Drawing C

King Island Wolf Dancers with audience and musicians

Notes on content:

 

Notes on form/style:
By Cannelle Bruschini (student) with Elizabeth Hutchinson (instructor)

This drawing uses color and completeness of representation to indicate the most important features. Four hunters are shown in their entirety in the center of the drawing. Their arms are outstretched before them, wearing the characteristic mittens of the dance. The mittens are the most important artifacts used in this ceremony; this is why they have been represented in red. The striking color is applied to the elements on the sealskin that can make noise if they are shaken – often little pieces of ivory or puffin beaks, but today comprising a range of materials that can make noise when shaken. Thus, one sense–sight–is appealed to to evoke a response from another sense–hearing.

Sound is also evoked by the figures shown behind the dancers. The figures are show with open mouths as if they are singing and one man holds a drum, suggesting the rhythmic beats that measure the dance steps. While the dancers are depicted in color and using shades of gray to give them volume, the artist gave the singers no bodies. Only their heads are represented with the beginning of their torsos – and the outline of these elements consists only in a thin pencil line.

The audience members are the least drafted figures in the scene. We see just enough of them to witness the attention they give to the dance.

on the verso: