Barrier Canyon Style
The Barrier Canyon style is Utah's most significant indigenous cultural form and the most prominent of the Colorado Plateau rock art styles. The Barrier Canyon style appears to be one of Utah's and America's longest running visual art traditions, with a life of about 6,000 years—give or take a thousand.
Given the quality of the Barrier Canyon style imagery, it is surprising that so little is known of the rock art. Indeed, we are still finding sites as of 2014. In 1991, the number of sites was thought to be around 160—The Project has just photographed its 392nd site and there are still a good number of canyon systems yet to be explored.
Papers
Barrier Canyon Style Rock Art
Tucked in among the arches and the reefs, hundreds of panels of rock art are displayed on the walls of the winding canyons in Utah—painted, pecked, and drawn by Native American artists during the prehistoric past. Many of the most striking rock art panels were created by Utah's first expressionist painters, Western Archaic hunters/gatherers, and while we do not know their name for themselves we have identified their painting style as the Barrier Canyon style.A general description of the Barrier Canyon rock art style, including a mention of the BCS PROJECT.
Barrier Canyon Style Rock Art (2012)
The BCS PROJECT
(pdf)
Water At Buckhorn Wash: Symbolism In Barrier Canyon Style Rock Art
The Barrier Canyon style rock art panel at Buckhorn Wash contains several images of spirit figures whose forms incorporate a visual motif of vertical parallel lines. La Van Martineau has suggested that the motif is a “rain symbol.” This linear motif can be found associated with anthropomorphic figures at numerous Barrier Canyon style rock art sites and as discrete images at other Western Archaic rock art sites in Utah. cs
Water At Buckhorn Wash (1996)
(pdf)
Presentations
Ungainly Ghosts And Other Northern Figures
Figures From The Northern Style Area Of The Barrier Canyon Style
Ungainly Ghosts And Other Northern Figures
(pdf)
Ancient Painters Of The Colorado Plateau / The Barrier Canyon Style —
Findings of the BCS PROJECT / 1991 — 2011
An illustrated presentation of the form motifs that comprise the Barrier Canyon style rock art. Variations of the Spirit Figure and the Parallel Line Motif are discussed, in particular. This is the first in a series of discussions, of Barrier Canyon style imagery, to come. A brief mention of the BCS PROJECT.
Ancient Painters Of The Colorado Plateau (Part One)
(pdf)
Ancient Painters Of The Colorado Plateau (Part Two)
(pdf)
Ancient Painters Of The Colorado Plateau (Part Three)
(pdf)
Ancient Painters Of The Colorado Plateau (Part Four)
(pdf)
Guest Papers/Presentations
Re-Thinking Aesthetics and Rock Art
Thomas Heyd and John Clegg
‘Rock art’ is the name conventionally given to marks, made by human beings on rock, often perceived as pictures or representations. Despite the visual attractiveness and strong emotional associations of most rock art, interested scholars, many of them archaeologists and anthropologists, seldom venture to directly discuss it from the aesthetic point of view.
Rethinking Aesthetics and Rock Art
(pdf)
The Case for Aesthetics in Rock Art Research
Thomas Heyd, with help by John Clegg
Images accompanying Re-Thinking Aesthetics and Rock Art.
The Case for Aesthetics in Rock Art
(pdf)