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Colonization: How Western
from Roaches zine 2021
Across human history, art has taken many forms. It has taken the form of sculpture, printing, painting, and other practices with a variety of materials. With this, different art forms have become specific to certain cultures. As colonization was being perpetuated by European powerhouses such as Spain and France, a hierarchy was established between European works of art and the rest of the world. In this essay, I will explore how colonization and western culture has impacted how we see indigenous art, particularly American indigenous cultures. Throughout the paper, I will define colonization and Indigenous peoples, describe the history of Spain’s colonization of the Americas, compare art before and after colonization, and discuss how colonization impacted art perception by weaponizing languages and changing beauty standards. The definition of colonization is: “the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the Indigenous people of an area” (Oxford Languages, 2020). The key element of this definition is the establishment of
Colonization
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How Western Influence Impacts Perception of Art Kelly Peraza Klee
‘control over, where it is implied that Indigenous people will face violence and other coercive methods to bend to the will of the colonizers. In the modern era, it is difficult to talk about colonization without mentioning decolonization. “Decolonization is the process of deconstructing colonial ideologies of the superiority and privilege of Western thought and approaches.” On the one hand, decolonization involves dismantling structures that perpetuate the status quo and addressing unbalanced power dynamics. On the other hand, decolonization involves valuing and revitalizing Indigenous knowledge, and approaching and weeding out settler biases or assumptions that have impacted Indigenous ways of being” (Cull et al, 2018). In short, it is the unlearning of western thinking and the return to Indigenous customs. This is a relatively new idea, but important for Indigenous people struggling with their identity in a world that is not theirs. It is also worth noting that by using “Indigenous’’ in this paper, I mean the 2006 United Nations definition: “[People who] retain social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live...they are the descendants...of those who inhabited a country or a geographical region at the time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived. The new arrivals later became dominant through conquest, occupation, settlement or other means” (United Nations, 2006). Essentially, any group who occupied the land before
colonization. While the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas were all separate and unique cultures, they were all colonized by the same country within the same timespan and thus I will be referring to them collectively as the Indigenous population. Next, I will present a summarized version of Spain’s colon-
-ization of Central America, focusing on the destruction of Indigenous culture. The invasion of the Americas by Spanish powers began in 1492, when Columbus first arrived in what is now the Dominican Republic and reported the existence of the “New World.” The majority of the occupation takes place after the year 1500. The reason for colonization was established in 1493. “...that uncounted numbers
of souls in need of Christian conversion were waiting in the New World intensified the religious motive for this enterprise.” The justification for colonization itself was explicitly religious, codified in 1493 by the Bulls of Donation, issued by Pope Alexander VI (a Spaniard), which assigned Spain “a just title” to American lands. The colonizers were obligated to evangelize the inhabitants and make them Christians” (Deagan, 2003). The Pope had given Spaniards permission to invade on the premise that the Indigenous people could be “saved” by introducing Catholicism. Indigenous people faced two choices in this matter: converting to Catholicism and being used for labor, or suffering the consequences. “Although the conquered populations were obligated to contribute labor as a token of their submission to Spain… those new subjects who continued resistance (and
the conquistadors defined the concept of resistance in very broad terms) were considered appropriate candidates for enslavement and despoliation” (Deagan, 2003). Regardless of what choice was made, the Indigenous people would still be subjugated to the Spanish government. The people who actively chose resistance would face violence, slavery, and robbery, and the arrival of new diseases introduced by Spanish colonizers. “Epidemics provoked a rapid demo-
When a population is destroyed, so is their culture, as there are fewer and fewer people to practice the traditions. From this, we can assume that it led to a severe decrease in Indigenous art and an increase in eurocentric art.
