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Rock Art from Utah, about 1700 AD

Rock Art from Utah, about 1700 AD

Native Americans made most of the art from North America in the 1500s and 1600s AD. They made a lot of art. Artists used many different styles depending on where you were. In the Pacific Northwest, wealthy families had huge totem poles carved to show how important they were. In the Southwest, people used pottery decoration to show what family they were from. And in the West, people carved or painted complicated designs on the bare rock to record their history. (Compare this to the Khoisan rock paintings from Africa about the same time.) Many artists recorded the new things they learned from the invading Spanish people – like horses, and wheels.

A quilt made by enslaved African-Americans (1800s)

A quilt made by enslaved African-Americans (1800s)

By the 1700s, European settlers started to make their own art in the style of the places they had come from. They painted oil portraits and made stone statues of their leaders. Native American artists learned new ideas and techniques from the Europeans. They made these new techniques their own. In the Southwest, Navajo people learned to keep sheep and to weave their wool. They wove Native patterns and colors into their blankets. Other Native Americans experimented with painting in oil. Sometimes they painted in European art styles and sometimes in their own tradition. Many African art ideas also came to North America about this time on the slave ships. Some quilt patterns may have come with Africans, for example, and batik, and musical instruments like the banjo. But many African art traditions were also lost, because people didn’t have much time for art while they were working as slaves.

Jackson Pollock painting influenced by Native American sand painting

Jackson Pollock painting influenced by Native American sand painting

In the 1800s, many Native American art traditions were also lost. The United States and Canadian governments took Native American children away from their parents and their villages. These governments forced Native children to grow up surrounded by only European culture. At the same time, many people were able to travel on steamships from Europe to America and back again. So American art became more and more like European art.

In the 1900s, this was even more true. European art ideas like abstract art were also popular in North America. But after European artists like Picasso became interested in using African and Indian ideas in their own art, North American artists got interested in these ideas too. Then after a while, artists like Jackson Pollock began to also be interested in Native American art. Artists realized what a mistake it was to lose the Native American art traditions. Then many Native Americans started recreating their traditional art, and creating new art combining European and Native American ideas.

Learn by doing: rock art project
European painting.

Bibliography and further reading about North American architecture:

American History
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