Native American Pottery, Beadwork and Sculpture Carving In Native American cultures the visual arts were essential expressions of social and sacred systems, and concepts of beauty were an important and integral element of people’s lives. Given this importance and the need for accurate communication, Native Americans developed commonly held ideals concerning the standards of beauty they valued in works of art. These standards determined regional and Native American tribal styles of clothing, ceramics, sculpture, painting and all other utilitarian and specialized modes of decoration and visual representation. Since there were no schools or academies of art, technical expertise and aesthetic values were passed down from one generation to another. The art of Native American societies were determined by the physical characteristics of a work of art as well as by its meaning and the manner in which it was created. Pueblo Jar Northwest Totem Acoma Pottery Native Americans were sensitive to such factors as color, shape, proportion, symmetry, construction and finish as basic aesthetic elements that constituted the beauty of a work of art. Recognizable styles of Native American art developed, based on commonly held conventions or rules about the use of color, form and balance; all artists in a given group had to use a common group of visual elements in their work. In this type of system success depends on an individual’s ability to create inventive artistic solutions to the problems of integrating a two-dimensional design system to three-dimensional forms. In their study of Northwest Coast carving. Holm and Reid (1976) demonstrated how the success of an individual work of art closely depends on the artist’s ability to manipulate the guiding aesthetic conventions while also expressing the beauty of their spiritual associations. Northwest Coast Native American Mask Carving Native American artists throughout North America used color to create visual effects and as a powerful reference to the vital natural forces that provided the basic structure of their lives. Among the Plains groups, for example, colors had some generally held references, such as yellow for the sun, blue for sky or water and red for the earth. As these essential elements of nature were imbued with great spiritual power, their associated colors also carried a high charge of religious importance that became part of their overall artistic effect of Native American art. Through the prehistoric and early historic periods the sources of color were natural pigments made from clays, crushed minerals and a great variety of plants. Plains Native American Beaded Hide Shirt The Plains Native American groups applied them to finely finished hide garments, creating fields of rich, soft color; the pleasing visual effect this produced implied by extension a meaningful reference to powerful sacred forces. Tones of rich terracotta red were also used throughout North America for the decoration of objects and adornment of the body, both for aesthetic and for sacred reasons. With the introduction of industrially produced pigments and materials from Europe, the soft natural colors were gradually superseded by brighter colors available from the traders. However, tribal stylistic preferences and natural associative symbolism remained important factors in Native American art. Color was also used by Plains Indian groups as a visual reference for the cardinal directions, which were considered potent sacred forces. Unlike the references to the sun or the earth, color associations with directions often varied from tribe to tribe. The proportions, balance and symmetry of designs also had many variations in different parts of the continent. The vital energy expressed by powerful asymmetrical Native American tribal designs and arrangements of color were favored as a positive aesthetic in the beadwork of the Delaware Indians in the eastern Woodlands region and of the Kiowa Indians in the southern Plains region. Woodland Indian Beaded Shoes
used it since at least the Sikyatki style of the 17th century. Other peoples, such as the Menominee of the Great Lakes region or the Lakota of the Plains region, favored symmetrical elements that give a sense of solid balance to their designs in quills, beads, weaving and painting. Early Hopi Indian Pottery The construction and finish of a work of art were also integral elements of its artistic success. All Native American peoples valued fine workmanship, as reflected in the equivalent terms for artist in their various languages, which generally mean one who has skill, talent and understanding in work. Ruth Bunzel reported that among Hopi Indian potters, for example, concerns for the technical skill in creating an object ranked even higher in their evaluation of a work of art than the aesthetics of its decoration. For the Hopi, the ceramic’s visual attraction was negated if it were made by a poor technique. Status of art and role of the artist In Native American cultures of all periods the creative arts were an integral and admired part of life because they were associated with primary social and sacred systems. Works of art, however, were not separated from their basic cultural functions or considered as statements of individual self- expression. The arts were a basic form of social communication, used to indicate status or rank, membership in group associations and personal achievements. In the south-east Woodland Native Americans during the Mississippian period (c. AD 700–c. 1700) individuals of high status associated with large communities were identified by special clothing and ornaments and by the high-quality ceramics, sculptures, elaborately engraved shells and embossed copper objects placed in their burials. In the fertile regions of the Northwest Coast the highly stratified social structure of the Native Americans was symbolically expressed by a large and diverse range of artistic creations. These included carved, painted and woven representations of heraldic animals associated with clans and families, as well as richly adorned objects that conveyed