The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-09-02
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A feature of the September number
of the American Magazine of Art, one
which should be most interesting to
all the truly patriotic art lovers of
America, but especially to such of
these as dwell in the west and south
west, Is the published address of
Edgar Lee Hewett, which its author
read at this years meeting of the
American Federation of Arts.
Mr.. Hewett. as I mentioned in last
weeks Gleanings from the Field of
Art, is director of the American School
of Research at Santa Fe. N. M, and
of the art museums at that place and
at San Diego, Cal.
This address is entitled, THE Art
of the Earliest Americans" In his
paper Mr.. Hewett shows that the
aboriginal inhabitants of America do
sense. The Indians, he says, being
of Oriental and not Occidental origin,
look at life and nature from the ORR
entails viewpoint.
In the Occidental the practical
and material mind is dominant, and
is the force that has shaped his char
acter and built up his civilization. The
Occidental has grappled with nature
and sought to subdue it to material
uses. Power, wealth and material
comfort are above the things of the
spirit.
LII the OTleIlIdli On IHe OlAeT MANU.
the spiritual and mystic mind pre-
dominates. He communes with ma
ture, and the beauties and mysteries
of nature have to a great extent mold
ed his thoughts and character. The
Oriental is of an essentially religious
turn of mind, and his art and his
tribal customs both have a religious
foundation and a religious symbolism.
All of this is eminently so with the
American Indian. His festivals, his
ceremonies. hfs dances, his pictures,
and the adornment of his dwelling,
his utensils, and his person, all have
In some way to do with the powers
and the deities which he imagines to
be hidden in nature, and of whose
force the various phenomena of ma
ture are a manifestation.
The degree of artistic development,
at least so far as its visible manifesto
ton is concerned, is notsuniform with
all the Indian tribes, but is much
more pronounced in some than in
others. On the great plains, Indian
art is limited to painting, personal
adornment, and perhaps to the form
ing and decorating of basketry and
crude pottery.
In the mountain and desert country
of the southwestern United States it
is much more fully displayed in tex
tile work, in a greater development
| of the potter's craft, and even in
| architecture. for here houses have
taken the place of tents and there is
certain display of taste in stheir
erection and in their finished appear
ance.
In Mexico and in Central and South
America, We find not only a highly
developed architecture. but also
sculpture. Sculpture as applied to
| buildings, and also monumental sculp-
ture. There is also the working OF
precious metals to form articles OF
| personal adornment.
And always it is religion. and SYM
| bolic representation of actual or JIM
! agined forces of nature that supply
| motifs of decoration. Usually they
are the underlying causes for the
| creation of the work.
Mr.. Hewett asserts that in artistic
cultural and aesthetic attainment, in
innate refinment, and in intellectual