Native Americans regard art as an element of life, not as a separate aesthetic expression. In aboriginal societies, public life brings together dancing, poetry, and the plastic and graphic arts, uniting them in a single function: ritual as the all-embracing expression of life. Art is indispensable to ritual, and ritual represents the Native American concept of the whole life process.
Aboriginal philosophy does not separate art from healing or spirituality. Most of the healing disciplines came originally from religious beliefs and the practices of spiritual leaders. Trance, dance, painted drums, and painted shields were central to early shamanism, as they are to the continuing practice of this art and of other forms of Indian spirituality today.
In the hundreds of Native American languages there is no word that comes close to the meaning of the Western word art. Art, beauty, and spirituality are intertwined in the Native American routine of living.
Native Americans freely use symbols of the spiritual and physical worlds to enrich their daily lives and ceremonies. Symbols are protectors and reminders of the living universe, bridging the gap between the spiritual and physical realms. Symbols are used in ritual performances to portray the power in the cosmos. A common visual symbol used for healing in many American Indian societies in the past and also today is the mandala. The mandala represents the cosmos in miniature and, at the same time, the pantheon. Its construction is equivalent to a magical re-creation of the world. The mandala is in essence a schematic diagram showing the balance of forces in the symbolic universe. Native Americans have created mandalas in Navajo and Pueblo sand paintings, on Plains war shields, and on rock paintings throughout North America; they have also projected the mandala into space and time in the form of medicine wheels.
The medicine wheel, a mandalic art form and religious symbol, is common to many tribes. It consists of a circle, through the center of which are drawn horizontal and vertical lines and at the center of which an eagle feather is usually attached. The circle represents the sacred outer boundary of Earth; the vertical and horizontal lines represent the sun's and humanity's sacred paths; the crossing of the lines indicates Earth's center; the eagle feather is a sign of the Creator's power over everything. The medicine wheel is often marked with the four sacred colors common to indigenous people throughout North and South America—black, white, red, and yellow—representing the four cardinal directions, the four symbolic races of humanity, and other fourfold relationships.
It is difficult to discuss traditional Native American visual arts, especially prehistoric art, in terms of isolated objects categorized as paintings, sculpture, and so forth. For example, in many native cultures masks form part of a whole complex encompassing music, dance, drama, and poetry. In the setting of a modern museum or gallery, the essence of the aesthetic of such masks is lost.
In the area now called the United States, the indigenous populations were, and still are, extremely varied. Attempts to classify or order this diversity are complex. A common method used by scholars is the concept of "culture areas," geographical regions occupied by peoples with a significant degree of similarity among themselves and a significant amount of dissimilarity from the cultures of peoples in other areas. For the purposes of this essay, then, the East will be considered to have the Atlantic Coast as its eastern boundary and to be bordered on the west by the Great Plains. (At times the art of the Southeast will be discussed separately.) The Plains will include the prairies of the Midwest, most of the states of Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri, and the western parts of Arkansas and Texas, and will have the Rocky Mountains as its western boundary. The West will include southern California, the Great Basin, and the Plateau—all of the United States west of the Rocky Mountains with the exception of the Northwest Coast and the Southwest. The Northwest Coast will include the Pacific Coast from southern Alaska to northern California. And the Southwest will encompass most of Arizona and New Mexico, southeastern Nevada, southern Utah, and southwestern Colorado.
Five hundred years after the arrival of Columbus in the New World, the cultural influences acting on Native American art remain varied and complex. Many aesthetic changes have taken place in the twentieth century as native peoples have participated more fully in the dominant culture and incorporated artistic traditions from the United States, Europe, and other parts of the globe into their own traditions. Native American artists are in the process of developing new definitions of Indian art. Any insistence that Indian art remain "traditional" as a way of preserving culture is a form of cultural discrimination, because cultures are dynamic, not static.
Some modern writers have categorized the dominant styles of twentieth-century Native American art into four schools: historic expressionism, traditionalism, modernism, and individualism. Historic expressionism follows the techniques and design conventions of nineteenth-century tribal aesthetics while incorporating new themes. It is a reinterpretation of ancient conventions. Traditionalism retains a flat, shaded treatment of historic native imagery. This style is identified in the public's mind as "real Indian art" and is associated with the Santa Fe Studio of Dorothy Dunn and the "Kiowa movement." It was the style encouraged in the Philbrook Art Center's earlier competitions, held in Oklahoma beginning in 1946. Celebrated artists of this style such as Gilbert Atencio, Andrew Tsinahjinnie, Archie Blackowl, Harrison Begay, Fred Kabotie, Stephen Mopope, Ma Pe Wi, and Pablita Velarde created a rich legacy. Unfortunately, some conservative scholars and collectors have canonized this heritage as the only legitimate Indian art. Modernism experiments with mainstream contemporary art techniques but maintains a visible Native American imagery. Individualism refers to work that is indistinguishable from mainstream contemporary art and does not show an obvious allegiance to Indian social movements or ethnic identity.
Artists such as Oscar Howe (Yanktonai Sioux, 1915-84), Al Houser (Chiricahua Apache, 1914-94), R. C. Gorman (Navajo, 1932- ), and others helped bridge the gap between so-called traditional American Indian art and mainstream art. These artists opened new, expressive avenues for Indian artists that went beyond the meticulously detailed, yet frozen realism of traditional Indian painting. With neo-cubism, Howe recast traditional Indian imagery into structured planes and dramatic color combinations centered on heroic, mystical views of Indians. Howe's 1954 painting Victory Dance, influenced by European cubism, is a transitional work that retains the mystic nature of Howe's vision while at the same time imparting an experimental thrust to Indian painting. R. C. Gorman was the first Indian to paint nude figures and the first Indian to own a successful commercial gallery. Sculptor Al Houser's work spanned six decades, and he used styles ranging from the figurative to the surreal and abstract. No matter what the style or period, most Native American art emphasizes Indian values of beauty, balance, and harmony.
Although contemporary Native American culture has lost some of its early symbolism and rituals because of cultural change and assimilation, its essence remains. Native American thinking has not ever separated art from life, what is beautiful from what is functional. Art, beauty, and spirituality are intertwined in the routine of living. The Native American aesthetic has survived colonialism, servitude, racial discrimination, and rapid technological change.
See also
Basketry;
Beads and Beadwork;
Howe, Oscar;
Martínez, María;
Moundville;
Pictographs;
Sandpainting;
Textiles.
J. J. Brody, Indian Painter and White Patrons (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1971); E. Wade, ed., The Arts of the North American Indian: Native Traditions in Evolution (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1986); E. Wade and R. Strickland, Magic Images: Contemporary Native American Art (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981).
Phoebe Farris-Dufrene
Powhatan
Purdue University
