Colonization

“Painted Elk Hide” Attributed to Cotsiogo (Cadzi Cody); pigment on hide; 20th century; Shoshone People; Wyoming

CONTEXT:

Eastern Shoshone tribe

NOMADIC - following grazing bison for FOOD, BONES (WEAPONS), AND HIDE (CLOTHING)

• First to DOMESTICATE HORSES because they need to travel because they are nomadic and need to hunt bison

Later forcibly relocated to Wind River Reservation

• This piece was created in WRR, but SOLD IN A SOUVENIR SHOP because the audience were not Native Americans, but Americans who wanted to see “exotic” art

WIND RIVER RESERVATION:

a lot of UNEMPLOYMENT

Only economy = casino and ranching

Alcoholism and Addiction - a loss of culture

Lack of infrastructure - running water, hospitals, and education

VISUALS

Creates exotic matter to appeal to the Americans and Europeans

Natural pigments like ochre

Repetition - likely through stamps and creates iconography

• creates figures in motion, a ritual

Identity = teepees, hunting bison, bison ritual (teepees = they are nomadic, bison and rituals no longer seen to REAFFIRM NATIVE HISTORY/CULTURE

First in horse domestication → images of horses with HUMAN on top

Nomadic culture = teepees

Followed bison = depicted and material

STYLIZED AND VERNACULAR

• Sun Dance and Wolf Dance deemed to be too supernatural because the audience is Christian, so it includes scenes of everyday life

“Trade (Gifts for Trading Land with White People)” Jaune Quick-to-See Smith; 1992; Mixed Media

3 panel painting = TRIPTYCH

• References European Christianity (the people who came and conquered)

Clippings of newspapers called Char-Koosta, a flathead Indian Newspaper

• Talked about the current native life and issues such as alcoholism, unemployment, gambling/the casino, and tobacco

Dominant color = RED - anger, sacrifice, blood, and violence

500+ anniversary non-celebration of Columbus invasion and colonization, native had to move in order to survive

Canoe = indigenous

Objects hanging above = Kitcsch, representing cultural misappropiation

• exploiting indigenous context to portray “American” identity by making tacky and commercial copies to sell

Goal = educate and highlight native artists

“Codex Mendoza” New Spain; Ink on Paper; 1540

Similar to illuminated manuscripts - like Christianity

• illuminated manuscripts = like Vienna Genesis

Codex = bookbinding developed in Europe

• it was new and different fro mthe previously used scrolls

Indigenous artists (multiple; they knew it best so they drew it) PLUS notes by SPANISH PRIEST that spoke Aztec language (Nahuatl)

Function = records info on the Aztec empire and was handwritten accounts of daily life

• made in New Spain but brought back to Europe/Spain to show what they saw

Diagram of capital city = Tenochtitlan

• Center = Templo Mayor

• Bottom = sacrifice at Templo Mayor → Christian colonizers were horrorfied→ convert to Christianity

Eagle on Cactus = Aztec folklore where Gods told people to settle where they saw an eagle eating a snake on a cactus

• On Mexican flag, establishes indigenous culture

“Spaniard and Indian Produce a Mestizo” 1715; oil on canvas; Attributed to Juan Rodriguez

Mestizo = mixed child; is “humble, quiet, and simple”

• simple = submissive and intellectually deficient

Documents inter-ethnic mixing in NEW SPAIN

Caste paintings = emphasized how higher status was achieved through more EU ancestry

• LARGELY FALSE depictions of mixed families

Meant to copy Christian iconography of Jesus and Mary

Function - Establish Hierarchy - more European ancestry → more status

• 2 people = married, have 2 children

• the child with the lighter skin tone is treated better because they were believed to have more European ancestry

Cultural Interaction - combines traditionaly European family portrait with Indigenous textiles, which were cut to be like a European outfit

Status in CLOTHING (The women, marketed to have more EU identity)/skin tone

“Screen with the Siege of Belgrade and Hunting Scene” New Spain; 1700; tempera and resin on wood, shell inlay

Biombo enconchado (like White and Red plums - Japanese influence) - folding screen with mother of pearl inlaid (make shiny and look better)

Patron = Viceroy of New Spain for the new palace in Mexico (audience = visiting noble people)

Ottoman Turkish War vs Hapsburg Spain - copies a Dutch print

• Hapsburgs (Spanish) win → named New Spain → dominance

Japanese influence - screen, lacquer boxes

1750s - Industrial Revolution increases interest in Japan because people can trade and travel leading for people to take inspiration from Japanese art

Based on a Dutch print - Siege of Belgrade

Hunting Scene - copies Medici tapestry

Relaxed, decorative, floral, pastel, curvilinear

Audience = viceroy’s wife and women

• more feminine, other side too violent for women, only for men like the Viceroy

“The Virgin of Guadalupe” Miguel Gonzalez; 1700; oil on canvas + wood and pearl inlay

Miraculous vision - Virgin Mary appears to Juan Diego and speaks to him in his Aztec language Nahuatl

• Tells to build a church

Huitzilopochtli - Aztec deity included

Achieropoieta - art made without human hands

Enconchado - inalid with pearl (Mexican + Japanese)

Woman of the apocalypse = sun and stars

• controller of the universe

Darker skin -relates to the indigenous and attempt to convert

Patron saint of Mexico City - performs miracles

“Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz” oil on canvas; Miguel Cabrera; 1750

Creole mother + Spanish father (Mestizo)

Originally cast as lady in waiting to viceroy, but quit because she wants to pursue knowledge and become educated

Viceroy still supports her → buys a library for her

Avoided marriage and became a nun so she could study math, science, writing, and culture, but she was still religious

Wrote songs, poetry, and plays that were very popular at court. These often included Nahuatl language and culture

