Art and Ethnic Diversity

Early American Art

American art has often been consciously concerned with American identity. In the paintings of the young republic, for instance, portraiture is very prominent as are paintings of significant historical events as well as contemporary events of historical significance.

The Pennsylvania-born painter Benjamin West (1738–1820) was known for his paintings of events of the Revolutionary period. West claimed to have been taught as a child by a Native American friend and he maintained a lifelong interest in the aesthetics of Native American culture, amassing a collection of artifacts that he used as references. General Johnson Saving a Wounded French Officer From The Tomahawk of a North American Indian, completed in 1768, is an oil painting on canvas portraying an event from the French and Indian War. The British General Johnson intervenes to stop a Mohawk warrior from scalping the wounded Baron Dieskau, Johnson's French enemy. West was praised at the time for his attention to detail in his portrayal of the Native American, whose tattoos and clothing were carefully researched and are noticeably more meticulously detailed than the white subjects in the painting.

Of course, West's interest, while it may have been more than aesthetic, is not exactly sympathetic to the Mohawks and other Native Americans he portrayed. General Johnson clearly portrays the Mohawk warrior as a savage who needs to be restrained, in contrast with the civility of the British officer who defends the very enemy he has defeated—despite the fact that the real-life General Johnson was known as the “White Savage” because of his brutality. Key to understanding the painting is not only the portrayal of Indians as wild savages, but the debate during the French and Indian War over the appropriateness of Europeans allying themselves with Indians in wars. The practice was opposed because Native Americans were seen as savages who could not be trusted to treat civilians and the wounded properly, who would not abide by gentlemanly rules of combat, and who in essence represented a form of violence considered improper and inhumane even in war, just as certain classes of weapons are viewed today.

Nineteenth-Century American Art

Over the course of the 19th century, American art developed further and embraced a wider range of subjects and approaches, soon shifting from its focus on the “Great Men” of history. The influx of immigrants, primarily from Europe, also helped shake the country out of its early strict adherence to British painting traditions. Rural American landscapes were favored by painters from the Hudson River school, as well as the later luminists and tonalists, and the natural beauty of the continent was hailed as a distinctively American subject.

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