Carving

The integration of aesthetic form and practical function is probably one of the most striking features of Polynesian wood carving. Wood carving was the most prominent and celebrated of the visual arts throughout Aotearoa and the Pacific and customarily incorporated a high degree of symbolic rationale. Ranging from agricultural implements and fishing equipment to weaponry, musical instruments and dwellings, items both mundane and celebratory were fashioned with refinement and great skill by craftsmen who were considered intermediaries between humans and the gods. Aesthetic sophistication was sought with the aim of pleasing the gods - ensuring that good fortune would be bestowed upon the group. Each item was therefore imbued with a spiritual significance which was heightened even more so when ancestors were the subject of depiction. Forms were largely figurative and were integrated with complex and rhythmic patterns and surface embellishments which in themselves served a symbolic function.

While the carving style throughout the Pacific region features geometric patterns and design, Maori carving is unique in its development of curvilinear form. In New Zealand, carving styles generally varied from region to region and were most obviously manifest in the most esteemed of the wood carving structures, the wharenui (meeting house). The architecture of the wharenui was conceptualised in terms of an ancestors body, the ridgepole being the spine, the internal rafters his/her ribs and the exterior barge boards, the arms. A depiction of the ancestor dedicated and named in honour of the house was positioned at the apex. The meeting house was the repository of tribal whakapapa, values, prestige and mana; the knowledge being contained within the semiology of the structure and its carved components.

See Also: Represented Artist: Lyonel Grant