MODERN HOPI PAINTING

Julian Solorio Beltran

Chapter 27
The Modern Hopi Painting essay by J.J. Brody deals with the evolution
of Hopi painting and art during the early 1900s. Hopi art was hard to
separate into ritualistic or secular because they both shared similar subject
matter and styles. There were many early efforts to document the Hopi
artistic style before it was changed or affected by the European influences.
Initially the Bureau of Indian Affairs did not want the students in Indian
schools to be taught art. The Indian community was initially in accordance
with this idea; they wanted their sacred art to remain in the domain of the
Indians themselves. The Hopi artistic style continued to evolve during the
following decades. The Hopi artists were able to avoid the clich pitfall that
other Native American art fell into. This meant that they were able to have
control of the financial benefits of their works of Art. That had effects that
benefited the Hopi people in a very good way.
#1: J.J. Brody speculates in the essay that Fred Kaboties artistic style
would still have changed the Hopi art system, even if the Hopi life had not
changed so much during the 1900s. I dont think that this statement is
particularly correct. Fred Kaboties style was able to evolve into a more
creative form because he was exposed to it at an early age, and he was
taken out of the Hopi environment for quite a long time during his teen
years. Art in these cultures is very much connected to their spiritual life. It
takes a lot of time and effort for artistic change to take effect in these
primitive cultures. Fred Kabotie even explains that his artistic style as a
young child was modeled after the art that he saw in his Hopi pueblo. He
used charcoal and earth colors and painted on rock surfaces, much like his
ancestors.
#2: The art of painting was very important to the Hopi people. J.J. Brody
mentions that the importance of the paintings was very much a product of
symbolism and tradition, not subject or form. This is illustrated by a story
about an anthropologist named J. Walter Fewkes. He worked for the
Smithsonian and commissioned a set of paintings from some Hopi painting
men. He intended to use these to cross-reference other paintings for
authenticity. Initially everything was going well, but rumors started spreading
among the Hopi pueblos about the paintings being associated with
witchcraft. I find it interesting that the commissioned paintings were very
similar to the traditional Hopi paintings, but the Hopi still avoided them. To
me, this shows that the intended use of the art was more important than its
style or form. This seems very different to western art, where the content
and form of an art piece supersedes its intended use after its creation.
People would not stop painting the Last Supper because some people started
using it for witchcraft, voodoo, etc.

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#3: Lastly, I want to talk about the efforts undertaken by Fred Kabotie and
other successful Hopi artists to preserve the authenticity of the traditional art
and the new modern Hopi art. Many Native American cultures have had their
art forms taken from their control by outsider commercial interests. Some of
the most popular are the Cherokee and Navajo textile patterns. They are now
sold with no homage to the Native Tribes. I think that Fred Kabotie made his
art dynamic enough to avoid being copied, but stuck with certain elements
that made his Hopi art recognizable. I believe that this has kept the value of
their art higher than most Native art.