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Regional Differences in Plains Indian Painting

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Regional Differences in Plains Indian Painting University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Summer 1982 Regional Differences In Plains Indian Painting Mary Jane Schneider University of North Dakota Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Schneider, Mary Jane, "Regional Differences In Plains Indian Painting" (1982). Great Plains Quarterly. 1666. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1666 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN PLAINS INDIAN PAINTING MAR Y JANE SCHNEIDER It may seem but a short leap from the earliest current differences in regional art styles.1 The red, white, and black markings on rock walls reasons for this neglect are many, but perhaps to the sophisticated abstract expressionism of the greatest is a belief that modern Indian art contemporary Native American art, and only a is so Euro-American in form and content that small· step from geometric designs painted on it has lost its distinctive identity as Indian.2 hides to hard-edge geometric forms on canvas, Certainly, Native Americans who have moved but the development of Plains Indian painting into the national urban art scene produce pic­ from prehistoric times to the twentieth century tures that are almost indistinguishable from the is a journey from the Stone Age to the Nuclear work of their non-Indian contemporaries, but Age, from tribal to urban society. Plains Indian these individuals represent only a small pro­ painting reflects the historical and geographical portion of Indian artists. Contemporary paint­ diversity of the region as well as the pluralistic ing, as it is practiced by artists who live on culture of modern Native Americans. It is an or near reservations in the Great Plains, is a interesting commentary on American attitudes complex synthesis of tribal traditions, Euro­ toward Indians, however, that more attention American influences, and individual visions has been paid to paintings produced and used that cannot be categorized simply as modern. in tribal society than to contemporary Indian Although general trends in Plains Indian paint­ art. Differences in tribal painting styles have ing can be identified, different events and been identified and described, but little atten­ varied traditional cultures have produced an art tion has been directed toward documenting with considerable temporal and geographical diversity. Mary Jane Schneider is associate professor and chairperson of the Department of Indian TRIBAL DIFFERENCES IN Studies at the University of North Dakota. PAINTING STYLES Among her recent publications is "Plains Indian Art," in Anthropology on the Great Plains Rock art, consisting of painted or engraved (1980). She is a former editor of Plains Anthro­ human, animal, and symbolic figures dating pologist. from prehistoric to early historic times, is 131 132 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 1982 found throughout the periphery of the plains, on shirts, tipi covers, tipi linings, robes, and wherever there are boulders or rock surfaces shields. Most of these works were produced and large enough to serve as easels. It is difficult to utilized under ceremonial or sacred circum­ date rock art with any accuracy, but compari­ stances, and each tribe had its own style of sons to hide paintings, analysis of overlapping ornamentation. 6 figures, observation of weathering and erosion, The oldest known representational paintings and the presence of horses and guns in some on hide are the robes and shirts collected by works help to provide some idea of the tempo­ explorers who visited the northern plains in the ral progression of styles. One rock art motif, late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. the shield, which occurs from prehistoric to In 1805, Lewis and Clark collected an example historic times, shows changes in size and of a buffalo robe that recorded a battle fought decoration, and the way in which the human by the Mandans and Hidatsas against the allied figure is depicted becomes more skillful with forces of the Arikaras and Sioux.7 These exam­ the passage of time. 3 ples show stylistic characteristics similar to For the most part, studies of rock art have those seen in rock painting. There is no attempt been concerned with recording examples and to treat the hide as a unit, nor are the figures establishing relative chronologies, but a few portrayed realistically. Human figures are scholars have noticed that rock art painting triangular or rectangular with narrow waists styles differ from place to place. A particular and straight or slightly bent legs. The heads are form of human figure with a V-shaped body circular with no features, although hair styles from which a long neck topped by a round may be indicated. Within a very short time, head emerges is widespread in the northern. however, this "stick-figure" approach was plains, while the shield-bearing warrior motif abandoned in favor of greater accuracy and has a more limited distribution in Montana detail.8 and northern Wyoming.4 Euro-American traders and artists were Some characteristics of rpck art, such as a responsible for introducing new media, new lack of perspective, the treatment of the rock colors, new tools, and European concepts of surface as a series of individual canvases with perspective and realism. Karl Bodmer, a Swiss figures superimposed on each other, little con­ artist who accompanied Prince Maximilian of cern with relative size or scale, and an emphasis Wied-Neuwied up the Missouri in 1932, made on a.ctivity, continued into recent times. The a copy of one of Chief Mato-Tope's painted purpose of these paintings is not known, but it robes that showed some war exploits of the seems likely that some were religiously moti­ chief. This robe illustrates the changes that vated and others served as a means of com­ had taken place in the years between Lewis and munication. Abstract forms may relate to Clark and Maximilian. Mato-Tope and other vision quests or hunting magic, while some of men are distinguished by details of clothing, the animal scenes may indicate places where body paint, blood, weapons, and other items. game could be found or the location of hunting The figures are fleshed out, although the hide camps.5 In later plains art, the message-bearing is still not treated as a unit; the various events aspect was very important. are done as a series of vignettes; and there is Rock painting offers intriguing possibilities still little concern with perspective.9 for the study of temporal and regional dif­ Tribal differences have also been noted in ferences, but works done on hide provide figurative designs used on tipis. All tribes orna­ greater opportunities for documenting changes mented their tipis with animals symbolic of in time and for stylistic and tribal attribution. supernatural guidance and protection. Un­ Tribal use of paint ranged from elaborate geo­ fortunately, few examples of these sacred, metric designs on robes, parfleches, and sacred ornamented tipis have survived. The best bundle containers to representational paintings known are from the Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN PLAINS INDIAN PAINTING 133 tribes of Oklahoma and the Blackfeet of Mon­ central plains, anthropologists who found the tana; animal figures relating to the spirit guard­ Plains Indian culture worthy of preservation, ian of the tipi owner occur most frequently on and officials from the Bureau of Indian Affairs tipis that have painted areas along the bottom who promoted art work as a way for Indians and top. Among the Kiowa, these areas are to earn money. The practice of selling their usually solid colors or simple stripes, while work represented a real change from the pro­ the Blackfeet used compositions of geometric duction and utilization of painting by the mem­ designs. The Kiowa animal figures are set on the bers of a tribe. No longer was the artist free to upper edge of the colored area, while the Black­ paint as he felt or to describe his supernatural feet more often centered their figures in the or mystic experience; now he was painting to light-colored space between the top and bottom satisfy the needs of an alien audience. Among bands.lO the elements these artists carried over from With the extermination of the buffalo and traditional painting were a naive approach to the military success of the u.s. Army, the old perspective, the use of symbols to depict move­ way of life was permanently altered. Many ment, and little concern with facial features or tribes were resettled on reservations, some far background details. A major change, however, from their original homeland. Along with the was an emphasis on identification and recogni­ reservations came traders' stores and a cash tion of individual artists. In tribal society, the economy, the distribution of rations and artist was known and there was no need to sign annuities, and the influence of missionaries or otherwise identify a work, but when non­ and educators. Bound books of lined and Indians wanted to know who the artist was and numbered pages, used by army men, traders, learn his tribal origin, a painting was likely to and others, were bought or picked up on battle­ be signed or marked with a symbol that identi­ fields or received as gifts by Indian men, who fied a specific creator-the beginning of indi­ used them to make a visual record of a way of vidualism in Indian painting. From its inception life that was gone forever. These paintings and in the interest and support of the white patrons drawings, done primarily by Kiowa, Cheyenne, of these artists, the modern practice of studio and Sioux men, are known as ledger or sketch­ or easel painting developed in a variety of ways book art and represent a transition from tribal among Indians in different parts of the plains.
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