Haida Gwaii Compare And Contrast

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Native American artwork, no matter when it was created, often has an extremely profound meaning or symbolism for a particular tribe or ancestry. Undoubtedly, the style of art that was being created by Native American artists was impacted by European domination. In this assignment, two Native American pieces will be analyzed in order to compare and contrast them. The contemporary sculpture The Spirit of Haida Gwaii by Bill Reid and the traditional Chilkat blanket of the Pacific Northwestern tribes will be examined. Firstly, the similarities in both formal and contextual elements will be addressed and then the differences. Many of the similarities between The Spirit of Haida Gwaii and the Chilkat blanket stem from their similar origin - the …show more content…

The primary difference resides in the two contrasting types of art – a bronze sculpture and a woven blanket. This difference is connected to several other variances within the formal elements, such as texture and color. The Spirit of Haida Gwaii, due to the nature of bronze, is smooth, semi-glossy, and is a dark nearly black color. The Chilkat blanket is likely rough and coarse because of the woven wool, and have a variety of natural colors – like browns and yellows, but also black. Contextually, the two pieces differ dramatically. The Spirit of Haida Gwaii is massive – 13 feet wide, 20 feet long, and weighing 11,000 pounds – it is a very permanent composition that resides outside the Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C. (“The Spirit”). The Chilkat blanket, however, is meant to be worn around the shoulders and danced with, even though many of the blankets do reside in museums (Hansen). This context for viewing each piece can dramatically influence the message it portrays. The movement of he Chilkat dancer allowed the images to come alive, while the figures in The Spirit of Haida Gwaii stare endlessly fixed in one direction. Along with the medium used to create each is the method behind crafting them. The Spirit of Haida Gwaii started as a clay model, then the plaster cast was made, and it subsequently was cast in bronze (“The Spirit”). This is an extremely large process requiring complex machinery and more modern sculpting techniques. The Chilkat blankets, in comparison, were crafted quite differently. The men of the tribe were in charge of gathering the materials and manufacturing the loom and the women were the weavers. The style of weaving of a Chilkat blanket is considered by many to be the most complex in the world. They hand-weave the weft, or the horizontal yarn, over the warp, the vertical yarn; they can create all the patterns with this method

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