Art Is… Decolonizing Landscape Painting
Summary
TLDRThe video script explores the emotional and political dimensions of landscape painting, particularly in the context of American history. It discusses the Hudson River School's propagandistic portrayal of the American West and the complex contradictions within the landscape as seen by different cultural perspectives. The artist uses abstraction to challenge traditional landscape narratives, highlighting the historical inequities and social structures that persist. The script also touches on the importance of recognizing the contributions and experiences of Native Americans and African Americans, suggesting that the landscape is not just a backdrop but a living testament to the nation's past and present.
Takeaways
- 🎨 The artist uses landscape and imagery as metaphors to explore feelings of time and illusion.
- 🚗 The experience of driving across the United States multiple times has led to a changing perception of nature.
- 🖼️ Robert ants Duncanson, an African American painter, is highlighted for his majestic landscapes that challenge traditional American colonial depictions.
- 🏞️ The speaker reflects on their own experiences with the landscape, viewing it not as idyllic but as a space of work, ownership, and oppression.
- 🌳 The speaker critiques the propagandistic nature of American landscape paintings, which often promoted western expansion and ignored historical injustices.
- 🖌️ The artist's work is described as a counter-narrative to the traditional idea of landscapes, aiming to include historical and social contexts.
- 🌱 The artist's paintings are influenced by the history of manifest destiny and westward expansion, aiming to address complex contradictions.
- 🌈 Abstraction is chosen as a potent method to express the artist's identity and to challenge conventional landscape painting.
- 🏡 The artist's work addresses contemporary social issues such as educational inequity, environmental injustice, and homelessness.
- 🔍 The artist's approach to painting involves a process of layering and grouping marks to create a collective identity and to 'excavate' narratives from the landscape.
Q & A
What does the artist use as a metaphor for the feeling of time and illusion?
-The artist uses landscape and image as a metaphor for the feeling of time and illusion.
Why does the artist see nature differently each time they travel across the United States?
-The artist sees nature differently each time due to the learning and understanding gained from one trip to the other, which changes their perspective on what they are looking at.
How does the painting by Robert Ants Duncanson challenge the traditional American colonial landscape?
-Robert Ants Duncanson's painting challenges the traditional American colonial landscape by depicting it as majestic yet horrific for anyone with brown skin, thus offering a counter-narrative to the idyllic portrayals of the Hudson River School.
What is the artist's perspective on landscapes from their South Carolina roots?
-The artist views landscapes not as pastoral scenes but as spaces of work, ownership, and oppression, reflecting their experiences growing up in South Carolina.
Why are many American landscape paintings considered propagandistic?
-Many American landscape paintings, particularly by the Hudson River School artists, are considered propagandistic because they were used to promote western expansion and a particular narrative of American progress.
How does the artist's work relate to the historical concept of manifest destiny?
-The artist's work relates to manifest destiny by exploring the complex contradictions and historical inequities associated with westward expansion, using abstraction to provide a counter-narrative.
What social issues does the artist's work address through landscape painting?
-The artist's work addresses social issues such as inequities in education, environmental injustices like those in Flint, Michigan, and conditions contributing to homelessness, all of which are presented as part of the landscape's history.
Why does the artist consider their paintings as landscape paintings despite their abstract nature?
-The artist considers their paintings as landscape paintings because they serve as a counter-narrative to the idea of landscapes being devoid of historical precedents, incorporating the blood and history of American and Native American people into the soil of the United States.
How do the symbolic marks in the artist's grad school paintings contribute to the overall meaning?
-The symbolic marks in the artist's grad school paintings gain identity and meaning when grouped together, articulating something more complex and suggesting an excavation of history from the landscape.
What role does the understanding of Native Americans' relationship with nature play in the artist's work?
-The artist's work incorporates an understanding of Native Americans' deep connection with nature, highlighting their survival and existence in harmony with the environment before the arrival of Europeans.
How does the artist view the potential for change and contribution within their paintings?
-The artist sees their paintings as a space where new possibilities and contributions can emerge, suggesting a future that moves beyond the language and limitations of the past.
