Native American Art
Native Americans regard art as an element of life, not as a separate aesthetic expression. In the hundreds of Native American languages there is no word that comes close to the meaning of the Western word art. Art, beauty, and spirituality are intertwined in the Native American routine of living.
Native Americans freely use symbols of the spiritual and physical worlds to enrich their daily lives and ceremonies. Symbols are protectors and reminders of the living universe, bridging the gap between the spiritual and physical realms. Symbols are used in ritual performances to portray the power in the cosmos. A common visual symbol used for healing in many American Indian societies in the past and also today is the mandala. The mandala represents the cosmos in miniature and, at the same time, the pantheon. Its construction is equivalent to a magical re-creation of the world. The mandala is in essence a schematic diagram showing the balance of forces in the symbolic universe. Native Americans have created mandalas in Navajo and Pueblo sand paintings, on Plains war shields, and on rock paintings throughout North America; they have also projected the mandala into space and time in the form of medicine wheels.
The medicine wheel, a mandalic art form and religious symbol, is common to many tribes. It consists of a circle, through the center of which are drawn horizontal and vertical lines and at the center of which an eagle feather is usually attached. The circle represents the sacred outer boundary of Earth; the vertical and horizontal lines represent the sun’s and humanity’s sacred paths; the crossing of the lines indicates Earth’s center; the eagle feather is a sign of the Creator’s power over everything. The medicine wheel is often marked with the four sacred colors common to indigenous people throughout North and South America—black, white, red, and yellow—representing the four cardinal directions, the four symbolic races of humanity, and other fourfold relationships.
It is difficult to discuss traditional Native American visual arts, especially prehistoric art, in terms of isolated objects categorized as paintings, sculpture, and so forth. For example, in many native cultures masks form part of a whole complex encompassing music, dance, drama, and poetry. In the setting of a modern museum or gallery, the essence of the aesthetic of such masks is lost.
Five hundred years after the arrival of Columbus in the New World, the cultural influences acting on Native American Art remain varied and complex. Many aesthetic changes have taken place in the twentieth century as native peoples have participated more fully in the dominant culture and incorporated artistic traditions from the United States, Europe, and other parts of the globe into their own traditions. Native American artists are in the process of developing new definitions of Indian art. Any insistence that Indian art remain “traditional” as a way of preserving culture is a form of cultural discrimination, because cultures are dynamic not static.
Although contemporary Native American culture has lost some of its early symbolism and rituals because of cultural change and assimilation, its essence remains. Native American thinking has not ever separated art from life, what is beautiful from what is functional. Art, beauty and spirituality are intertwined in the routine of living. The Native American aesthetic has survived colonialism, servitude, racial discrimination and rapid technological change.
