![Picture](/uploads/9/3/2/0/93202712/320px-emanuel-leutze-westward-the-course-of-empire-takes-its-way-capitol_orig.jpg)
The Land in Art
In 1991, the Smithstonian American Art Museum created the exhibit: The West as America, Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820-1920. The exhibit brought the conversation of western revisionism back to the modern American; it put the frontier thesis on display. All art is representational in this way, presenting things in a way that collectively represents a possible interpretation of some event or idea. The art inspired by American West is just as diverse, controversial, and influential as the land it portrays.
The frontier thesis argued for the primacy of the land in the development of American cultural values. However, the pursuit of frontier imagery in education and art has created a historical narrative grounded in source material with specific ideological imagery, and thus has deviated from an objective account of history. This was the central message of the curators of the exhibit. Their purpose was to demonstrate the possibly false traditional beliefs conveyed by the art.
In 1991, the Smithstonian American Art Museum created the exhibit: The West as America, Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820-1920. The exhibit brought the conversation of western revisionism back to the modern American; it put the frontier thesis on display. All art is representational in this way, presenting things in a way that collectively represents a possible interpretation of some event or idea. The art inspired by American West is just as diverse, controversial, and influential as the land it portrays.
The frontier thesis argued for the primacy of the land in the development of American cultural values. However, the pursuit of frontier imagery in education and art has created a historical narrative grounded in source material with specific ideological imagery, and thus has deviated from an objective account of history. This was the central message of the curators of the exhibit. Their purpose was to demonstrate the possibly false traditional beliefs conveyed by the art.
The museum presented 55 written labels in the exhibit, encouraging the audience to “see through” what the art seemed to convey, namely, the background and purpose of the artists, the audience to which the art was sold, and the alleged blindness of the artists to the sufferings of native peoples and the environmental destruction associated with western expansion.
One of the main criticisms of the exhibit (other than what some would argue was a political agenda), was the fact that not all western art was ignorant of the relationship expansion had with the environment and native people.
“The paintings in this gallery and those that follow should not be seen as a record of time and place. More often than not they are contrived views, meant to answer the hopes and desires of people facing a seemingly unlimited and mostly unsettled portion of the nation.”
![Picture](/uploads/9/3/2/0/93202712/320px-the-oregon-trail_orig.jpg)
The curator William H. Truettner revised ten of the fifty-five labels in response to criticism from anthropologists and other antagonism. He removed many references that suggested that art involving Indians perpetuated stereotypes based in systematic and calculated racism.
The exhibit showed how the portrayal of Indians developed with successive American conquests. At first, artistic takes on Indians showed them possessing nobility and respectable primitiveness. Eventually, as manifest destiny was driven on by the rhetoric of the Frontier Thesis, Indian stereotypes developed into hostility and savagery. Both of these portrayals, according to the exhibit, were depicting stereotypes rather than real history.
Leutze, Emanuel. Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way. 1861. Wikimedia
Project, Wikipedia, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Emanuel_Leutze_-_Westward_the_Course_of_Empire_Takes_Its_Way_-_Capitol.jpg.
Accessed 17 Jan. 2017.
Panzer, Mary (1992). "Panning 'The West As America': or Why One Exhibit Did Not Strike Gold". Radical History Review
Shaw, Joshua. Coming of the White Man. 1850. Wikipedia, commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:Coming_of_the_White_Man_(1850)_by_Joshua_Shaw.jpg.
The exhibit showed how the portrayal of Indians developed with successive American conquests. At first, artistic takes on Indians showed them possessing nobility and respectable primitiveness. Eventually, as manifest destiny was driven on by the rhetoric of the Frontier Thesis, Indian stereotypes developed into hostility and savagery. Both of these portrayals, according to the exhibit, were depicting stereotypes rather than real history.
Leutze, Emanuel. Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way. 1861. Wikimedia
Project, Wikipedia, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Emanuel_Leutze_-_Westward_the_Course_of_Empire_Takes_Its_Way_-_Capitol.jpg.
Accessed 17 Jan. 2017.
Panzer, Mary (1992). "Panning 'The West As America': or Why One Exhibit Did Not Strike Gold". Radical History Review
Shaw, Joshua. Coming of the White Man. 1850. Wikipedia, commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:Coming_of_the_White_Man_(1850)_by_Joshua_Shaw.jpg.