We Were Always Here

If you are fortunate enough to visit the National Mall in D.C. during the spring, hopefully you will get to the American Native museum of the Smithsonian there.   As you come to the museum, there are several displays outside that are worth a look.   The  figures above are among them, representing themes often chosen by native artists.

We Were Always Here the figures are named, representing Bear and Raven.   The artist, Rick Bartow, has written about his creation.

The Bear and Raven, Healer and Rascal sit atop the sculpture poles; one, slow and methodical, fiercely protective of her children, the other a playful, foible-filled teacher of great power. Both Bear and Raven are focused on water and salmon for serious reasons. The salmon are an indicator species reflecting the health of the environment In particular water, the source of all life.

On each pole are repeated lower horizontal patterns that symbolize successive waves, generations following generations, an accumulation of wisdom and knowledge. The tree used for the sculpture is an old growth Western Red Cedar from Washington state. It is approximately 500 years old. The elders say that the power of the sun is stored within the tree. Essentially the tree embodies the fundamental elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water, our sacred and precious natural resources.

To do a huge carving is like creating 22 feet of music. It is creating a rhythm that can be sustained over a long period time. It is music created by chisels, hammers, knives and pencil marks. It moves like a tide, slowly and surely along, turbulent around knots and troublesome grain and then surging along oil-smooth over good clear grain, upwards to completion. The Creator gave me this job of being an artist. Now I create out of necessity. Spirit waits for me in the “doing”–the process of working. Whatever comes of the “doing” is what I share. Spirits are pleased. Ancestors rejoice!

Visiting these sculptures in their setting outside the museum reminds us that much of the heritage of native Americans is that of nature, appropriate in the wind, sun, air and breath of the outside world.

Graft by Roxy Paine

Graft as it appears in distance, Smithsonian building beyond the Sculpture Garden

A pleasure that visits to D.C. offer is the sculpture on the national mall.  In the sculpture gardens there, an opportunity offers on good days in spring to Have It All, natural beauty and awesome art.

The National Gallery of Art displays the above sculpture all year around, but during the spring it’s enjoyable as a complete, luxurious basking in all that wonder.  The sculpture can be viewed at the NGA site, as well.

Graft presents two fictive but distinct species of trees—one gnarled, twisting, and irregular, the other smooth, elegant, and rhythmic—joined to the same trunk. Among its rich associations, this sculpture evokes the persistent human desire to alter and recombine elements of nature, as well as the ever-present tension between order and chaos.

Paine’s first Dendroid, Impostor (1999), a 27-foot-tall sculpture, stands in a forest clearing at the Wanås Foundation in Knislinge, Sweden. Paine has since made 16 Dendroids, each unique and organized according to its own system. The works are installed in sylvan settings, urban environments, and landscaped urban parks. Trees have long been regarded a metaphor for human existence, and their forms evoke for Paine a range of natural and man-made systems from neurons to river networks, from taxonomic diagrams to genealogical charts.

The shining form can be seen from far and close up, and never fails to make me glad.

Ritual figures

Description

For several previous art posts, I’ve been putting up examples of art works preserved from the first century A.D. from the Central American/Caribbean region.   While we know little about the cultures these represented, they have been preserved in various collections which the Smithsonian has acquired.

There are many reasons for collecting art, and one of them is to keep the treasures from the past from being lost.   No doubt, some hopes for profit are also present, but let’s be positive, and be glad these particular artworks will be on view for the descendants and inheritors of the past.

Today, I’m putting up several more, for your enjoyment and for us to appreciate.   While the displays include some tributes to those who brought these works to their collection, the museum does not cover over the fact that these were not legitimately their own to share.   The Smithsonian has a difficult task, to collect and to share with the ages, and does it well.

Incense burner, Rain God figure

Mayan period Pot

Description

Ceramic figure

Description

MesoAmerican bowl of First Century, in Mayan design

Ceremonial figures

The use of statuary in the area now known as Costa Rica is speculative.   As the above figures demonstrate, there were established poses and these seem to indicate there are rituals involved that we now know only by the figures remaining behind.

Signs included for description in the Smithsonian Native American museum give information about the knowledge we’ve gained about the figures.   What actual celebration or commemoration was involved is not known.

