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A comparison of american indian culture to european culture
Western native american tribes
Native American Cultural Assessment Project
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Another example of how art represented in the Native North America exhibit is a painting by David Paul Bradley, a Chippewa artist, titled Greasy Grass Premonition #2. It depicts a scene from the Battle of Little Bighorn, but the tombstone explains that Native Americans know it as the Battle of Greasy Grass Creek. By providing that information for the audience, the MFA is allowing them a glimpse into the minds of Native Americans and their culture instead of presenting it as another example of Western bias.
The painting itself is an incredible combination of colors, texture, and style. The scene includes a line of general white warriors all dressed identically in the foreground. They wear military clothing appropriate for the timeline of the Great Sioux War of 1876, including white gloves, a brimmed hat, and an ascot. The military men are
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painted in a naturalistic style.
Their body proportions are realistic, and while not many details can be seen in their faces, one assumes it is proportionally based on the size of the facial hair and outline of the eyes. The naturalism lends the foreground of the painting a quality of "realness" especially when compared with the slightly more cartoonish depiction of the thought bubble hovering over the military men's heads. The figures depicted in the thought bubble are much less realistic to the military men. Some of the thought bubble characters are Native Americans, some are the enemy they fight. Many colors are used in contrast to the solemn blue of the military men. The Native Americans are portrayed with feathers in their hair, brandishing guns or spears while atop a horse. The white enemy wears blue uniforms similar to those of the men in the foreground of the
painting, but they lack in naturalism. None of the military men ride a horse. Most of the figures in the thought bubble are dead or dying with arrows sticking out of bodies or blood dripping onto the ground. The bodies that litter the ground are mostly white men in line with the history of the battle that the Lakota, Arapaho and Northern Cheyenne warriors decidedly won. To help represent their victory in battle, an United States flag lies on the ground in the thought bubble, defeated by the Native Americans. The contrast between using a naturalistic style in the foreground of the painting and a more abstract style in the thought bubble is a deliberate way to force the audience to question the accuracy of the history taught in schools. The military men made in the likeness of George Custer are more real, causing us to assume he is the most important part of the story as is presented in history classes. With the juxtaposition of the cartoonish thought bubble, one may be led to the conclusion that the Native Americans victory was not as concrete as one might believe. These vying styles and implications cause the audience to ask several questions that challenge the assumptions of this battle. The Native Americans are shown triumphant in the thought bubble, but history is rarely taught through the lens of Native Americans, so the audience is left to ponder how history is taught and what internal biases contribute to the retelling of Native American history. The MFA does a commendable job in including a tidbit about how Native Americans view this particular battle, so that the audience is aware of the differences between United States history and Native American history.
At first glance, John Taylor and Howling Wolf’s visual representations of the treaty signing at Medicine Creek Lodge appear very different from one another. It is more than apparent that the two artists have very different interpretations of the same event. This paper will visually analyze both works of art by comparing and contrasting the compositional balance, medium, and use of color, as well as how the artists narrated their views using different visual elements.
