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TJ123-8-2009 LK VWD0011 Tradition Humanistic 6th Edition W:220mm x H:292mm 175L 115 Stora Enso M/A Magenta (V)24 CHAPTER 27 The Romantic View of Nature24
Figure 27. 18 Catlinite
pipe (possibly a specialized
medicine pipe or one for
women’s use) representing a
fanged and crested water
spirit, with fish effigy stem,
1850–1860. Sioux tribe, carved
in Minnesota. Length 8^5 ⁄ 8 in.
After the Europeans introduced the
horse to Native American culture, this
animal joined the more traditional motifs
Figure 27. 17 used to ornament ritual pipes.
Zuni water jar,
nineteenth century. Height 9^1 ⁄ 2 in.Indians and dead buffalo. Catlinite pipes
served in rituals for healing. They usually bear
effigies of legendary birds, bears, or water crea-
tures (Figure 27.18).
Popularizing the culture of the Native
American in literature, the American poet
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
offered a sentimental picture of AmericanIndian
life in his narrative poem The Song of Hiawatha
(1885). This fictional tale is based on the life of a six-
teenth-century Mohawk statesman. Unfortunately, neither
Longfellow nor Catlin, nor the achievements of the Native
Americans themselves, impeded the wholesale destruction
of Native American cultures. Beginning in the 1830s,
under pressure from the United States government, tribes
were forced to cede their homelands and their hunting
grounds to white settlers and to move into unoccupied
lands in the American West. The perception of the Native
American as the “devil savage” prevailed over the Romantic
notion of the “noble savage” and came to justify America’s
effort to “civilize” its “savage” populations through policies
(strongly criticized by Catlin and others) that forced most
tribes to take up residence on “reservations” and, more
often than not, to abandon their native languages,
religions, and traditions. Persecution, humiliation, outright
physical attack, and the continuing effects of disease fur-
ther accelerated the decline and near extinction of
America’s indigenous peoples.American Folk Art
American folk artists produced some of the most interest-
ing artworks of the nineteenth century. Unlike profession-
ally trained artists like Cole and Church, folk artists
lacked technical schooling in the visual arts. Nevertheless,they were inspired to adorn their
everyday surroundings with objects
that often manifested extraordinary
sensitivity to design and affection for
natural detail.
One of the most distinctive of nine-
teenth-century folk art genres was the hand-
stitched quilt, a utilitarian object produced almost
exclusively by women. Unlike academic art objects,
quilts were often communal projects. Several women
embroidered or appliquéd designs onto individual fabric
patches salvaged from leftover sewing materials. Then, at
popular quilting “bees,” they assembled the patches into
bedcovers some 9 by 8 feet in size. Quilt motifs, frequently
drawn from nature, were stylized and brightly colored
(Figure 27.19). Many became standardized patterns that
were passed from mother to daughter and from household
to household. Patchwork quilts might commemorate reli-
gious or family occasions (such as weddings) or public
events, but they rarely narrated a story. Rather, quilts con-
veyed meaning through abstract signs and symbols. A folk
record of nature and the natural, quilt-making and related
textile arts constitute a decorative yet intimate nine-
teenth-century American artform.
The Romantic sanctification of nature is even more
vividly configured in The Peaceable Kingdom(Figure 27.20),
a painting by the American folk artist Edward Hicks
(1780–1849). A Quaker minister in Bucks County,
Pennsylvania, Hicks was also a popular sign-painter. His
inspiration for more than 100 versions of this utopian sub-
ject came from the Book of Isaiah (11: 6–9): “The wolf also
shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down
with the kid... and a little child shall lead them.” Hicks set
his charming, wide-eyed beasts and weightless, diminutive
children in a verdant landscape. In the background, at the