Volume 3 Number 1
October 1963

Milton D. Lowenstein

The Indian has discovered "art," and both the Indian and his white client are trying to find a place in their lives for this new discovery.

Once upon a time, not long ago, Indian "art" did not exist, just as it did not exist for the white man before, say, the eighteenth century. What we and the Indian today call "art" was an integral and necessary part of life from which painting, sculpture, dancing, ritual and architecture could not be separated without destroying or severely rupturing the cultural fabric of human existence. The "arts" were an accompaniment to almost all human activities in a world conceived as being dominated by spiritual forces with which man had to maintain communication and with which he had to come to terms. He did it through "art."

Prone today to perceive only the overt manifestation of these relationships between man and his gods, we have come to attribute arbitrary "art" or esthetic values to work which does not properly belong outside its cultural context. A sandpainting theme used by an Indian in a ritual for curing the sick loses its significance when reproduced as an easel painting, even if the original earth colors are employed by the painter. A white man’s admiration for the craftsmanship also tends to be blunted if the potential client is already familiar with great European painting. Superior craftsmanship cannot replace the art’s traditional functions. The easel painting which arose out of the need to mitigate the austerity of a white man’s architecture has its own traditions, its own appeal.

The Indian never made easel paintings because he never had any place for them, and without the Anglo-American background for easel painting, what can he achieve with it? Pablita Velarde, one of the the foremost contemporary Indian painters, while discussing art at the Scottsdale annual art show, remarked about a feeling of sacrilege when she used certain symbols in her easel paintings. They would never be employed in a Pueblo community outside of the ritual for which they were intended to be a part. The circle, for example, which is a symbol of life when it is depicted with four openings, was made intact to prevent her violating a gesture of spiritual significance.

In addition to sharing the white man’s craving engendered in his environment, to create order from selected aspects of what he perceives, the Indian also shares the artist’s need of satisfying a "public." Because of the strong emphasis on community values and community approval which must precede any important act of an individual, the Indian may be more influenced than the white man by this need of public acceptance. But as his easel paintings have no place in the traditional Indian community and probably would be disapproved of, he must look for a public among non-Indians, or Indians who no longer identify themselves with their race. Disassociated from the traditions out of which the Indian artist draws inspiration and forms, painter and client seem to have only one basis of communication: the money value of the work. Each employs value judgments that are irrelevant to the other, and communication is concerned almost solely with "bargaining."

Those sincerely interested in the Indian, in gaining from his creative expressions the kind of enriching experiences possible from European art, are therefore faced with two obstacles, (1) The paintings are not indigenously Indian, but a kind of adaptation which Indians living traditional lives would not care about possessing; and (2) The "Indian Art" work is further "diluted" by media and techniques necessarily chosen for their appeal to the (white) customer; that is, they are not Indian.

The Indian painter seems to be quite aware of the difficulties of selecting from his culture the aspirational qualities which win appeal to another culture. If there was one element common to all the otherwise diverse examples at the Scottsdale exhibition, it was the evidence of each painter’s conscious effort to resolve the dichotomies arising out of Indians painting for white clients. The attempts include Picassoesque abstractions containing some Indian elements; adumbrations of Impressionism with Indian symbols lifted out of context and subtly embellished by airbrush techniques entirely foreign to Indian work; arbitrarily combining symbols with genre figures using sentimentality as the binding agent; and, the most popular approach, lavishing a meticulous craftsmanship in fine and color on subjects of passing episodic significance. Compared with the work of last year, the present paintings have enormously increased saleability. Will the trend of pleasing the public replace all the other characteristics inherent to great art?

After trying for centuries to assimilate the Indian into the white man’s cultural pattern and failing to impress him with its advantages, will we now convert him by appearing to assimilate his art? The more the Indian tries to satisfy his white client’s demands in art, the greater the danger that the artist will "fall between two chairs," into the abyss separating his culture and ours. If he has faith every artist must display in his own cultural values, and the white man is persuaded not merely to tolerate but deeply appreciate the contribution of a minority group, then both will gain something only by strengthening the aboriginal context out of which the Indian’s values arose. He should be helped to return to his community ways, either in establishing groups or in new ones especially built to accommodate him and which he could modify to better suit the times.

What is assimilable of the Indian can emanate only from his total way of life, not from a small distorted aspect of it. Our strident individualism and its accompanying material acquisitiveness needs the tempering which the Indian’s community scale of values could give. The Indian with creative talents would benefit too if he can be taught the importance of exercising individual responsibility independent of community approval.

While at first, Indian paintings in a white man’s house seem anomalous and tend to emphasize cultural differences, the evolutionary aspects of art may eventually bring about that cultural interdependence from which both races would benefit.

The career and art of Maria Martinez, the venerable and renowned potter of San Idelfonso, New Mexico, reveal the possibilities of success for the approach advocated here. Apparently immersed in a foreign culture, she has refused to accept its values, to use its language or its style of clothing. Maria appears to keep about her at all times the pueblo and all its associations. Although she speaks and understands English, she communicates and transacts all of her business through her son. While her productivity is miniscule compared to that of the dominant group, her success whether measured in terms of money, influence or uninterrupted quality remains phenomenal. Maintaining her extraordinary sensitivity and cultural integrity, she has been able to contribute prodigiously to the white man’s culture work that has traditionally played an important part in the red man’s culture.