- Also called:
- American Indian art
- Key People:
- Oscar Howe
- Joseph Yoakum
- Mildred Cleghorn
Native American art
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What is Native American art?
Native American art encompasses the visual art of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas. It includes a wide range of artistic expressions from various cultures and time periods.
Many Native American art objects have a utilitarian purpose, such as containers or means of worship, reflecting the social organization of the cultures. The best artwork was often intended to please deities or control the environment, with ritual interwoven into the creative process.
In the contemporary art world, Native American art has often been on the periphery, but there are growing efforts to preserve and promote it. Many Native American artists are creating works in various media, gaining recognition in the fine arts. Tribal councils and economic development boards support the arts to augment income and preserve cultural value.
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What kinds of visual arts have Native Americans created?
Native American visual arts encompass a wide range of materials and styles, reflecting the diverse environments and cultures across the Americas. These art forms include sculpture, pottery, and basket weaving, using materials like wood, clay, and grasses.
Native American artists often adapt their designs to the natural forms of their materials, showcasing a remarkable ability to incorporate these elements into their compositions. Various art expressions of the original inhabitants of the Americas include flint, stone carving, and pottery.
In the Southwest, the Pueblo people are known for weaving, painting, and pottery, using native cotton and mineral pigments. The Navajo and Apache tribes, who settled in the Southwest, adopted and improved upon these arts, particularly silversmithing and weaving. Today, Native American artists continue to create in various media, including acrylic, tempera, and oil, while incorporating native themes and techniques.
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What materials and techniques do Native American artists use?
Native American artists use diverse materials and techniques that reflect their environment. They use materials such as wood, clay, and fibers from grasslands, as well as jade, turquoise, shells, and metals.
Pottery is made by coiling and molding, with slips used to cover the body, and colored slips for decoration. Glazes are rare, but the effect of a reducing atmosphere is understood, resulting in gray and black pots, as well as red and brown ones fired in oxidizing flames.
For rock art, they used ground clay, minerals, or charcoal for pigments, applying them as solids or blowing them onto surfaces. They also bound pigments with liquids and applied them with fingers or brushes made from animal hair, feathers, or split sticks. Engravings were made with fingers on soft walls or with flint tools on hard surfaces.
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How do Native American visual arts reflect their cultures and beliefs?
Native American visual arts serve various functions, from weaponry and regalia in political and military societies to ceremonial art in cultures heavily governed by religion. The artwork's purpose was to please deities, appease angry gods, and honor the deceased, with the goal of controlling the environment and supernatural beings.
The semi-magical designs in Native American art embody the essence of the subject rather than realistic records. Rituals were interwoven into the creative process, emphasizing the importance of the process alongside artistic skill. Working with materials natural to their homelands, Native American cultures produced art that reflected their environment.
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What are some important symbols or patterns found in Native American visual arts?
Native American visual arts encompass a wide range of artistic expressions across diverse cultures and time periods. Certain symbols and patterns appear consistently across different groups, often carrying similar significance.
Common symbols and patterns:
* Plumed Serpent: This motif appears in various forms across many cultures in Middle America and extends into the United States in visual art and legends.
* Feline deity: The presence of a feline deity is found throughout South America, demonstrating the spread of visual elements and ideas.
* Thunderbird: A powerful spirit in the form of a bird. Lightning was believed to flash from its beak, and the beating of its wings was thought to represent the rolling of thunder.
* Medicine Wheels: Visual devices divided into quadrants that include colors and attributes or powers associated with the cardinal directions and teachings.
* Camp Circles: A circle or a series of concentric circles of tepees arranged by the Plains Indians in a definite order in accordance with their tribal custom.Many designs originate from natural forms or geometric motifs and can be personal creations resulting from a vision quest.
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How has Native American visual art influenced or been influenced by other art forms or cultures over time?
