Artistic traditions of indigenous North America are explored in a study that draws on the testimonies of oral tradition, Native American history, and North American archaeology, focusing on the artists themselves and their cultural identities. Original.
A comprehensive survey of American Indian weaving examines all aspects of the textile artistry and techniques of the native peoples of North America, including information on looms and dyeing, weaving technology and design aesthetics, collecting and preserving Indian weavings, and more.
The richness of Native American art is explored from the early pre-Columbian period to the present day, stressing the conceptual and iconographic continuities over five centuries and across an immensely diverse range of regions. 53 color photos. 104 halftones. 8 maps.
North American Indian Art: Masterpieces and Museum Collections from the Netherlands showcases 114 oustanding examples of Native art and heritage from the Canadian subarctic forests to the American Southwest preserved in Dutch museums. Many of these rare material documents collected between the seventeenth and the twenty-first century have never been published before. They are here stunningly presented as individual works of art and placed into their cultural and historical contexts by forty-two leading American, Canadian, and European experts who weave together the historical narrative of each object's acquisition with current Native and scholarly interpretations of their use and meaning. In his introductory essay Pieter Hovens provides a detailed account of the history of Dutch interests in North American Indian cultures, from the seventeenth-century colonial experience in New Netherland through the collecting activities of public institutions and private connoisseurs to academic scholarship and social engagement. All of these interests have contributed to the wealth and range of objects featured here as well as to the public perception of Native Americans in the Netherlands. This book offers for the first time an overview of all institutional collections of Native North American arts and cultures in a single European country. It is the privilege of the Dutch museums to share these heritage collections with the widest audience possible.
This eBook is best viewed on a color device. North American Indian Arts is a fascinating introduction to the arts and crafts reflected in the material culture of North American Indians. Knowledge of the skills and techniques developed by the various Native American tribes, and the fine materials produced provides a key to understanding the rich diversity of native cultures. Packed with information and authentic full-color illustrations, this handsome guide will be welcomed by everyone interested in American cultural history.
This introduction to the art of tribal peoples of North America, Africa, and the South Pacific does not briefly cover the hundreds of artistic traditions in these three vast areas but rather studies in depth thirty-six art styles within all three areas using the methods of art history, including stylistic analysis and iconographic interpretation. Emphasis is on the art in cultural context and as a system of visual communication within each tribal area. Where appropriate for a more complete understanding of the art, data from archaeology, ethnology, linguistics, religion, and other humanistic disciplines are included.Among the peoples and cultures whose art is studied are the Haida, Kwakiutl, and Tlingit; the Hohokam and Mongollon, the Anasazi and Hopi; the Dogon and Bamana of Mali; the Asante of Ghana; the Benin, Yoruba, and Ibo of Nigeria; the Fan, the Bamum, and the Kuba of Central Africa; Australian aboriginal and Island New Guinea art; Island Melanesia art; central and eastern Polynesia; Hawaii and the Maori in Marginal Polynesia.The format of the text and selected illustrations is based on seventeen years of teaching African, North American Indian, and South Pacific art to undergraduate and graduate students at Herbert H. Lehman College (CUNY), New York University, and Columbia University. The book is intended for art history and anthropology students and the interested lay reader or collector. The detailed notes at the end of the book are for further study, research, and understanding of the tribal art style under discussion.
This landmark publication reevaluates historical Native American art as a crucial but under-examined component of American art history. The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection, a transformative promised gift to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, includes masterworks from more than fifty cultures across North America. The works highlighted in this volume span centuries, from before contact with European settlers to the early twentieth century. In this beautifully illustrated volume, featuring all new photography, the innovative visions of known and unknown makers are presented in a wide variety of forms, from painting, sculpture, and drawing to regalia, ceramics, and baskets. The book provides key insights into the art, culture, and daily life of culturally distinct Indigenous peoples along with critical and popular perceptions over time, revealing that to engage Native art is to reconsider the very meaning of America. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Verdana}
The magnificent art and decorative craftsmanship of the Indian tribes of North America appear in all of their colonial variety and complexity in this superb volume. Examples are included of the work of every major region in the areas now comprising the United States and Canada, of most of the numerically important or artistically pre-eminent tribes, and all of the major techniques employed by Indian artists. No reader of this book can long continue in a misapprehension of the stereotyped image of 'the Indian.' The varying cultures which developed on the North American continent - from the Eskimo hunters of the Arctic to the woodland League of the Iroquois, and from the Pueblo agriculturalists to the nomads of the Great Plains - are all represented. Each found its own ways of using available natural resources for utilitarian objects, for religious and ritual purposes, or for sheer aesthetic pleasure. The book abounds in beautiful examples of characteristics shell and quill work, pottery and weaving, deer and buffalo hide painting, carved stone pipes and tomahawks so commonly associated with Indian cultures. Less familiar are illustrations of mysterious stone effigy sculptures from the death-cults of the ancient Southeast; sophisticated carvings in stone and ivory from the Midwest; elaborate horse-trappings and costuming from the Great Plains; and a fascinating variety of masks. Dr. Dockstader draws upon a thorough knowledge of Indian life, custom and artistic tradition to relate this material to its sources in his introduction and in the extensive background comments accompanying each of the illustrations. He sees the art of the American Indian not as a subject for static sociological research, but as a living and continuing expression of a vital people, and he has included in this book a number of examples of recent and contemporary work by Indian artists. -- from dust jacket.
This text is a comprehensive examination of Native American art, containing introductions for each of the eight culture areas as well as 34 regional sections. The majority of works covered in the book are from the historic period - some as early as 500 BC - but contemporary pieces are also covered.