Native North American Art

by Berlo, Janet Catherine; Phillips, Ruth B.

• ISBN13: 9780192842664
• ISBN10: 0192842668
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-12-24
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

An innovative survey of Native North American art history which fully incorporates substantive new research and scholarship, and examines such issues as gender, representation, the colonial encounter, and contemporary arts. By encompassing both the sacred and secular, political and domestic,the ceremonial and commercial, it shows the importance of the visual arts in maintaining the integrity of spiritual, social , political, and economic systems within Native North American societies. This exciting new investigation explores the indigenous arts of the US and Canada from the early pre-contact period to the present day, stressing the conceptual and iconographic continuities over five centuries and across an immensely diverse range of regions. The richness of Native American art isemphasized through discussions of basketry, wood and rock carvings, dance masks, and beadwork, alongside the contemporary vitality of paintings and installations by modern artists such as Robert Davidson, Emmi Whitehorse, and Alex Janvier. 'the best guide yet to understanding the complexities of Native North American art . . . a solidly ground, sophisticated history, combining art history, anthropology, and cultural studies . . . splendidly well-written . . . useful and timely.' Gerald McMaster, Curator of Art, Canadian Museum ofCivilization

Author Biography

Janet Catherine Berlo is the Susan B. Anthony Chair of Gender and Women's Studies and Professor of Art History at the University of Rochester, in New York.

Table of Contents

An Introduction to the Indigenous Arts of North America Art History and Native Art

What is 'Art'? Western Discourses and Native American Objects

Modes of Appreciation: Curiosity, Specimen, Artefact, and Art

What is an Indian? Clan, Community, Political Structure, and Art

Cosmology

The Map of the Cosmos

The Nature of Spirit

Dreams and the Vision Quest

Shamanism

Art and the Public Celebration of Power

The Power of Personal Adornment

'Creativity is our Tradition': Innovation and Tradition in Native American Art

Gender and the Making of Art

The Southwest The Southwest as a Region

The Ancient World

From the Colonial Era to the Modern Pueblos

Navajo and Apache Arts

The East The East as a Region

Hunting Cultures, Burial Practices, and Early Woodlands Art Forms

Mississippian Art and Culture

The Cataclysm of Contact: the Southeast

The Early Contact Period in the Northeast

Arts of the Middle Ground

Arts of Self-Adornment

The West Introduction

The Great Plains

The Intermontaine Regionan Artistic Crossroads

The Far West: Arts of California and the Great Basin

The North Geography, Environment, and Language in the North

Sub-Arctic Clothing: Art to Honour and Protect

The Arctic

The Northwest Coast Origins

The Early Contact Period

Styles and Techniques

Western Connoisseurship and Northwest Coast Art

Shamanism

Crest Art

The Potlatch

Art, Commodity, and Concepts of Replication

Northwest Coast Art in the Twentieth Century

The Twentieth Century: Trends in Modern Native Art Questions of Definition

Commoditization and Contemporary Art

Moments of Beginning

The Southern Plains and the Kiowa Five

The Southwest and the 'Studio' Style

The Display and Marketing of American Indian Art: Exhibitions, Mural Projects, and Competitions

Native American Modernisms 195080

Institutional Frameworks and Modernisms in Canada

Postmodernism, Installation, and other Post-Studio Art

Notes List of Illustrations

Bibliographic Essay Timeline

Index

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