graphic decline in the native populations of the earliest Spanish-American colonies (Crosby), and this led in turn to a desperate (perceived) need by the Spanish colonists for alternate sources of labor. Their solution spelled doom for the hundreds of thousands of African people brought unwillingly to the Americas as slaves... after 1520” (Deagan, 2003). The population of Mayans and Aztecs were perceived to have dropped by an estimated 85% to 90%. Although Africans were introduced as slave labor, they would also be instrumental in the decimation of the Indigenous population. “At the same time, we should note that a number of Black Christian Spaniards (ladinos), both free and unfree, participated in the conquest and colonization of America as conquistadors and encomenderos” (Landers 1990). In short, colonization decimated the Indigenous population through disease, slavery, war, and the introduction of an African population. When a population is destroyed, so is their culture, as there are fewer and fewer people to practice the traditions. From this, we can assume that it led to a severe decrease in Indigenous art and
Wolfgang Sauber, 08.04.2008
an increase in eurocentric art. As a concrete example, I will show and describe the differences between pre-colonial and post-colonial art. There are enormous differences in content and materials: “For many of these cultures, the visual arts went beyond physical appearance and served as active extensions of their owners and indices of the divine… Artisans of the Ancient Americas drew upon a wide range of materials (obsidian, gold, spondylus shells), creating objects that included the meanings held to be inherent to the materials” (Pilsbury et al, 2017). One example is the jade mort-
-tuary mask of Pakal the Great. Information on the mask is limited, but it is made out al-
most entirely out of jade. Additionally, Pakal also had one of the longest reigns in the ancient world, serving over 68 years (Nadal, 2018). After colonization, much of the artwork was destroyed, looted, or lost, such as the temples buried underneath jungles. In replacement, we see many more paintings and drawings focused on Christian theology and depiction of the suffering of Indigenous people. An example of this comes from the Cusco School where, “the Spanish, who aimed to convert the Incas to Catholicism, sent a group of religious artists to Cusco, the capital of the Incan territory.” The philosophy behind the school was to teach Christian ideals to indigenous Incans through paintings, “taught the Indian and half-breed artists the secret” (Descola, 235). Essentially, the destruction of culture using art. An example of this art is the harrowing painting of Incan people being burned in Hell for not converting to Christianity. This painting was created by Diego Quispe Tito, an Incan man. Finally, it is time to discuss how colonization and art perception interact. Colonization impacts art perception directly through language, and indirectly through beauty standards.One of the terms used to describe Indigenous artwork is “primitive.” This word has been effectively weaponized in contemporary culture, and should no longer be used to describe Indigenous art for a multitude of reasons. “Objects do not exist as ‘primitive art’. This is a category created for their circulation, exhibition, and consumption out-
Online Collectioon of Brooklyn Museum
side their original habitats” (Meyers, 2006). One of the main reasons the term should not be used is that it was created by the dominant eurocentric culture and is not a label that Indigenous people chose for themselves. Furthermore, their art is not readily available for their consumption and located in a completely different context. “Primarily, therefore, non-Western and prehistoric art, ‘primitive art’ (later to become ‘tribal art’, the ‘art of small-scale societies’, and even ‘ethnographic art’) was most obviously within the purview of anthropological study and was exhibited in ethnographic or natural history rather than ‘fine art’ museums” (Meyers, 2006). Indigenous art was shown in history museums, not necessarily art museums, further dehumanizing their work. Of course, the main reason the “primitive” label should not be used is because of what it implies. “The word ‘primitive’ generally refers to someone or something less complex, or less advanced, than the person or thing to which it is being compared. It is conventionally defined in negative terms, as lacking in elements such as organization, refinement and technological accomplishment. In cultural terms, this means a deficiency in those qualities that have been used historically in the West as indications of civilization” (Rhodes, 1995). In short, the term is insulting and inaccurate. It is important to mention this topic for this paper, as the language is used as a tool to justify the cruelties of colonization. If culture and its people are considered unsophisticated and subsequently destroyed, it means that there would be no space for them in the “modern” future and that the world is better off without them. This is obviously untrue, but the term has very real consequences. “The indigenous people cannot be fully relegated to prehistory as the predecessors of the settlers” (Meyers, 2006). The term promotes the erasure of the descendants, which is the end goal of colonialism.
Colonization also impacted art perception through beauty standards and the attack of the psyche of colonized groups. This impact was especially apparent in non-white groups, such as Latinx and African Indigenous tribes. “In the racial hierarchies set up by European colonization
and imperialism, Whiteness was associated with a superior self, Blackness was the mark of otherness and inferiority, and gradations of skin color came to mark social status. The notion of moral, intellectual, and cultural inferiority, framed in terms of biology in the scientific discourse of the time, justified the total domination and exploitation of the colonized and enslaved” (Kimaye et al, 2018). The idea that the colonizing population set across the world was that whiteness was coveted and valued over dark skin. Depending on how close one was to the ideal, they would be treated as more or less desirable than their counterparts. Another example other than changing skin color and clothing is with facial features, demonstrated in this 2018 study using elementary school students: “In the explicit task, faces with darker skin tone, and more Afrocentric faces were generally evaluated more negatively by both White and non-White children, which was especially true for darker skin tone faces with Eurocentric physiognomy… Results on the implicit task were more equivocal; reflecting an interactive relationship between participant race, skin tone and facial physiognomy. These findings provide evidence that pro-White attitudes (especially explicit) are driven by both factors, vary by race, and are present in both White and non-White children” (Rex, 2018).