From the trophy heads held, there can be speculation about what was occurring that seems to have involved human sacrifice, but no solid knowledge of factual incidents.  That some sort of battle was involved can be inferred from the spears and shields often included.

 Great variety of belief and practice existed among the ancient Meso-American peoples including various forms and levels of the afterlife, each with its own deity. The religious rituals and practices were governed by priests educated in genealogy and astronomy. These priests were often exquisitely adorned with jewels, feathers, and ornaments of many colors, and many had dual roles as diviners. These traditions had a variety of temples and pyramids used in worship and as tombs. Several of these ancient traditions included rituals of sacrifice to the gods, even human sacrifice. The use of idols (particularly in the form of animals) was common among the various forms of this religion.

As mentioned in earlier posts about the area ceramics, there were probably workshops producing art and household objects for communities.   We can only guess what ceremonies and rituals existed.

The above is labeled as a basalt male figure from the Costa Rica area, A.D. 1000 – 1500.

The books of descriptions are in poor lighting, as are the displays themselves, to keep from bleaching out the designs on the ancient ceramics.

Last week, I featured several ceramic pieces from the Smithsonian’s Indian Museum and some information about them, and ceramics.   This week I’m putting in a few from the collection and the wall that displays them, to give an idea of the way you see them on the top floor of the museum.

As you will notice, the matching of figures with their descriptions takes some painstaking work and if you visit the museum, be prepared to spend time and effort to work out what you’re seeing.    The vast collection has passed into Smithsonian handling after years of collection and study, and has been open to the public since 2004 on the Mall in D.C.

The National Museum of the American Indian is home to the collection of the former Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. The collection includes more than 800,000 objects, as well as a photographic archive of 125,000 images. It is divided in to the following areas: Amazon; Andes; Arctic/Subarctic; California/Great Basin; Contemporary Art; Mesoamerican/Caribbean; Northwest Coast; Patagonia; Plains/Plateau; Woodlands.

The collection, which became part of the Smithsonian in June 1990, was assembled by George Gustav Heye(1874–1957) during a 54-year period, beginning in 1903. He traveled throughout North and South America collecting Native objects. Heye used his collection to found New York’s Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation and directed it until his death in 1957. The Heye Foundation’s Museum of the American Indian opened to the public in New York City in 1922.

The collection is not subject to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. When the National Museum was created in 1989, a law governing repatriation was drafted specifically for the museum, the National Museum of the American Indian Act, upon which NAGPRA was modeled.^[5]In addition to repatriation, the museum dialogues with tribal communities regarding the appropriate curation of cultural heritage items. For example, the human remains vault is smudged once a week with tobacco, sage, sweetgrass, and cedar, and sacred Crow objects in the Plains vault are smudged with sage during the full moon. If the appropriate cultural tradition for curating an object is unknown, the Native staff uses their own cultural knowledge and customs to treat materials as respectfully as possible.^[6]

The long history of our native population contains many chapters of desecration and abuse, which the Smithsonian facility has tried to avoid.   Respect for native worship and practices developed slowly in this country’s progress, and is welcome in this exhibition.

Mayan figure from First Century

Figures above from the early centuries of history represent cultures present in the Caribbean and Central American region before Europeans arrived.

Currently an exhibition of ceramic work collected in the early 19th century is featured in the Smithsonian’s Indian Museum.   The works represent the icons and themes of a culture that preceded European influences.

Ceramics were both the used and decorative objects created from local soil, various native clay mixed with herbal content and formed, then dried and colored in many ways.   The pots, vases and objects of various uses could be done by the family or, in large communities, a central workshop.   Special uses usually called for design that showed more than the purpose of the object, and included designs from their history.

Local fauna were often featured, along with representations of the local worship and appreciation of the human form.   The fantastic designs often told stories the local tribes  passed from one generation to the next.

Common in the works are featured jaguar, armadillo, feline and tortoise characteristics, as well as the appearances of the local peoples.   As with our northern tribes, often the works showed a reverence for varying qualities of the creatures used as models.   The costume reflects ceremonial use, and often practices used in local celebrations or official events.

Most of what we know of the cultures comes from the artworks collected from the region’s past.

Jaguar Urn

Seated figure from First Century Mayan work

Gratuitious shot of Cherry blossoms

Konposizioa Postala

(Picture courtesy of Basque government at Wikipedia creative commons.)

