Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

The busier, more erratic surfaces of the Yirrkala works add diversity to the Collection and complement larger, more formal works from this region collected fifteen years after the expedition. Yirrkala Community Australia Death, burial and the journey of the spirit to the land of the dead 1948 Natural pigments on paper 58.5x45.7cm Gift of the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land 1956 Queensland Art Gallery Camp 3 — Gunbalanya Gunbalanya (incorrectly recorded on Mountford's map as Unbalanja) was the final camp .17 As predicted by Mountford, it was 'the most spectacular, the most productive and, at the same time the most uncomfortable of our research camps ...'. The area yielded spectacular works which reflected the prevalence of water birds around the numerous billabongs and floodplains of the Alligator River and bats from the heavily wooded areas and caves of the rugged Arnhem Land plateau, as well as other works of related ceremonial designs. In style, the five works from Gunbalanya, painted in natural pigment on card, derive from the ancient tradition of rock art prolific in the region. Yet, as a result of the relative softness of the buff- coloured and ageing card, they have a distinctive, almost ethereal quality. In the Five royal spoonbills, birds float in formation across the surface, heads bowed in unison while they eke out sustenance in the soft mud of the swamps with their spatula­ shaped bills. Similarly, in Waterbird a single motif appears in suspended animation on an unpainted background replicating the plain surface of rock art. Unusually, the minimal quality of the overall composition and the delicate interior patterning of dots and dashes bear a strong resemblance to the Groote Eylandt barks. It is possible that Mountford's intense interest in rock art in both areas influenced his selection of these somewhat similar works. Under the broad category of spirit people, Mountford collected Boubit-boubit, the wild honey man. Although it depicts an intriguing abstract design of the honeycomb, which also appears in ritual body design, this work refers directly to the narrative of the wild honey men. These ancestral beings, looking for the much sought-after wild honey, transgressed the waterhole of the rainbow serpent and were drowned. They now dwell with the honey trees at the bottom of the waterhole CHARLES MOUNTFORD AND THE 'BASTARD BARKS' 215