I have always been greatly interested in Native Americans and their culture. When I enrolled in a Art History class, Art in the United States, I was able to learn a lot about how Native Americans were depicted in art. In this website there is information about three different artists that depicted Native Americans in their artwork. There are also pages that have just their artwork on them. I hope to show the various ways these three artists have depicted Native Americans in their artwork.
Native Americans have ben depicted in art for hundreds of years. There are different ways in which they are portrayed and certain artists that are well known for their artwork. The work above is Thomas Cole's DISTANT VIEW OF NIAGARA FALLS, which he finished in 1830. The painting depicts a Native American couple, a man standing and a kneeling woman, showing respect and honoring the falls at Niagara. This is one of the ways in which Native Americans are depicted in artwork. |
There are some artists that will depict events in history, like John Vanderlyn's THE MURDER OF JANE MCCREA. His depiction of this shows a different view of Native Americans than the other two artists. He shows the more violent and savage image that most people had of Native Americans at that time. There were artists that depicted Native Americans as they thought people wanted to see them, either the "noble savage" or the more "barbarian" kind of savage, going after the settlers coming into their land. And some artists like George Catlin and Thomas Cole, tried to depict Native Americans how they saw them or thought them to be.
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