The works of Fernand Leger are distinguished by the use of solid, geometric and often tubular forms that have common elements with cubism.   He has been called a progenitor of Pop Art.

Léger wrote in 1945 that “the object in modern painting must become themain character and overthrow the subject. If, in turn, the human form becomes an object, it can considerably liberate possibilities for the modern artist.” He elaborated on this idea in his 1949 essay, “How I Conceive the Human Figure”, where he wrote that “abstract art came as a complete revelation, and then we were able to consider the human figure as a plastic value, not as a sentimental value. That is why the human figure has remained willfully inexpressive throughout the evolution of my work”.^[19

In the past week, Madonna has announced that she will be selling a work from the 1920's by Leger to benefit women's education.   The price it brings at auction will be used by her philanthropic organization  to advance education in countries where it is hard for women to attend schools because of backwards attitudes.

The pop star said in a statement that she will "donate all the proceeds [from the Léger sale] to support girls’ educational projects in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries where female education is rare or nonexistent.”

She said: “I want to trade something valuable for something invaluable — Educating Girls!”

In the period of this painting, Leger had developed the pseudo cubism of later work.

The “mechanical” works Léger painted in the 1920s, in their formal clarity as well as in their subject matter—the mother and child, the female nude, figures in an ordered landscape—are typical of the postwar “return to order” in the arts, and link him to the tradition of French figurative painting represented by Poussin and Corot.^[7] In his paysages animés(animated landscapes) of 1921, figures and animals exist harmoniously in landscapes made up of streamlined forms.

Use of Leger’s painting of idealized form to enrich the lives of its subject suggests a value given to the use of money for good that is encouraging to see.

The Pieta

Some works of art are so well known that the name itself brings up an image, and to my experience Michelangelo’s Pieta is a major member of that group.   It attracts your immediate attention as you enter St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, lighted and serene in a chapel now know as the Chapel of the Pieta.

Michelangelo did not show suffering, as he wanted to call to mind not death but the resurrection.

The structure is pyramidal, and the vertex coincides with Mary’s head. The statue widens progressively down the drapery of Mary’s dress, to the base, the rock of Golgotha. The figures are quite out of proportion, owing to the difficulty of depicting a fully-grown man cradled full-length in a woman’s lap. Much of Mary’s body is concealed by her monumental drapery, and the relationship of the figures appears quite natural.

This early work is created out of luminous marble, and commemorates the removal of Christ from the crucifix when his mother took possession of the body.

As she holds Jesus’ lifeless body on her lap, the Virgin’s face emanates sweetness, serenity and a majestic acceptance of this immense sorrow, combined with her faith in the Redeemer. It seems almost as if Jesus is about to reawaken from a tranquil sleep and that after so much suffering and thorns, the rose of resurrection is about to bloom. As we contemplate the Pieta which conveys peace and tranquility, we can feel that the great sufferings of life and its pain can be mitigated.

Here, many Christians recall the price of their redemption and pray in silence. The words may be those of the “Salve Regina” or “Sub tuum presidium” or another prayer. After Peter’s Tomb, the Pieta Chapel is the most frequently visited and silent place in the entire basilica.

It is said that Michelangelo had been criticized for having portrayed the Virgin Mary as too young since she actually must have been around 45-50 years old when Jesus died. He answered that he did so deliberately because the effects of time could not mar the virginal features of this, the most blessed of women. He also said that he was thinking of his own mother’s face, he was only five when she died: the mother’s face is a symbol of eternal youth.

The art work honors the Easter story of Christianity’s origins, about a crucified Christ who rose from the grave.   That miracle confirmed the sacred message that had been brought, the Word of love and redemption from sin.

Hopefully, one day the world will learn to give and make a place for the message of love that it honors at Easter. Read the rest of this entry →

Sukhothai

(Picture courtesy of creative commons at wikipedia.com.)

In a central part of Thailand, there’s a wonderful collection of ancient temples and beautiful grounds, along with a museum of the art of its time, Sukhothai.   Wandering through those amazing and ancient monuments is worth the very long trip to get there, and should take some of your time to see that unique collection.

