Aboriginal Art - It's more than just an art, learn it and you will love it (hopefully..)

Aboriginal art has uniqueness and cultural significance that can be easily distinguished from other art styles and it is the world's longest continuing art tradition. Art, for the Indigenous peoples, means knowledge that used to attain status. It is central to their life. (Caruana 2003, 10)

National Geographic correspondent David Betz who is a curator of Songlines Aboriginal Art Gallery in San Francisco-Amsterdam wrote a traveler article about the art, painting in particular. He used narrative and descriptive writing style in explaining its history, value, and style. It helps readers to appreciate the art more and leave a trace of curiosity. David doesn't put a picture of Aboriginal painting but instead he describes it in words. If the intended reader is art collector it will be better if he also put a painting picture as he explains about promising future in Aboriginal painting. It will provide a visual aid to grab reader's attention.

The purpose of his writing is to explain significance behind the art that is related to Aboriginal culture especially their spiritual belief and also to give a new perspective to people that the artwork is now much valuable than it was and has achieved worldwide recognition. He mentions that in '90s paintings sold for a few thousand dollars but now fetch prices in excess of $60,000. 

However, National Geographic has intention to use the article as tourism purpose, giving the reader an information about new travel destination that they should consider. They try to convince people to go to the Aboriginal communities in Northern Territory and Western Australia if they want to buy Aboriginal art. In my opinion, this article should be classified as art and culture not tourism.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/articles/1077aboriginalart.html