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The art of Oceania encompasses the sculptural and pictorial traditions of the indigenous peoples of the central and southwestern Pacific islands, excluding the Asiatic-influenced civilizations of Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Traditionally included within the boundaries of Oceania are the island societies of \TMelanesia\t, \TPolynesia\t, and \TMicronesia\t. Although Australia usually is not considered to be a part of Oceania, this article also covers the artistic traditions of the Australian \TAborigines\t.

Art as a separable category has little meaning in an analysis of traditional Oceanic societies, in which artworks often are combined with music, dance, and oral literature in complex manifestations of social and religious themes. To place Oceanic art in a meaningful perspective, art must be defined very broadly as cultural forms resulting from the creative manipulation of movements, sounds, words, or materials. Aesthetics, in this context, denotes culturally specific ways of thinking about such forms.

As an integral part of a tightly interwoven cultural fabric, traditional Oceanic art changed with the radical changes wrought in Oceanic societies by the impact of Western technology and culture. Before contact (16th century) with the Europeans, the use of metal was unknown in Oceania. Oceanic artists traditionally used tools made of stone, bone, shell, obsidian, shark's teeth, and fish skin; these cutting, incising, and filing elements were secured to wooden handles by fiber cords or wooden pegs. The widespread introduction of metal technology in the late 18th and early 19th centuries profoundly affected the Oceanic artistic traditions by bringing in more efficient tools and new visual images. In general terms, the use of even the most primitive metallic elements, such as nails mounted as incising implements, encouraged a new efflorescence in wood carving, and the introduction of such other European trade goods as blankets and cloth often led to the evolution of their indigenous counterparts into refined prestige objects. Access to European trade stores that sold cloth and tin pots meant that such traditional craft items as \Tbark cloth\t, \Tbasketry\t, and wooden containers no longer had to be made for immediate use; they could be produced as goods for sale to others.

Shifts in power owing to the introduction of guns altered the production and use of previously restricted goods, such as Hawaiian featherwork. Most destructive of all to Oceanic artistic traditions, however, was the introduction of the Christian god, in whose name not only did the production of images of the old gods cease, but also those that already existed were destroyed, both by the missionaries and by the converted islanders. Images of the new god were occasionally produced in traditional style, but for the most part, the making of religious art ended with the coming of Christianity. Today the production of images of the old gods has been revived--not for traditional use but for sale to tourists. Basketry and bark cloth, produced in nontraditional forms, have now become high-quality crafts sold not only as souvenirs but also as useful and decorative objects for modern living.

Melanesia.

The traditional arts of Melanesia, an arc of islands in the southwest Pacific stretching from New Guinea to Fiji, can best be understood in relation to the pervasive political and social values placed on the community leaders known as bigmen. Melanesian societies characteristically were small independent groups headed by a bigman, a self-made political leader who gained power by aligning followers. Within these small social groupings, the creation of artistic works was often integrally associated with the ceremonial cycles that attended \Tpassage rites\t, funerals, advancement in \Tsecret societies\t, or warfare with another group. Because each social group had its own traditional art forms, a large number of different styles flourished throughout Melanesia--some characteristic of a whole island, others more specifically localized, sometimes to a single village.

Ceremonial cycles might involve the erection of a men's house; the manufacture and consecration of slit-gongs; the fabrication of masks, costumes, and musical instruments; and the production of representations of ancestors or legendary figures. Punctuating the ceremonial cycles were periodic spectacles in which traditional, legendary, and social values were celebrated and reaffirmed through combined displays of the visual and the performing arts. The elaborate malanggan ceremonies of New Ireland, for example, called for the creation every few years of a new set of intricately decorated costumes, carved posts, and relief boards with complicated motifs that symbolized a particular clan's traditions and beliefs. The strong expressionism and the vivid interplay between line and color found in malanggan sculptures and costumes reflect the highly emotional and dramatic impact of much of Melanesian art.

Typical of Melanesian artistic traditions was the requisite destruction of many art objects once their ceremonial functions were fulfilled. This tendency to destroy and re-create art objects as the ritualistic or social need arose has left the modern observer with a limited and possibly false perception of Melanesian artistic traditions.

