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Oceanic art is diverse in style and technique. Artefacts were not considered art by their creators, but were an integral part of the religious and social ceremony of everyday island life. Art objects include ancestor figures, canoe-prow ornaments, ceremonial shields, masks, stone carvings, decorated human skulls, pottery, and stools. Fertility is a recurrent theme, along with occasional references to headhunting and ritual cannibalism. Most Oceanic arts are considered primitive in that until recently the indigenous cultures possessed no metal, and cutting tools were of stone or shell. The vocabulary of contemporary Aboriginal painting is derived from these ritual designs and practices. The waves of shimmering dots, the maze patterns, the lyrical lines, the passages of sensual, light dappled color that activate contemporary Aboriginal paintings are all meant to deliberately disorient or dazzle the senses and provoke a sense of the power and mystery inherent in The Dreaming and the resonant...

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