Native American Art
Visual arts by indigenous
peoples of the Americas
• It encompasses the visual artistic
traditions of the indigenous peoples of the
Americas from ancient times to the
present.
• These include works from South America,
Mesoamerica, North America including
Greenland, as well as Siberian Yup'ik
peoples who have great cultural overlap
with Native Alaskan Yup'iks.
• In North America, the Lithic stage or period
is defined as approximately 18,000–8000
BCE.
• The period from around 8000–800 BCE is
generally referred to as the Archaic period.
• The production of stone engraving, and
pictographic cave paintings are some of
the art that remains from this time period.
Archaic abstract curvilinear style petroglyphs, Coso
Rock Art District, California
A petroglyph of a caravan of bighorn sheep near
Moab, Utah, USA; a common theme in glyphs from
the southwestern desert
The geocultural
areas of
Native North
Americans
• The Yupik of Alaska have a long tradition
of carving masks for use in shamanic
rituals.
• Indigenous peoples of the Canadian arctic
have produced objects that could be
classified as art since the time of the
Dorset culture.
• While the walrus ivory carvings of the
Dorset were primarily shamanic, the art of
the Thule people who replaced them ca.
1000 CE was more decorative in
character.
• With European contact the historic period
of Inuit art began
• Yupik fish mask
• Wood
• Most probably used
by Shamans
Giant destroying an
igloo
Leather sculpture
Inuit culture
Most probably a ritual
equipment from Greenland
• The art of the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian and
other smaller tribes living in the coastal
areas of Washington State, Oregon, and
British Columbia, is characterized by an
extremely complex stylistic vocabulary
expressed mainly in the medium of
woodcarving.
• Famous examples include Totem poles,
masks, and canoes
Haida totem pole,
Thunderbird
Park, British
Columbia
Tsimshian halait mask depicting a mosquito,
British Columbia, Louvre, Paris
• Helmet and collar,
wood, copper,
leather and shell,
18th century,
Tlingit.
• Museo de América,
Madrid, Spain.
A totem
pole in
Ketchikan,
Alaska, in
the Tlingit
style.
• The Eastern Woodlands, or simply
woodlands, cultures inhabited the regions
of North America east of the Mississippi
River at least since 2500 BCE.
• While there were many regionally distinct
cultures, trade between them was
common and they shared the practice of
burying their dead in earthen mounds,
which has preserved a large amount of
their art.
• Because of this trait the cultures are
collectively known as the Mound builders.
Hopewell mounds from the Mound City Group in
Ohio
Copper falcon from the Mound City Group
site of the Hopewell culture
Effigy head pot, Nodena Site (Mississippian
culture)
• In the Southwestern United States
numerous pictographs and petroglyphs
were created.
• The Fremont culture and Ancient Pueblo
Peoples and later tribes' creations, are
represented in Dinosaur National
Monument and at Newspaper Rock.
Basket, Basketmaker Culture, Ancestral
Pueblo
a Sinagua cliff dwelling in Arizona,
Navajo Sandpainting