American Native + West images task

http://www.truewestmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/cowboys-bathing.jpg

This is an image of cowboys/frontiersmen taking a bath at what seems to be a creek after months of cattle driving. These cattle drives would often take months to complete and so the cowboys would bathe before heading into cowtown to celebrate.

This image is symbolic as it represents triumph and success in the new frontier in America. The men in the image are smiling after what can be assumed as a successful cattle drive. The image is relaxed at the lower half with men bathing although some men are horseback at the upper portion of the image. This creates a sense of haste. Although there are smiles, these men are still on schedule and there is an underlying sense of urgency.

This is an oil painting by Gregory Perillo. The image depicts a native horseback upon a mountainous prairie. The native man’s facial expression and body language here assumes an element of comfortability, majesty as well as the symbiotic relationship between man and animal. Most native tribes were not technologically progressive and preferred to live off the land and harness nature to the best of there ability. That being said, there is a cross over here which may indicate a time frame of when this painting is set, and that is the rifle. This suggests the painting may have been set in the mid to late 1800s as this is around the time where more modern firearms would’ve become more readily available to natives. What is also interesting about this image is an ulterior sense of paradox. Despite the native seeming majestic here, the way he is facing is interesting. In much frontier art we often see the progressive society (typically westerners) facing West, as this assumes they were always looking to the west (to signify westward expansion), so the fact that the native here is facing the east suggests and underlying regression and retreat, as if he is being pushed out of his Western homeland.