Even such ornate and apparently finished works as the ancestor figures carved by the artists of the Sepik River area of New Guinea can give a misleading impression because they often were originally decorated with feathers, leaves, and other additions that gave the totality an entirely different appearance.

Among the more permanent objects created by Melanesian artists are the polychrome pottery of the Sepik River basin and other areas of New Guinea; carved shell-discs, or kapkaps, of the Solomon Islands; and the carved and painted hardwood slit-gongs found in the New Hebrides. Other artistic media of varying durability include sculptures of soft stone, wood, or tree fern; masks of wood, bark cloth, mud, or spider webbing; ceremonial skulls molded with clay; face and body painting; and monumental, elaborately painted men's houses that were allowed periodically to fall into ruin, then to be destroyed and replaced.

Much of the Melanesian artistic tradition thus existed primarily as an artistic concept in the mind of the artist--who often worked without models or reminders when new objects of a particular type were to be produced for the next ceremony. This feature gave artistic works from Melanesia a spontaneous character and a creative individuality that have been much appreciated and emulated by various modern Western artists, notably the German expressionists and the surrealists. The Melanesian, however, probably viewed these objects as re-creations of previous works without conscious deviation from ancient traditions.

Polynesia.

A vast area in the central Pacific stretching from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand and Easter Island in the south, Polynesia differs from Melanesia in the greater homogeneity of its peoples, the less fluid and more hierarchical structure of its societies, and the more enduring and formalized nature of its art objects, on which much time and creative energy were lavished. Many Polynesian artworks were visual symbols of status, rank, and power that were passed as heirlooms from generation to generation. Because political regimes tended to be long-lived and rigidly stratified systems based primarily on rank and genealogical connections, artistic works served as important indicators of rank among chiefs as well as among gods. This emphasis on hierarchy and tradition led to the evolution of stylistic conventions governing the artist's work and to the creation of more formal and abstract art objects than those of Melanesia.

Throughout Polynesia three-dimensional sculptural form as well as intricate relief incising were aesthetically important in themselves and did not depend on polychroming for an immediate dramatic impact. Representations of the gods, for example, were formulaic images used on successive occasions. The highly stylized and conventional nature of most Polynesian sculpture is also characteristic of the sculptural tradition of \TEaster Island\t, whose artists meticulously carved small wooden figures as well as huge and solemnly powerful stone statues.

Except for New Zealand, where \TMaori\t artists created ornately carved meeting houses, houses were relatively undecorated in Polynesia. The great oval houses of the chiefs, however, were distinguished by complex rafter formations and rafter lashings that often incorporated elaborate designs. The few but carefully conceived furnishings included bark-cloth bed coverings, plaited floor and sleeping mats, and carved wooden neck rests in Tonga and Tahiti; beautifully finished wooden bowls decorated with carved human figures in Hawaii, with carved birds and turtles in Fiji, and with multiple legs in Samoa; intricately incised designs on bowls and ornaments in the Marquesas Islands; and decorated pottery found archaeologically in western Polynesia. Tools used in food preparation, such as stone pounders, tended either to be decorated with human images or to take on abstract forms beyond their functional purpose. Even fishhooks varied aesthetically in materials, shapes, and lashings.

As is typical in highly stratified societies, clothing and personal adornment were carried to elaborate heights in Polynesia. Some costumes, such as the Tahitian mourning dress worn by a chief mourner at funeral ceremonies of high-ranking individuals, combined a pearl-shell face mask fringed with the long tail feathers of a bird, with a wooden breastplate decorated with shells, a chest apron made of thousands of tiny slips of pearl shell, carved coconut-shell pieces attached to a bark-cloth apron, and two capes made of bark cloth and feathers. In Hawaii, feathered cloaks, capes, and helmets were worn on occasions of warfare and ceremony, whereas in New Zealand, flax fibers were woven into capes that bestowed on their owners both warmth and prestige. Ornaments and jewelry made of carved ivory, greenstone, human hair, shells, carved dog teeth, boar tusks, turtle shell, and feathers were worn in the hair or on the neck, arms, or legs.

