew me away when I saw it:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/cave-handprints-actually-women-missions-pictures/images/primary/090626-01-pech-merle-spotted-horses-mural_big.jpg
Lascaux is even better (although they don’t let people in):
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/sacredplaces/images/lascauxmain.jpg
…but these magnificent paintings have been reproduced for exhibition in various places.
(If you have any Basque ancestry, you might be able to claim this stuff as your own cultural heritage…?)

Ellen Harvey said :

When I took the guided tour, that question did come up, and the guide explained that many of the items were used in day-to-day life, so they wore out.

Here’s something that always amuses me: some of the artifacts displayed in the London Science Museum’s “Exploring Space” gallery are older than most of the exhibits in the NMA.

You do realise that the oldest Aboriginal Art is vastly older than these?

wildturkeycanoe said :

Saw some of the Aboriginal display at the NMA on Tuesday and the items on display prompted one thought. For all the 40,000 years of occupying this land, there is little to show of their culture before the last 200 years of British rule. Exhibits were often dated to last century wheras I was expecting to see more ancient artifacts. A bit disappointing that the aboriginal people have little to show off, whilst the histories of more advanced civilizations are full of memorabilia dating back to ancient times.

Bit hard to move the landscape indoors just so you can have convenient parking.

nealg said :

Contrary to what you assert aboriginal people have a lot to show. …. Granted it is painted and etched on rock so they can’t be transported to a museum.

Cave art elsewhere is pretty good:
Peche-Merle blew me away when I saw it:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/cave-handprints-actually-women-missions-pictures/images/primary/090626-01-pech-merle-spotted-horses-mural_big.jpg
Lascaux is even better (although they don’t let people in):
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/sacredplaces/images/lascauxmain.jpg
…but these magnificent paintings have been reproduced for exhibition in various places.
(If you have any Basque ancestry, you might be able to claim this stuff as your own cultural heritage…?)

Ellen Harvey said :

When I took the guided tour, that question did come up, and the guide explained that many of the items were used in day-to-day life, so they wore out.

Here’s something that always amuses me: some of the artifacts displayed in the London Science Museum’s “Exploring Space” gallery are older than most of the exhibits in the NMA.

wildturkeycanoe said :

Saw some of the Aboriginal display at the NMA on Tuesday and the items on display prompted one thought. For all the 40,000 years of occupying this land, there is little to show of their culture before the last 200 years of British rule. Exhibits were often dated to last century wheras I was expecting to see more ancient artifacts. A bit disappointing that the aboriginal people have little to show off, whilst the histories of more advanced civilizations are full of memorabilia dating back to ancient times.

When I took the guided tour, that question did come up, and the guide explained that many of the items were used in day-to-day life, so they wore out. When they wore out, new ones were created. The reason we have the ones we do is because they were either taken by or gifted to collectors.

Contrary to what you assert aboriginal people have a lot to show. Maybe you need to travel a little more and visit places locally like Namadgi NP or the Kimberly area in WA. There you will see aboriginal art dating from many 10s of thousands of years ago. Granted it is painted and etched on rock so they can’t be transported to a museum.

Saw some of the Aboriginal display at the NMA on Tuesday and the items on display prompted one thought. For all the 40,000 years of occupying this land, there is little to show of their culture before the last 200 years of British rule. Exhibits were often dated to last century wheras I was expecting to see more ancient artifacts. A bit disappointing that the aboriginal people have little to show off, whilst the histories of more advanced civilizations are full of memorabilia dating back to ancient times.