N. Scott Momaday wrote these lines in his 1991 book of poems, In the Presence of the Sun: “In the shine of photographs / are the slain, frozen and black / … In autumn there were songs, long / since muted in the blizzard.” In this poem called “Wounded Knee Creek”, Momaday depicts the aftermath of Federal and Native American conflict at the Battle of Wounded Knee. He reminds the reader of how the event and loss of native life are remembered solely through these photographs of the dead and lost. Momaday’s work represents the Western tradition of artists using their art to memorialize and remember the past peoples and places that have been transformed, built up, and destroyed through government institutions of the West. It is this remembrance of
In the short story “Chickamauga,” by Ambrose Bierce, there are several examples of imagery throughout the passages that help to describe the horrors of war. Bierce sets the story with a young boy playing war in a forest, who is then approached by a “formidable enemy,” a rabbit. The sudden appearance startles the boy into fleeing, calling for his mother in “inarticulate cries,” and his skin getting “cruelly torn by brambles.” The selection of these details leaves a lucid image in the mind of the reader, allowing them to see a sobbing boy running through the forest, covered in cuts and scratches. It represents the innocence and fear of a child, lost and alone in an unknown place. The birds above his head “sang merrily” as the boy was “overcome
Representational art work is resembling the natural world and abstract art shows objects in a basic style (Sayre, Pg. 26). While Taylor uses naturalism in his art work, Wolf uses symbols to show the Native American culture. Wolf’s art is two dimensional because it is flat. Wolf also uses many colors to represent the culture of Native Americans. The colors shown in the artist image is both primary and secondary colors, and is sketched on plain paper. Taylor’s image of the signing of the treaty shows the colors of black and white. Taylor used the highlight method which is going from lighter to darker color. The artist work is also three dimensional. Also, Wolf’s art work exhibited many women (Sayre, Pg. 41) and displays the attendance being majority Native Americas. In Taylor’s image there are no women presented (Sayre, Pg. 41), and indicates at the event there are more United States government there then Native
...d Native Americas in a negative light, such as Carl Wimer’s Abduction of Daniel Boone’s Daughter, George Caleb Bingham’s Concealed Enemy, and Horatio Greenough’s The Rescue. These two paintings and statue in particular should be included because they depict the views of people in that era. The view of Native Americans was that of savagery. In the painting by Wimer the woman is depicted a fair skinned maiden, due to the white dress who is being brutishly taken away. The statue by Greenough, which depicts a man protecting his family from a savage Native American, was outside of the United States Capital for nearly a hundred years before it was taken down. These views of indigenous people during the 19th century have lasting impacts on our country. It is our job to tell the real story of what happened to the Native Americans as victims of our view of manifest destiny.
This photo was taken to represent the Modoc War and the intelligence of the Modoc Braves that was greatly underestimated. The Modoc war was also known as the Modoc Campaign. The U.S. Army needed a photographer to capture the images of the war between the two forces. They hired the photographer who was famous at the time for capturing movement on film, Eadweard Muybridge and titled the photograph of this particular photo “A Modoc Brave on the War Path.” The U.S. Army also could not get an action shot of a Modoc warrior without endangering the life of he photographer so, they hired the Native American in the image, which means he is not a Modoc warrior. Muybridge was the lead photographer for the early part of the war in the early 1870’s and the location of the war was held to the Northeast side of California.
A old sandy color bridge is cast upon the middle of the painting, which is crumbling apart and crashing into the water. The water in this painting is dark blue and white showing the choppiness of the water. In the middle of the painting is a white statue with its head broken off, but still standing, holding a black shield leaning forward towards the center of the painting. In the background fire and gray and black smoke cover the landscape. The gray skies linger over the town with a dark depressing tone. While the river banks are roaring with fire. In the lower center of the painting is a woman dressed in white jumping to off the river bank with a warrior behind her. In the lower portion of the painting ships are on fire. Throughout the whole painting you will see thousands of people, some enemy warriors some townspeople. The enemy warriors are wearing red. While the townspeople are dressed in typical daily life clothing
... in a common effort that contributed to protest activities. The photograph also uses tension to portray the two conflicting ideologies. There is visible tension between the guardsmen and the protestors; the guns represent war and violence while the flowers represent peace, love and nature. The National Guardsmen also look very uneasy while the protestors look content and comfortable. The union of the two creates tension in this photograph because they are so meaningful alone, making this photograph a very iconic image of the time.
At the start of the war, many people, including president Abraham Lincoln, thought that the few battles wouldn’t turn into much and that the fighting would be over soon. Clearly, they were wrong. As the fighting continued, uniforms became necessary in order to stop men from shooting others on their own sides. When uniforms were first created, they were very inconsistent in the way they were made. Styles of clothing depended on where they were made or who made them. Many s...
Mooney, Amy M. “Archibald J. Motley Jr.” The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art: Volume IV. Pomegranate - San Francisco. Copyright 2004 6.
