Get Creative at Home: Take a Journey through Time with Early American Landscapes
By: High Museum Of Art
Tags: Creativity, History, Native Americans, Art, Painting

What do you notice about this drawing? How is it similar to or different from the other landscapes? What seems to have been most important to Frank Henderson as he made this landscape? What messages might the other artists have been trying to convey in their works, and what do you see that makes you say that?

Get Creative at Home

Create your own landscape! Imagine what the land around your home or neighborhood looked like in the 1800s. Do you think there were more trees and plants? What animals will you include in your landscape?

Gignoux and other artists often sketched out their view before creating the final artwork. On a piece of paper, use your pencil to sketch your landscape.

First, draw your foreground, or the section closest to you — in Niagara Falls, this includes the rocks and shoreline. Then, add in your middleground. Many American landscape artists had large open spaces such as fields or bodies of water for their middleground. Finally, sketch your background. When you’re finished with your sketch, you can use colored pencils or crayons to add color to your landscape.

Look closely at Frank Henderson’s landscape to inspire detailed drawings of animals and plants. What colors, lines, shapes, and patterns can you find in the animals in your yard? How do these animals move and interact with one another? Look closely and see how many details you can find to include in your drawing.

Learn more about the history of your hometown

Research what nations’ people used to live on the land where you currently live or where these artists may have been painting. You may want to use this interactive map from Native Land Digital, an Indigenous-led, Canadian nonprofit organization, as a helpful tool to begin your research.

View of Georgia as seen through Native Land Digital’s interactive map. Try toggling on different options to see relevant territories, languages, and treaties.

The land on which the High Museum now stands is the native territory of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation today is home to over eighty-six thousand citizens and is located in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

You can learn more on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation website and more about the forced removal of the Muscogee Nation by the US government in the early to mid 1800s from the National Museum of the American Indian.

Are you currently teaching or homeschooling? Scroll for corresponding Georgia Standards of Excellence.

Relevant Georgia Education Standards

This activity corresponds to Social Studies standards in grades 3, 4, and 8. Students in these grades learn about diverse cultures of many American Indian nations, discuss European exploration of North America, the colonial period, westward expansion in North America, and the impact of European settlement on American Indians.

SS3H1 Describe early American Indian cultures and their development in North America.

SS3H2 Describe European exploration in North America.

SS3H3 Explain the factors that shaped British Colonial America.

SS4H3 Explain westward expansion in America.

SS8H1 Evaluate the impact of European exploration and settlement on American Indians in Georgia.

SS8H2 Analyze the colonial period of Georgia’s history.