Native American visual art is a broad category encompassing art expressions from the original inhabitants of the Americas across vast time sequences. Borrowing art forms from distant peoples was a common practice, with ornamental materials like feathers, shells, and turquoise traded over long distances, expanding tribal styles as new ideas diffused. Intertribal marriage also affected regional styles, spreading artistic traditions.
When different peoples moved into a common area, this resulted in a melding of cultures. For example, the Navajo learned weaving techniques and designs from the Pueblo people and improved upon them. In the contemporary art world, Native American art occupies a peripheral role, though interest is growing, with many Native American artists creating remarkable works in various media, sometimes combining native themes and techniques with those of other cultures. Joan Hill, a Creek and Cherokee painter, drew inspiration from Creek legends and other Native American cultures, blending realism with abstract expressionism.
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Native American art, the visual art of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas, often called American Indians. For a further discussion of the visual art of the Americas produced in the period after European contact, see Latin American art.
The nature and elements of Native American art
The role of the artist
The very use of the word art suggests one of the basic differences between European or European-derived and American Indian concepts. For not only did few American Indian groups allow art to become a major way of life, as in the West, but many Native American languages even lack a term meaning “art” or “artist.” If one wished to refer to a beautiful basket or a well-carved sculpture, it was usually necessary to rely upon such terms as “well-done,” “effective,” or perhaps “powerful” (in the magical sense). And the concept of an artist was largely of a person who was simply better at the job than was another. Generally, artists were accorded special significance only where wealth was a major factor in the culture. The elite of many cultures, whether wealthy in their own right or (more commonly) by having attained a high religious office, supported groups of artists who produced memorial and religious art.
Although American Indian people may not have considered artistic skill in terms of a vocation, the difference between a well-woven basket and a careless piece of work or a particularly well-designed carving and a crudely made example did not go unnoticed. Fine workmanship commanded a premium long before European contact, and with the advent of the monetary system, it was even more highly prized.
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Collective versus individual art
The basic role of the American Indian artist is the same as that of the artist in any culture: to arouse an emotional response in his or her audience. In Native American cultures, the artist’s ability to communicate successfully depended largely upon the recognition of the force of tradition. The social organization of the various tribes allowed less latitude for experimentation than Western cultures and usually compelled the artist to work in familiar channels. Yet, within this rigid framework of tradition, there was sometimes a surprising degree of freedom of expression. There are recorded instances of individuals having made considerable changes in the art (and the economy) of their tribes. In North America, perhaps the most striking have been the careers of Nampeyó, the famed Hopi potter, and María Martínez and Julián Martínez, of San Ildefonso pueblo. Through sheer individual talent these people achieved a personal triumph by developing a style that not only was copied by other artists but in time also was regarded as “traditional” in that particular village. Although there is no way of knowing how often this happened in the past, there are suggestions that it occurred at Mimbres, among the Haida slate carvers, and quite possibly in some areas of the so-called Mound Builder cultures of the Southeast.
Origins of designs
The origins of most Native American decorative designs cannot be traced accurately today; most of them are lost in antiquity. Many obviously came from natural forms, while others are simple developments of geometric or lineal motifs. Some have become so interwoven with alien concepts—Western, after the advent of the European, for example—that it is impossible to completely unravel their sources. There is evidence, however, that some of the original forms were creations of individual artists and were often the result of a vision quest. To the American Indian the world of the vision quest is mysterious, a place where the soul can leave the body, participate in many strange activities, and see many unusual sights. Since many of the designs seen or creatures encountered during the vision quest are regarded as protective forms or spirit-beings, these would be carefully re-created during waking hours. Non-artists would occasionally describe their dream creatures to a designated artist so that they could be recorded on hide, in wood, or in stone. But since these supernatural visions were extremely personal, they were usually recorded by the individual; hence, they vary tremendously in aesthetic quality.
Because art designs were regarded as personal property, an artist could buy a design or receive it as a gift from its creator, but to appropriate and use it for his or her own purposes was taboo.