Pioch, N. (2002, Jul 16). WebMuseum: Pollock, Jackson. Retrieved 3 30, 2014, from Pollock, Jackson: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/pollock/
Of the millions of cowboys,trappers and mountain men camped out in the rugged mountains and long plains of Montana, very few were artists. Even fewer had a dream as big and ambitious as Charlie Russell’s, and nobody shared the amount of respect and love he had for the West. He created art now renowned around the world, and his statue stands in the US Capitol Building representing all of Montana. But what made the cowboy’s art so famous was the way he lived.
This piece of art was commission in 1853 and hung in 1855. The painting captures Hernando De Soto, the Spanish conquistador and explorer, riding in on a white horse symbolizing victory, in the finest of attire in the brightness of the picture. The painting depicts his discovery of the Mississippi River as he and troops approach the river and the Natives that are camped in front of it. As De Soto moves towards the Natives, who are in front of their teepees, the chief extends a seemly piece offering a piece pipe to him. This picture further tells a deeper story as you look at the darker part of it. There are cannons, weapons, and injured men. There is someone praying as a cross is being into the ground, indicating there was a battle for
Produced in 1943, They Died With Their Boots On, a Warner Brothers® film, is a horribly inaccurate account of the events that lead to the Battle of Little Big Horn. His early days in war were depicted accurately, however. Boots told of his experiences at West Pointe; the most important experience is, notably, his graduation. He received the absolute worst scores ever recorded at West Pointe upon his commencement. After that point, it all goes down hill. Custer was also a womanizer, but in this film he was quite a gentlemen, being sure to get Elizabeth Bacon’s father’s permission for everything the two did together. Custer was displayed as a very sympathetic and warm-hearted general, while he was, in actuality, not such. Custer was known to be rather a large egoist and somewhat of a rude man. Then, for “dramatic effect”, filmmakers fabricated a conspiracy that Custer’s “enemies” concocted to remove him from opposition. His opponents, executives of a large company which he refused a position in, “lied” about gold in the Black Hills in order to trick thousands of Americans into violating a peace treaty with the Sioux. The truth: there really WAS gold in the Black Hills. Negro slaves were depicted as goofy and silly, added only for comic effect. One lady in particular danced about singing a rhyme, “Rabbit’s foot, work your charm, protect that lady’s man from harm!” after reading the “tea leaves” for a friend. The Sioux Indians were also depicted rather inaccurately. They all wore a single feather in the backs of their heads and yipped and hollered just as “Indians” would do. They screamed and beat their hands on their mouths, all the while speaking English in the manner of a five year-old. Finally, the film’s depiction of Civil War battles, not to mention the battle of Little Big Horn, were laughable. There were twenty, MAYBE thirty men all lined up on either side of the field, and every time the Union soldiers fought, at least two Confederate soldiers or Indians fell, dead. However, when the opposing side fired or attacked, the Union cavalries were nearly impregnable.
Artist, Frederic Remington was a painter and sculptor who had many subjects for his art like native americans, cavalry officers, and horses. His paintings promoted the westward expansion where one could find freedom in exploring the vast open areas of unknown America’s wilderness. His style and images depicted strength, courage, perseverance, and adventure to reflect the current attitude of the Westward movement. George Catlin was another important artist of the West, as a young boy growing up in Pennsylvania was fascinated by native americans by finding arrow head artifacts and listening to tales of his mom being captured by Indians. Later in life, he traveled for 8 years where he met 48 Native American tribes and produced more than 500 paintings of native americans in full regalia. His work was done in watercolors and oils to record the tribes he met. He didn’t believe in the saying, “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”(Harold McCracken, pg. 13). The Hudson River School member, Albert BIerstadt was a painter who used luminism, a type of romanticism to brighten up his paintings yet still have a rugged appeal. He caught the public’s eye and opened up the West as full of opportunities for exploration. His grand scale landscapes of the West were painted using an abundance of detailed lighting to capture