Inuit Stone Carving

Inuit stone carving is a very popular technique used by the inuit tribe and has been for many years. It is one of the most frequently talked about art forms in the Inuit culture due to its minimalistic and intricate aspect. The idea of stone carving has been around since before the early 1840’s for the Inuit tribe and still lives in today. The beginning of Inuit art simply began with the people of the Inuit tribes interpretation on life and their views on society's struggles to survive. The Europeans came in contact with the Inuit tribe during the opening of the Hudson Bay company. Europeans started to create fur trade posts and was introduced to the soapstone carving of which the Inuit tribe specialized in. These stone carvings lead a

big role in how their tribe would survive. The Europeans would trade items that the Inuit tribe needed for these easy to make soap stone “toys”. The Inuit started to move onto other materials such as animal tusks and other soft stones similar to soap stone. The inuits played a big part in how stone carving came to be and how the Europeans passed on ideas and items. Overall, the inuits were creatively advanced groups who found meaning in the art of carving stone. They performed and still perform rituals having to do with their art. The inuits soap and other stone carvings were brilliant and paved a way for other sculptures made from stone.

Photo one uses the element of line and texture, the line of the tusk also incorporates visual movement. The tusk shows a lot of actual texture, the texture is bumpy.
The second photo uses line and form the line of the stick and the form of the man and animal stand out to me.
The third photo uses texture and value, the texture of the two animals is really defined by the values and contrast of the colors.