The varied basketry traditions of Polynesia reached a high point in Tonga, where a variety of forms was made from creepers, coconut fiber, coconut leaves, or pandanus leaf strips laced around bundles of coconut-leaf midribs. In contrast to Melanesian custom, these art objects were not destroyed or allowed to disintegrate but were passed from generation to generation along with stories about their owners and the occasions on which they were used. They served, in effect, as objectified histories and as models for new objects of the same type.

Micronesia.

The arts of Micronesia, a widely scattered band of islands north of Melanesia and west of Polynesia, are as locally specialized and diverse as the social and linguistic systems that fostered them. For the most part, Micronesian artists displayed a keen awareness of the whims of the sea, on which their survival depended. Accordingly, canoes were not only functional objects but artistic constructions, with decorative elements, elaborate prows, and attached images whose purpose was to objectify or guard against sea spirits.

Architectural and sculptural forms tend to recall the rigorous formality of Polynesian art rather than the expressive spontaneity of Melanesian art. Architecture was sometimes monumental, including massive coral house posts as in the Marianas and huge basalt prisms as in Ponape. In Palau, large community houses incorporated stylized human figures in carved architectural parts such as sculptured house posts, gable ornaments, and incised and painted storyboards. Throughout Micronesia, house parts were often lashed together with sennit arranged in ornamental designs. Gable masks from Mortlock in the Caroline Islands portrayed stylized, abstract faces, and equally abstract three-dimensional human figures were characteristic of Nukuoro sculpture.

Other artistic high points of Micronesia include the body tattooing of the Marshall and Caroline islands; the loom-woven fabrics of banana and hibiscus fiber of Ponape and Kusaie; the widespread ornaments and "money" made of seashell or turtle shell; the sennit "armor" and shark-tooth weapons of the Gilbert Islands; the plaited mats, baskets, and fans of the Marshall Islands; the shell inlay of Palau; and the plaited bark-fiber ribbonwork used as personal adornment in many areas.

Australia.

The culture and arts of the Australian Aborigines are much older than the parallel developments in the rest of Oceania and represent entirely separate traditions and origins. As nomadic hunters and gatherers closely adapted to the varied environments of the Australian continent, the Aborigines evolved highly complex social structures to govern the activities of their tribal groups. This complexity is also reflected in the Aborigines' rich mythology and in their two-dimensional visual arts. Painted or engraved forms include rock and cave paintings (see \Tprehistoric art\t), bark paintings, ground paintings, churingas (carved ceremonial plaques), body decoration, elaborations on shields and other weapons, and didjeridoo (drone pipes). Perhaps the most striking of these two-dimensional artistic renderings are the bark paintings, some of which are used in sacred rituals, whereas others are secular in nature and today made for sale to outsiders. Often incorporating totemic designs, bark paintings depict subjects as varied as hunting scenes and mythological principles. Characteristic of many western Arnhem Land paintings of animal and human forms is the so-called X-ray style, in which internal organs are shown.

Even where three-dimensional sculpture is found, as in the carved burial poles of Melville Island, the artistic impact of the work is supplemented by a painted two-dimensional elaboration of the three-dimensional form. Designs in paintings and sculptures often are composed of complex combinations of small motifs, including dots, circles, semicircles, and diagonal lines, organized into larger groupings that, in turn, form the overall composition. Similar design elements and combinations decorate engraved smoking pipes, spear-throwers, boomerangs, shells, and sacred rocks. ADRIENNE KAEPPLER

Bibliography: Berndt, Ronald M., ed., Australian Aboriginal Art (1964); Buehler, Alfred, et al., The Art of the South Sea Islands, Including Australia and New Zealand (1962); Dodd, Edward H., Polynesian Art (1967); Firth, Raymond W., Life and Art in New Guinea (1936; repr. 1976); Guiart, Jean, The Arts of the South Pacific (1963); Hughes, Robert, The Art of Australia, rev. ed. (1970); Linton, Robert, and Wingert, Paul, Arts of the South Seas (1946); Mead, Sidney M., ed., Exploring the Visual Arts of Oceania (1979); Schmitz, Carl A., Oceanic Art: Myth, Man and Image in the South Seas (1971); Serra, Eudald, and Folch, Alberto, The Art of Papua and New Guinea (1977); Tischner, Herbert, and Hewicker, F., Oceanic Art (1954).