the rank and position of the bearer. Among the Indian tribal groups of the Plains region, association with important male warrior societies was indicated by the structure and ornamentation of special garments and objects used by members. These same individuals expressed their personal achievements as courageous warriors with beautifully drawn representations of their acts of bravery and daring applied to such articles of clothing as robes or shirts as well as to tepee covers and liners. Works of art were sometimes accumulated and distributed as status objects integral to the bonding of Native American social groups. The most extreme example of this tradition was the potlatch gift exchange of the Northwest Coast, in which great quantities of works of art, other valuable objects and food were given away, or sometimes deliberately destroyed, as part of an intricate system of social support and interrelationship. The tradition of exchanging works of art as gifts is still an important element of Native American life, and at times of communal interaction the display of fine objects and clothing remains a valued way for both men and women to demonstrate their skills and achievements. This characteristic was noted by 18th- and 19th-century European observers of the peoples of the Woodlands and Plains regions and was developed into a major element of cultural identity during the reservation period, a tradition that continues to the present day. In an allied sense, art objects in Native American society have also been valued and venerated for their age and the collective force of ancestral traditions that are associated with them. For example, Pueblo Native Americans in the Southwest show deep respect towards older ceramics and other objects used in ritual ceremonies. Works of art were also highly valued in the extensive system of intertribal and inter-regional trade that existed from ancient times. Archaeological evidence in the Southwest indicates that fine ceramics were an important part of a trade system extending south into Mexico and west to the California coast. Fine-quality ceramics and woven textiles are still one of the mainstays of the Pueblo Native American commercial system, whose market since the late 19th century has been mainly established in the non- Native American world. This commercial development of works of art for the non-Native American art market has been common to many tribal peoples living in all areas of America. Early Painted Southwestern Native American Pot
power. Human activity was also deemed important to the natural order, and proper social and ritual behavior was necessary to maintain the course and harmony of the world. Works of art were important carriers of spiritual power, prime examples being masks, notably the masks created for rituals of healing and myth of the False Face Medicine societies found among the Iroquois Native Americans of the north-east Woodlands or those of the Kachina dancers of the Hopi Indians in the Southwest, whose elaborate yearly performances mark the cycle of nature. Iroquois Native American Carved False Face Mask Forces of spiritual power in all indigenous North American cultures have also been represented by sculpture, painting, engraved petroglyphs and other media.
In the Great Lakes the Midewiwin Grand Medicine Society utilized a variety of works of art as elements of their ritual ceremonies. Spiritual forces called manitos were represented by animals and anthropomorphic figures made in a variety of media by male and female artists. Art as an expression of sacred power was also a vital element of Plains life. The great communal ceremonies of natural renewal called the Sundance used effigies and symbolically decorated objects to mark the essential elements of the ritual. This tradition is also found in the paraphernalia of the Crow Tobacco Society and in the elaborately painted clothing of the Ghost Dance societies. The Plains warrior also used art to represent the sacred powers that he hoped to attract in personal spirit quests. Revealed in dreams and visions, these images were painted on leather shields, which were carried into battle more as elements of magical than physical protection. Most members of traditional Native American societies were able to produce the essential goods and materials of everyday life; art was based on these utilitarian models but distinguished from them by quality and symbolic decoration. People with special skills at making things were admired for their creative talent, often being asked to produce objects for ritual and sacred purposes. Early Ojibwa Beadwork
conduct were asked to join a special group, whose honor it was to produce decorated clothing and containers for priests and ritual objects. Some Native American groups developed a class of professional artists whose special talents and skills were necessary to fulfill commercial demands as well as the needs of elaborate social and religious rituals. In the Southwest Pueblos, professionally produced ceramics have been traded since c. AD 1000. Perhaps the outstanding example of the professional artist was found among North-west Coast peoples, whose elaborate social and ritual lives depended on the visual arts. Another important role of the artist in Native American cultures was established by their association with shamanic healing ceremonies. Shamans from the cultures of the Great Lakes to the Northwest Coast regions and from the Arctic Eskimo culture created powerful works of art depicting their spirit allies. By objectifying the supernatural, these healer–artists made a great variety of masks, sculptures and paintings that still have the power to move the beholder both aesthetically and emotionally. Another extraordinary example of the artistic genius of the healer–artist can still be found in traditional Navajo culture, where the sacred singers who lead the curing ceremonies create sand paintings of great beauty and complexity that bring people back into natural harmony with themselves and the world. Copyright 2010 |
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