Oceanic art and architecture

Introduction
General characteristics
- Materials and techniques
- Artist and society
- Aesthetics
Early styles
- Australia
- Melanesia
- Polynesia
Oceanic art and architecture after European contact
- Effects of European contact
- Australia
  - The central desert
  - The southeast
  - The north
- Melanesia
  - The Torres Strait
  - New Guinea
    - Geelvink Bay
    - Humboldt Bay and Lake Sentani
  - The Sepik River regions
    - Astrolabe Bay
    - The Huon Gulf
    - The Massim area
    - The Gulf of Papua
    - The lower Fly River
    - The Marind-anim
    - The southwestern coast
    - The Highlands
  - The Admiralty Islands
  - New Ireland
  - New Britain
  - The Solomon Islands
  - Vanuatu
  - New Caledonia
- Polynesia
  - Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa
  - The Cook Islands
  - The Society Islands
  - The Austral (Tubuai) Islands
  - The Marquesas (Marquises) Islands
  - Easter Island
  - New Zealand
  - The Hawaiian Islands
  - The Polynesian outliers
- Micronesia

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images

dilly bag; Aboriginal Australian art, Northern Territory, Australia

Initiation scene in a cult house. From Abelam, Papua New Guinea. In the Museum of Ethnology, Basel, Switzerland.

Stone figure, igneous rock. From the Ambum River valley, Papua New Guinea. In the Australian National Gallery, Canberra.

Canoe prow, wood, paint, and cassowary feathers, from Geelvink Bay, Irian Jaya; in the Basel (Switz.) Museum of Cultures.

Double figure from a house post, wood. From Lake Sentani, Irian Jaya. In the Australian National Gallery, Canberra.

Related Questions

How did European contact affect the preservation of early Oceanic artworks?
How did Maori carving styles differ between northwestern and eastern New Zealand?
How did Maori meetinghouses symbolize tribal founding ancestors?
How did Marquesan artists represent the human face in sculpture and decorative art?
How did New Caledonian ceremonial houses use architectural sculpture?
How did Oceanic artists carve hard stone materials such as jade?
How did Oceanic artists decorate the human body?
How did Oceanic artists use ochres and plant pigments in painting?
How did Pacific Island architecture reflect social organization and religious beliefs?
How did Pacific Islanders adapt art production after contact with European collectors?
How did Palau meetinghouses use carved and painted decoration?
How did Polynesian stone temples combine engineering with artistic design?
How did Polynesian women decorate tapa cloth?
How did Samoan house design protect people from sun rain and cold air?
How did Torres Strait masks used in funerary ceremonies differ from masks used for hero cults?
How did geographic isolation contribute to the variety of Oceanic art styles?
How did longhouses in the Gulf of Papua vary between western and eastern communities?
How did masks function in Melanesian religious ceremonies?
How did tattooing and scarification differ as forms of Oceanic body decoration?
How did the Kona style shape Hawaiian wooden images of gods?
How did the ceremonial adze of New Caledonia represent chiefly office?
How were Hawaiian feather cloaks made and decorated?
How were Hawaiian war-god heads constructed and used?
How were Maori fortified hilltop villages designed for defense?
How were Maori war canoes decorated in the 18th century?
How were Marquesan houses and platforms designed to show the owner’s status?
How were Marquesan sculptures connected to deified ancestors?
How were New Caledonian masks designed and worn?
How were Society Islands war canoes decorated?
How were Tahitian god figures and symbols kept at marae sacred enclosures?
How were human figures and faces represented in eastern Polynesian sculpture?
How were stone blades used as both adzes and axes in Pacific Island societies?
How were tortoiseshell masks made in the Torres Strait Islands?
What features appeared on sacred boards from the Gulf of Papua?
What kinds of ceremonies used masks and stage settings in the Torres Strait?
What motifs were widely shared among Polynesian art traditions?
Where was weaving practiced in Oceania?
Which Oceanic regions made pottery before European contact?
Which Pacific regions are included in Oceanic art and architecture?
Which natural materials did Oceanic artists use to make artworks?
Which purposes did traditional Oceanic artworks serve in island societies?
Which surfaces were painted in traditional Oceanic art?
Which tools were used for carving and engraving wood in Oceania?
Which types of costumes were worn by mourners in the Society Islands?
Why did Christianity lead to the destruction or disappearance of many Polynesian artworks?
Why did Hawaiian chiefs wear feather cloaks and helmets in battle?
Why did some Oceanic artists make blades from tridacna shell?
Why is knowledge of ancient Oceanic art incomplete?
Why is the bird a widespread symbol in Oceanic art?
Why was craftsmanship an important standard for judging Oceanic artworks?
Why was paint believed to give sculpture magical or life-giving power in some Oceanic cultures?
Why was wood the main artistic medium in much of Oceania?
Why were Maori storehouses raised on carved posts?
Why were complex joining and pegging methods especially important in the Caroline Islands?
Why were malanggan carvings of New Ireland made only for ceremonies?

Visual Arts

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External Websites

The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Oceanic/Pacific Art
Art Encyclopedia - Oceanic Art

Oceanic art and architecture

visual arts

Also known as: Oceanian art

Written by

Douglas Newton

Evelyn A.J. Hall and John A. Friede Chairman, Department of Primitive Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Author of Masterpieces of Primitive Art: The Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection and...

Douglas Newton

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

History

Oceanic art and architecture, the visual art and architecture of native Oceania, including media such as sculpture, pottery, rock art, basketry, masks, painting, and personal decoration. In these cultures, art and architecture have often been closely connected—for example, storehouses and meetinghouses are often decorated with elaborate carvings—and so they are presented together in this discussion. For more general explorations of media, see individual media articles (e.g., painting, sculpture, pottery, and textile). For a discussion of...