Church did not like her because she was a woman and of indigenous descent, thus the Church forbade her intellectual pursuits

“The Answer” (La Respuesta) - her written response to church and society where she denounces intellectuality so she does not get excommunicated form the Church

• she was still religious

Challenging gaze - just like Venus of Urbino

• but not nude, and is educated

Marriage (joining) of religion and intellectuality - like School of Athens

Posthumous portrait - modeled after portraits of male scholars like St. Jerome

“The Two Fridas” Oil on Canvas; Frida Kahlo; 1939

Historians called Frida a surrealist, but Frida just said she just painted her thoughts

Style = naive folk art (*vernacular-ISH)

• Frida is self-taught and is trying to match what she feels and sees, thus leading to her naturalistic style of art that uses chiaroscuro

Two Identities - Mexican and European - shown through CLOTHING

• Mexican: Mexican styled dress/Tehuana clothing

• European - European dress

Focus on hearts - emotional pain

• references Aztec sacrifices of the heart

• both are exposed → heart is vulnerable and she is suffering emotionally

Portrait of Diego in hand, connected to a vein like umbilical cord

• Frida still loves Diego despite their toxic relationship

• Their relationship is codependent

Stormy sky = TOXIC RELATIONSHIP

Bleeding in lap symbolizing her miscarriage

“Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park” Diego Rivera; 1947; fresco mural; Mexico

Commissioned for Hotel Del Prado

Audience = the public

• the mural is large and approachable

• Combination of European and Indigenous figures, with no one figure standing out, suggesting that Mexican history is for everyone, not one, single powerful figure

51 ft long fresco

Represents 400 Years of Mexico’s history

• 3 main periods of Mexican History - The Conquest, Porfiriato Dictatorship, and 1910 Revolution

Center = 10 year old Diego led by Posada’s La Catrina, Kahlo behind him with yin yang (symbol of balance, and combines femininity + masculinity) - the balance is between the good and bad of their relationship, emphasizing that one cannot exist without the other and they must experience both good and bad

Dream or Nightmare?

The “Dream” originally looks fun and like a party, suggested by the balloons. However, upon closer inspection in the section for the Revolution of 1910, you see the blood civil war against Porfirio Diaz, emphasizing that Mexican history has its moments of struggle and violence

Also pictured = Hernan Cortes, Sor Juana, Viceroy, and Santa Anna

Indigenismo - elevation of indigenous cultures as part of Mexico’s national identity

• Canvases and easels were more aristocratic and European. However, Diego uses mural because murals are seen as vernacular and referenced paintings on stone by Aztecs

Marxism - calss conflict drives history forward

• Chaotic focus, no clear pathway - history is chaotic but will show progress. No hierarchy of scale for individuals in power

“Angel with Arquebus” OIl on Canvas; Master of Calamarca; 17th century

Influenced by circulatory European (Spanish) prints

• religious propaganda (eliminate culture, convert to Christianity/Catholicism)

Arquebus = modern Spanish military invention (shotgun)

• In the lens of a Native American, it was believed to be the Incan thunder god due to the shotguns sounding like thunder. Thus, they saw the guns as supernatural and the conquistadors as messengers of god

Outfit = modern European dress + indigenous (Incan) textile

• just like Spaniard and Indian Produce a Mestizo

• excess of fabric to show social status because the fabric was expensive

• Feathered hat = referenced Incan royal culture

Army = God’s army of soldiers from Vatican City that came to convert the natives to Catholicism

• Catholic Reformation also occurring during this time → want to increase devotion in the Catholic Church

Angel = asexual and androgynous

• angels in the Bible are genderless and neither female/male → in Catholic art, angels are androgynous

World’s Fair

Paris 1889

Countries gathered to show off their culture, inventions, technologies, and innovations

• establishes dominance through intelligence

Showed off a Colonial Exhibition where exotic goods were brought, showing European dominance and breadth of the empire through conquest

Tesla & Eddison, Annie Oakley

Had a Negro Village with 400 black people on display as exotic goods

“Valley of Mexico” Jose Velasco; 1882; oil on canvas

Represented Mexico at WF - audience = THE WORLD

• Shows Mexico as an independent, sovereign country, not under Spain

Establishes Mexico’s cultural identity and independence from Spain through art

Monumental - 4 ft by 7 ft

Shows nature BEFORE civilizaiton

“Pure landscape” - highlights UNTOUCHED land as an act of patriotism and moral dignity

• not idealized, wild, uncultivated (B4 Spanish colonizaiton)

• Romanticism

Extreme hyperrealistic detail - like Van Eyck

Academy of San Carlos - first creole art school in America

Symbols of MX idenitity:

Painted AFTER 1821 War of Independence from Spain

2 Volcanoes - Aztec folktale of forbidden love between Aztec warrior and princess

Tenochtitlan seen with Templo Mayor

Location of Juan Diego’s vision of Mary

Romantic landscapes = sfumato, tenebrism, naturalistic, untouched by man, no focal point

“The Oxbow” Thomas Cole; 1836; Oil on Canvas

Romanticism = disorganized movement and violent nature shows man’s inhumanity that needs to be corrected

Hudson River School - landscape painters that had a pro-America political ideology

Image of Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts

Shows the contrast between PEACEFUL and WILD

• peaceful = CULTIVATED SIDE - thriving thanks to colonizers and God’s favor, the greater portion

• Storm on left = darker, uncivilized land that is dangerous and not cared for by the indigenous, needs to be cultivated and corrected by the colonizers

• Upside down (God’s view) - the word “almighty” in Hebrew is carved in

• Manifest Destiny is APPROVED by God and God wants us to cultivate and improve the land that has grew wildly due to the Native Americans not controlling it