Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art

Tuesday November 17 2009

It's a dark and rainy day, the perfect kind to spend in a beautiful museum.  Particularly one filled with engaging art and artifacts.  Like the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis.  Founded 20 years ago by a local philanthropist who had a lifetime interest in Native Americans and their art, the museum is beautifully designed and laid out.  But like all museums, it's the art that counts.  And as a longtime devotee of Western American art, I fell in love.

The first floor is devoted to Western American art, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Remingtons (both paintings and bronzes) and work by many other artists portraying Native Americans.  The Remington that stopped my heart is entitled "He Looked At the Land of His People and He Hated All Vehemently."  Remington painted it as an illustration for a coming-of-age tale of a young Indian hero.  The young brave looks discontently in the vast distance and you can just feel his disappointment and anger.  I normally don't spend a lot of time studying paintings but this one didn't let go of me for a while.

A second exhibition on the first floor features contemporary work by Native American artists.  About half of the work could have been painted by any talented American; that is, I couldn't discern anything that made these works "Native American."  But others were clearly influenced by the artists' ethnicity.  My favorite was one by Shelley Niro called "Unbury My Heart."  She created 500 hearts, represeting the 500 Indian tribes of this country, and linked them together with cord.  Of course many of these tribes are out of existence, which makes this a real heartbreaker.

My other favorite in this show was by Woody Guyn, a striking painting of a western landscape, with an interstate road slicing its way across the forests and streams.  I also had to look at this for a while, and thought a lot about the wind turbine issue that's so troubling to me.  We Americans have become all too good at destroying our natural resources.

The second floor of the museum is devoted to Native American art.  I was struck by the differences in the displays on the first and second floors.  The floor of Western art was filled with paintings and bronzes.  The floor of Native American art was filled with masks, cooking utensils, beaded headdresses and other ornamentations, jewelry, carvings, saddles, mocassins and other implements of everyday life.  No "fine art" for them.  I don't know what to make of the difference, but it was very striking.

As I was leaving I read a statement posted on a wall that said something to the effect that white men look at time as a river flowing onward, whereas Native Americans look at time as a pond where everything is layered.  I've got to ponder that for a while.