Outlines
🖼️ Landscape as Metaphor and Abstraction
The speaker discusses their artistic journey and approach to landscape painting, which is deeply influenced by emotions, time, and illusion. They recount their experiences traveling across the United States, observing how nature's perception changes with each journey. The artist grapples with capturing light, space, and time, and how these elements can suggest multiple interpretations. They reference Robert Duncanson, an African American painter from the Hudson River School, and critique the propagandistic nature of traditional American landscape paintings that often romanticize colonial landscapes, ignoring the oppression faced by people of color. The artist's own experiences growing up in South Carolina shape their view of landscapes as spaces of work and oppression rather than idyllic scenes. They express a desire to challenge these narratives through abstraction, creating a counter-narrative that acknowledges historical inequities and the complex layers of American and Native American history within the land.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Emotion
💡Metaphor
💡Landscape Painting
💡Hudson River School
💡Abstraction
💡Manifest Destiny
💡Social Structure
💡Inequity
💡Native American
💡Counter Narrative
💡Excavating
Highlights
The artist uses landscape as a metaphor for emotions and experiences.
The artist's perception of nature changes with each journey across the United States.
Light, space, and time are captured to suggest and offer different interpretations.
Robert Ans Duncanson's painting is a critique of the American colonial landscape.
The landscape is viewed as a space of work and oppression, not as a pastoral scene.
Landscape paintings are considered political and propagandistic, promoting western expansion.
The artist's work is a counter-narrative to the idea of landscape devoid of historical precedents.
Inequities in education and environmental sites are highlighted through landscape painting.
The artist is interested in undoing historical conditions that persist to this day.
The artist's paintings include marks that take on an identity when grouped together.
The artist's work is a form of excavation, revealing historical layers within the landscape.
The artist's paintings suggest the presence of Native Americans and their connection to nature.
The artist explores the limitations of past language in addressing current issues.
The artist's work invites consideration of new possibilities and contributions to society.
The artist's paintings reveal gaps and histories that challenge the viewer's understanding.
The artist's work is a response to the history of manifest destiny and westward expansion.
The artist's paintings are a commentary on the blood of every American and Native American in the soil of the United States.
Transcripts
paisa based on emotion I use landscape
image as a metaphor for the feeling of
time and illusion I drove across United
State from New York to San Francisco
three times and every time I went across
the country I see nature differently
because they've learned for one trip to
the other and understood what I was
looking at how do you capture light and
space and time and it can suggest
something but it can also offer
something else Robert ants Duncanson is
an african american hudson river valley
painter in this painting it is this
majestic landscape with these
individuals and they almost look like
brown people it's this American colonial
landscape that can only be horrific
right for anybody who has brown skin I'm
from South Carolina I don't recall ever
looking at the landscape as a pastoral
scene
I've always encountered it as a space of
work as a space of ownership as a space
of oppression a lot of people view
landscapes is a political I would say
that that is the result of a wonderfully
effective indoctrination machine
the great American landscape painters
like Thomas Cole and bierstadt and
Hudson River school painters a lot of
those paintings were propagandistic you
know they were all about the western
expansion being influenced by Hudson
River School with landscape vendors and
respecting what they doing about their
illusion and why didn't need to go pain
in this plantation in Georgia there's a
whole big bushy area around they're not
looking so where do what happened in
that area down river now the slaves are
being treated so I did a painting of
that area so as I was thinking about
this history of kind of manifest destiny
and this westward expansion is project I
felt like there were too many complex
contradictions in anything that I was
thinking about or interested in it
became more and more clear to me that it
was through abstraction that I could
really be most potent identify my work
as landscape painting because it's
offered as a counter narrative to the
idea of landscape as devoid of
historical precedents the inequities in
education and inequities of
environmental sites like Flint Michigan
conditions around homelessness ideas of
a social structure for those who are
vulnerable these conditions that persist
to this day that we've inherited that
are hundreds of years old can be undone
and I'm interested in undoing that my
paintings in terms of ever American and
Native American their blood is in the
soil of the United States
so that's part of nature and so that
combination is why I paint landscapes
when I was in grad school my paintings
were made up of these marks like
symbolic type types of marks I did one
of them by themselves they didn't feel
like much but if you put them in a group
all of a sudden they took on an identity
by the other marks it starts to
articulate something else and it's
almost excavating something out of the
landscape to the point where the figure
emerges at times and then disintegrates
and become something else
can't just look at a painting and see
one thing there was this other element
going on there's a whole understanding
of Native Americans in terms of the
phenomena of nature cuz Native Americans
just survived and Lippi is very help
they exist just by nature until the
Europeans came and brought disease we
can't use the language of the past to
really address what's happening in many
ways what else is possible and who can
contribute to that all of those other
possibilities and all of the desires
that could exist in that to me are what
emerges from the gaps inside of these
pains and in these histories
[Music]
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