What this means is that even children in this current decade are subject to these eurocentric standards of beauty. These racial beauty standards are taught to the children from an extremely young age,
with both white and nonwhite children choosing whiter faces and features over Afrocentric features. The implication is that these children will continue to have these biases against their peers and well into their adulthood. These differences in perceptions of beauty lead to psychological and possibly physical damage. “...Significant remnants of colonial hierarchies continue to shape subjectivities of self and personhood. The colonial mindset can be seen in everyday behaviors such as skin bleaching practices by women in Africa and the diaspora, as well as in less visible biases such as internalized stereotypes that influence everyday functioning” (Steele, 2010). In other words, the colonial mindset is the continued subjugation of the Indigenous population, where the ideas of the colonizing or dominant class are valued over traditional ideas, despite the physical and mental risk. People are willing to go to extremes to emulate their colonizers so that they are deemed beautiful according to western standards: “These societal forces have had profoundly damaging influences on the experience of colonized peoples, including deformations of the self. Selfhood for the colonized was experienced as in a state of internal division, resulting in self-doubt, self-deprecation, and inner turmoil” (Kimayer et al, 2018, p. 25). The years of being treated as inferior have a significant toll, with colonization stripping away autonomy. Being taught that one is lesser than, leads to a breakdown of the mind, where the turmoil is based around managing self-worth in a world that does not consider one’s people as human beings. Beauty standards are closely tied to art, as both display what is coveted or appealing to the culture. By changing what is considered beautiful, such as straight hair, slim bodies, or white skin, it impacts Indigenous
populations by showing they are not worthy of being represented in art. This is apparent in the painting shown earlier by the Incan artist, clearly painting the holy angels as white and the Indigenous population as brown. It is also worth noting the angels are wearing European clothing, compared to the Indigenous people being topless. Everything about them is implied to be less desirable. Overall, colonization impacts art perception by invalidating Indigenous art using derogatory language and changing beauty standards, ultimately changing the art that is being created by the Indigenous population. Colonization’s impact on art comes in different ways. First, it leads to an immediate decrease in physical work, since the Indigenous population is killed and robbed. The people that remain are no longer allowed to create art using their traditional methods and are taught the styles and techniques of the colonizing population. Colonization’s direct impact on art perception is through language, where it is treated as lesser than, and words like “primitive” or unsophisticated are used to describe it. It has limited our interpretation of what is high art, and physically separates art by placing it in an anthropological context. It also implies that Indigenous people and their art have no place in the modern world, which is ultimately harmful to their descendants. Furthermore, colonization impacts art perception by changing beauty standards, implying that the colonized population is not considered beautiful when compared to the colonizers. Studies indicate that this particular idea that whiteness is considered more attractive is still present today and taught to children. This change sparks self-doubt and self-hate in the Indigenous population, damaging their mental health, and forcing them to emulate their captors for acceptance, which can also be an interpretation of the Incan artist’s painting.
Bibliography
Cull, I., Hancock, R.L.A., McKeown, S., Pidgeon, M. & Vedan, A. (2018). Pulling Together: A Guide for Front-Line Staff, Student Services, and Advisors. Victoria, BC: BCcampus. Retrieved from https:// opentextbc.ca/indigenizationf Deagan, K. Colonial Origins and Colonial Transformations in Spanish America. Hist Arch 37, 3–13 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/ BF03376619 Descola, Jean. Daily life in Colonial Peru 1710-1820. Trans. Michael Heron. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1968. Kirmayer L.J., Adeponle A., Dzokoto V.A.A. (2018) Varieties of Global Psychology: Cultural Diversity and Constructions of the Self. In: Fernando S., Moodley R. (eds) Global Psychologies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-958160_2 Landers, J. (1990) African Presence in Early Spanish Colonization of the Caribbean and Southeastern Borderlands. In Columbian Consequences, Vol. 2, Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands East, D. H. Thomas, editor, pp.315–328. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC. Oxford Languages (2020) “Colonization” Oxford English Dictionary. https://www.google.com/search?q=colonization+definition&rlz =1C5CHFA_en__901__901&oq=colonization+&aqs=chrome.2. 69i57j69i59j0i20i263i433i457j0i67l2j0i20i263j0j69i61.4058j0 j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Pillsbury, J., Potts, T. F., Richter, K. N., J. Paul Getty Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), Getty Research Institute, & Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA (Project), (2017). Golden kingdoms: Luxury arts in the ancient Americas. Rex, Maya Alyse, “Racial Bias in Elementary School Children: Effects of Skin Tone and Facial Features” (2018). Honors Theses. 599. https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses/599 Myers, F. (2006). ‘Primitivism,’Anthropology, and the Category of ‘Prim itive Art.’ Handbook of Material Culture, 267-84. Rhodes, Colin (1995) Primitivism and Modern Art. New York: Thames & Hudson. Steele, C. M. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: And other clues to how stereotypes affect us and what we can do. New York: W. W. Norton. United Nations. (2006, May 12) Fact Sheet: Who are indigenous peoples? [Press Release]. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/5session_factsheet1.pdf
I felt you burning above me, thrusting beneath my skin play my keys in divine alternations, altercations between pleasure and pain I relapse to reminiscence of all the gorgeous gestures you employ in my oblivion;
the crescendo of your voice deep culpability reverberating remonstrating against my better judgement what I fear of you foments an apex, a frantic stab, penetrating and sudden, erect, electrifying, invocation of a little death forked through me;
consume me, taste me in black pearls cumulous and resplendent with velvet silver linings, twining your body through mine, don’t strike so soon if ever at all, prolong my love, perpetuate, pulsate, peruse, and occupy me without a cry of thunder,
please my shudder is prostration to mercy, the benefit of your doubt, ventriloquize my sermon cries with words I cannot live without;
I flinch at the falling of the curtain, the sheet jerked off the shoulder of the bed, below my waist a paradise, you perform gospel to the partition of my legs, my heart presides in any realm devoid of your howling thunder, but between my lips I’ll gladly take the rain
ASTRAPHOBIA
fiona mcmurrey
