X-RAY STYLE

manner of depicting animals by drawing or painting the skeletal frame and internal organs, one of the characteristic styles of the art of prehistoric hunting cultures. The origin of the style can be traced to the Mesolithic art of northern Europe, where the earliest examples were found on fragments of bone in southern France dating from the late Magdalenian Period. Animals painted in the X-ray motif have also been discovered in the art of hunting cultures in northern Spain, Siberia, the Arctic Circle, North America, western New Guinea, New Ireland, India, and Malaysia. It is found today primarily in the Aboriginal rock, cave, and bark paintings of eastern Arnhem Land, in northern Australia. Figures painted in X-ray style vary in size up to 8 feet (2.5 metres) in length and are delicate, polychromed renderings of the interior cavity of the animal. Images are known in which only the outline and skeleton of the bird, fish, or mammal are indicated, and the entire internal system of organs is expressed by a life line, a single, horizontal line that runs from the animal's mouth to a dot representing the heart or stomach. Whether the depiction of an animal in the X-ray style had particular religious symbolism is not known.