Art, history, myth and reality - the painting is "Genocide-America's Legacy" by Carole Estrup
Rebel Art in the West
by
JANSEN ESTRUP
(Reworked from a letter to the editor of Art of the West magazine which appeared in the July/August issue of 1995 as Thumbs Down)
Americans' passive acceptance of colonial history and its art dismays me.
The traditional, 'realistic' school of art championed as 'Western' is only so insofar as Hollywood types have ingrained it in our mythology via thousands of fanciful, mostly inaccurate cheap novels, films and TV series. For 110 years we have been watching films about a 20-year period of one sparsely populated sector of our “heritage.”
But true “Western” art is not realistic any more than the cowboy is American. The 'cowboy' originated in Africa and was brought to Europe (Spain) by Moors. Hundreds of years later, it was taken to the New World and more hundreds of years passed before Mexicans taught norte-Americanos the trade.
The vast majority of Western American art is, and always has been, imaginative, abstract and decidedly unphotographic. What are more stylized than petroglyphs, sand paintings, totem poles and beadwork?
Art promoters seem to be advocates, not of Western American art, but the classical European variety. Many of those masters are deservedly valued, but I suspect that you would exclude Bonheur, Degas, Claudel and van Gogh from the ranks of 'realistic' artists. Better add El Greco, too, and those entire schools that depicted 'Our Lord' on endless occasions. That cannot be 'realistic' since they had no idea what He 'really' looked like. Is that blasphemy, as well, since he is also considered a prophet by some?
The only value I see being extolled is a dubious one – that 'frontier' art is exlusive property of White males, exaggerated filmland gunplay, exploiting the real men (and women) who actually traveled and recorded new and personal experiences. Has this modern batch of Western artists given us any new insights or visons of the Old West, or it is just endless copying of Hollywood's copy? Recently, like sharks in a 'me, too' reality show frenzy, they seem to be copying each other.
Are women giving us a more complete picture by adding their grandmothers' experience? Has the Native American fleshed out our history by telling us their varied stories? Has the migrant and Black cowboy had his place recorded and sanctified?
Sadly, Western art is living more than 10 decades in the past. The world has moved on. If it were not for the 'Hollywood types' purists sneer at, relatively few would ever have heard of the ”American” cowboy, let alone permitted him to become the important source of income, prestige and inspiration that he sometimes is.
Granted, the art of Michael D'Autouno, Patricia Picinninini, and Robert Mapplethorpe is controversial, even radical. But radical views and actions are at the very foundation of the United States of America. Would you, if your product focused on the written word, condemn Jefferson and Madison and Paine as 'unworthy' of government support? The tyrant, George III, did.
As always, it is a good time for expanding our understanding and knowledge, not contracting it. Yes that can be chaotic, painful and frightening. Truth often is. So is half-truth and out-and-out lie. But this is, after all, the home of the brave and we can overcome our fears. That's how it got to be the land of free, creative people.
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compelling, thought provoking poignant read... well said
Never stop writing
m
http://stevelarance.com/portfolio/for-sale/
You're so right about Western history the way it's immortalized by Hollywood and carefully modified school history books. I find that dramas like Hell on Wheels are helping to change that image. There has always been some renegade movies like Heaven's Gate that portrayed a better picture of what the West was really about.
Ron