The Influences of Rock Spirits of Australian Aborigines on the Works of Modern European Artists and Contemporary Urban Graffities of Australia

This article explores the probable influences of rock spirits of Australian Aborigines on modern European artists in early 20th century and urban graffiti style in early 21st century. The main aim is to reveal the similarities and differences between such petroglyphs and modern art. Thus, reviewing the studies on rock art of Australian Aborigines, we ask if these rock spirits have any influence on the creativity of modern European artists and contemporary Australian urban grafitties and if they are aware of religious characteristics of these paintings. Attempts have been made to examine Australian Aborigine’s rock art and compare such art with contemporary Australian urban graffities and the works of modern European artists. Rock art of Australian Aborigines were formed according to the mythological believes and ritual-religious ceremonies of the Dream Time. Dream Time refers to the time when the world was created by the souls of ancestors. When ancestors were creating the world they drew pictures of the spirits on the rocks. Aborigines restored the first creative energy of their ancestors through rituals. Urban graffiti artists also found a very deep connection between themselves and unknown artists who painted their ancestor spirits on the rocks thousands years ago. Rock spirits of Wandjina was one of the main issues in this regard. In addition to formal effects, they represented these rock spirits in a creative way. Works of modern European artists show evidently some similarities with Australian rock spirits; for example, Moam rock spirits and X-ray painting can be observed in the works of Picasso, Klee, Vifredo Lam and Mirro, although there is no decisive evidence for it. According to different evidence, in early 20th century modern European artists who got tired of old fashioned patterns of classic art revived ancient arts in order to find new ways of creativity. Rock art of Australian Aborigines can be considered as one of the new bases for their creativity. The findings of the research show that although Australian rock arts, Australian urban graffiti and works of modern European artists have some formal similarities, they are different due to differences in time, place and cultural views. This paper is a library research and employs an analytic-descriptive method.