Hunting Art IV

 

Husky  Labradorite Sculptor Gilbert Hayes Courtesy Sivertsons Art Gallery https://www.sivertson.com/

Inuit Dogs 

Inuit life in the Arctic would have been far different without the Inuit sled dog.  Yet few dogs are represented in their earlier art.  The dog was their only domesticated animal but Inuit believe the dog (like Faust) sold its soul, for more reliable mealtimes.  When they were forced into villages, many Inuit had to kill their dogs.  The government replaced them with snowmobiles in the 1970s.  Greenland, a protectorate of Denmark, banned snowmobiles in the 1970s.  Greenland's Inuit's sled dog population is about 30,000.  It's illegal to bring any other breed of dog into Greenland.  There are about 100 purebred Inuit dogs left in Canada, 150 in the United States.  (Denmark also tried to keep northern Greenland 'isolated' from the outside world to preserve its traditional Inuit culture.  That ban was lifted in 1950.)

"Scattered (archeological) findings indicate an indigenous graphic tradition.  In the accounts of early explorers, there are numerous references to the innate ability of Eskimos to draw accurate maps and to reproduce pictorial images from newspapers as soon as paper and pencil became available.  Twentieth century researchers  have found Eskimo children consistently superior in culture-free drawing tests," cites Fitzhugh and Kaplan in, Inua Spirit World of the Bering Sea Eskimo.  They theorize that centuries of survival of people with a keener eye have intensified an ability to observe and reproduce minute details.  Survival was often dependent upon this keen eye, and it was the survivor who lived to reproduce.

Bear Tracks, 1992 woodcut on paper Artist Mary K. Okheena Courtesy Winnipeg Art Gallery http://www.wag.ca/

Qualities of Inuit Art

1.  In 1950 Inuit were not traditionally trained artists, i.e. in schools with established procedures.  But they knew anatomy, closely studied their world and used traditional materials such as stone, ivory, and bone.  They had an exceptional work ethic and their work has vitality, instantly recognized, difficult to inculcate.

2.  Western 20th and 21st century art has focused on stylized human subjects, abstraction, theatrics or geometry, seldom humor, rarely animals.  Animals are Inuit art, closely followed by human subjects, families specifically, mothers with their children, camp life, playfulness, tragedy, and mysticism.

3.Contemporary Western art centers often cluster in urban areas, far removed from the natural world (exceptions: Georgia O'Keefe and nature photography, and a few isolated artists colonies not located in or near cities.)  Not since the Impressionists, in the late 19th century, has nature, albeit a domesticated version, been the main subject.  Inuit art is infused with the WILD.

4.  Pre-1970s Inuit artists were mostly illiterate--not the case with Western art, which often, by necessity, demands written explanation.

5.  Inuit focused on their immediate family with little concept of the individualized artist.  Their art was their way of life, and a way to provide for their families.

6.  They initially made art for commercial purposed after experiencing tragedy.  They had purpose.  Modernization/Industrialization threatens sense of purpose, self, and this is reflected in contemporary Western art.

7.  Inuit have always puzzled Westerners.  They are more humble, less verbal.  There are few biographies, even of the famous old time carvers and printers.  There's a real lack of scholarship in this area, and time is running out for first person accounts, as many Inuit artists are now in their 80s and 90s.  Also, rarely are Inuit art human subjects identified.  Inuit culture is more small group oriented.

8.  There's often a seemingly abstract quality to Inuit prints.  It seems as if objects are floating.  When you are someplace that's flat, with little variation in topography, like looking at the ocean from a ship, or a field of wheat, or, in this case, snowy landscapes, perspective is an elusive thing, so the appearance of abstraction can in fact be an authentic reproduction of what's seen.

9.  Many Inuit prints are monochrome, reproducing the lack of the primary colors red and yellow in the Arctic.  Also, in prints such as Bear Tracks, there's a dynamic element of fear, in the Inuit struggle to capture food, there's always the Arctic danger of being captured.

Things I Remember 17 Linocut by Kananginak Pootoogook Courtesy Eskimo Art Gallery http://www.eskimoart.com/

 

A Brief History of Arctic Peoples

People living in the Far North for thousands of years are divided into five periods:

Pre-Dorset 

The period emerged from migrations from Siberia across the Bering Straight, circa 2000 BC.  Few art objects exist from this period although stone harpoon points imply hunting-magic ideas in Dorset Culture started here.

Dorset Culture

Around 700-500 BC people began to produce figurative objects such as birds, bears, human figures, and masks made of bone, ivory or wood.  Objects had magic-religious significance used in religious rites.  Small in scale so they were easily to transport.

Thule Culture

Around 1000 AD people began migrating from Alaska to Canadian Arctic

and onto eastern Greenland by 1200 AD.  Thule Culture either drove out or eliminated Dorset Culture.  The Norse were in this area too.  The Thule hunted whales and built permanent homes of stone and whalebone.  Some still remain.  Elegant carvings of animal imagery and of everyday things with no religious intent.  Art uniform and distinctly feminine in form and content.

Historic Period

Thule Culture disappears, weather increasingly colder , the whales disappear.  The white man arrives 16th century.  Inuit art forms tailored more and more for Europeans.  In 1896 Yukon Gold Rush---100,000 prospectors arrive.

Contemporary Period

After World War II gradual opening up of North.  Unprecedented amount of contact between North and South Canada.  Most Inuit groups removed from nomadic life and acculturated to become "modern."  Inuit art collectives began the process of establishing Inuit sculpture as major art form.