Non Western Art

Background

• Western Civilization = Prehistoric – present Europe and the colonies of Europencountries

• Non-Western = Civilization that developed in the East, on the South Pacific Islands, Australasia, the early civilizations in the America’s etc.

• Conceptual and religious art

Indigenous American

Mayan and Aztec

Easter Island

Indian

Indigenous Australian

ChineseAustralian

JapaneseAustralian

Map of Non-Western Civilizations

Easter IslandStone Heads

Easter Island

• Island discovered by the Dutch Admiral Roggeveenduring Easter 1722

• They satand 10m high along the coast

• 2 Tribes: Ha-nau-aa-epe(dominant, long ear) and Ha-nau-mo-moko (short ear)

Easter Island Stone Heads

• Estimated that people first arrived on the islands between 4th and 7th Century AD

• It was during this time that the platforms were created

• First heads only erected after 1000 AD

• What else could the platforms have been used for?

• 1000 Heads have been found on the island• No heads were erected after 1680 due to the

community collapsing through tribal war and slavery

• All the heads gaze towards the land even though they are near the sea.

• The heads measure between 2 and 11 metres• All appear the same – long head, upper torso,

chin and long ears, arms against bodies or on stomachs

• Some have eyes made from red and white stones or coral

• +- 70 have headdresses made from volcanic rock ( chieftains)

• +- 400 heads in the inner core of the Rano Raka volcano• How did they move the heads when there were so few trees to use

as rollers?• One unfinished head is 20m high and weighs an estimate of 270

tons!• In a quarry there are pointed stones pushed into the rock face

indicating how they must have excavated the stone

• Tablets of wood with a type of hieroglyphic called Rongo Rongowere found, but most of them were burnt by a priest who settles on the island

• There are 26 of these artefacts remaining with a total of 1600 signs

• They are seen as ritualistic rather than a written language

• The history of the tribes and the reasons why they carved the heads are still unclear, especially as the population became so depleted that a strong cultural history did not survive

Art of ChinaTerracotta Army

The Terracotta Army

• 6000 – 8000 figures

• Discovered in 1974 by a group of farmers in the eastern suburbs of Xi’an in the Shaanxi province of China

• Funerary art buried with the first Emperor of China in 210 BC

• The army was to serve the Emperor in the afterlife