Sukhothai story was narrated into Thailand’s “national history” in late 19th century by King Mongkut, Rama IV, as a historical work presented to the British diplomatic mission. King Mongkut is considered as the champion of Sukhothai narrative history, based on his find of the Number One Stone Inscription, the ‘first evidence’ telling the history of Sukhothai.

From then on, as a part of modern nation building process, modern national Siamese or Thai history comprises the history of Sukhothai. Sukhothai was said to be the ‘first national capital’, followed by Ayutthaya, Thonburi until Rattanakosin or today Bangkok. Sukhothai history was crucial among Siam/ Thailand’s ‘modernists’, both ‘conservative’ and ‘revolutionary’. Rama IV (King Mongkut) said that he found ‘the first Stone Inscription’ in Sukhothai, telling story of Sukhothai’s origin, heroic kings such as Ramkhamhaeng, administrative system and other developments, considered as the ‘prosperous time’ of the kingdom.

Sukhothai history became important even after the Revolution of 1932. Researches and writings on Sukhothai history were abundant. Details derived from the inscription were studied and ‘theorized’. One of the most well-known topics was Sukhothai’s ‘democracy’ rule. Story of the close relationship between king and his people, vividly described as ‘father-son’ relationship, the ‘seed’ of Thai Democracy. However the change in ruling style took place when later society embraced ‘foreign’ tradition, Khmer’s Angkor tradition, influenced by Hinduism and ‘mystic’ Mahayana Buddhism. The story of Sukhothai became the model of ‘freedom’. Jit Bhumisak, a ‘revolutionary’ scholar, also saw Sukhothai period as the beginning of Thai people’s liberation movement from foreign ruler, Angkor.

This is a trip I want to take, and this time I want to be awhile to wander through.   A surface impression I had on the short trip I did take was of the superimposition of later, Buddhist, figures, over dancing figures from a culture that predated even the past represented there.

Across the moat

Replica of Meriwether Lewis' gun, Heinz Museum, Pittsburgh, PA

Museum description of Lewis' gun exhibit

The frontier that we now think about as our western lands at one time existed in western Pennsylvania.   Early settlers were taking land from the then existing tribes in the area, and the French early explorers, making those long guns part of everyday households.

The rifle was made by smiths who worked hard to produce beautiful as well as workable instruments, and took a lot of pride in their product.   Today there are wonderfully crafted antiques still dating back to those days, and a steady stream of new well-made and collectible, but not very much used weaponry.

The Kentucky (or Pennsylvania) Long Rifle was the most accuratelong-range gun for several decades.The first documented appearance of rifling was in Germany around 1460.The flintlockwas developed in the early 1600′s. By the late 1600′s gunsmiths wereexperimenting with longer barrels than the forerunner Yaeger. But it took the opening up of a newcontinent to bring out the best.

Circa 1725 the forerunner of the KYlong rifles were being designed and built by German craftsman inPennsylvania. After the French and Indian War brought new lands to theattention of the frontiersmen, the uniquely American long-range rifleswere carried into the frontier (at that time Kentucky) by the longhunters, trappers and explorers. The actual name “Kentucky Longrifle”was first used in an 1812 song The Hunters of Kentucky.

A typical rifle was .50 caliber, made of curly maple, full stock andsported a 42 to 46 inch barrel. A crescent-shaped buttplate, patchboxand cheekpiece were also common and are helpful in identifying a KY/PAlong rifle.

When they were in the Revolutionary phase, early settlers in the area met yearly to drill so that their ‘well-regulated militia” would be able to defend the young country against any invasion.   In the beginnings, the country was still tottering, and foreign powers still were a threat to the existence of those hard won United States.

The second amendment to the Constitution established the right of households to keep and bear arms that were part of survival.   When the Revolutionary War had ended, the local militias were important to the early national security, and that amendment made it easier on the local powers to call on individuals to come to the assistance of the nation in case of attack.   It eased the financial burden of the locale, which had needed to provide arms to the individuals of the militia, who did not necessarily have a gun to defend the country with.

In writing about those early exercises, author Reynolds of “In French Creek Valley’ (1938) takes a jab at the abilities of the gun wielding settlers, noting that they were as afraid of their muskets as anyone they might be aiming at.  He also establishes the need for the settlers to take on the burden of supplying weaponry needed to make the country viable in the early years when arms were necessary, in defending the country.

Long guns displayed in Brookeville, PA antique gun display, September of 2012