Thomson, Jane Sproull

English

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REVIEWS • 173A LEGACY OF ARCTIC ART. By DOROTHY JEAN RAY.Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press,1996. Published in conjunction with the exhibition ALegacy of Arctic Art at the University of Alaska Museum,June–November 1996. 196 p., colour and b&w illus.,index, notes, appendix. Hardbound, US$40.00; Softbound,US$24.95.This book, the result of an exhibition of Dorothy Jean Ray’sprivate collection, contains an interesting account of Ray’s50 years of friendship and study among the Alaskan Eskimo.The illustrations are first-class and she writes, as always, withinformal, entertaining style. More autobiographical than herother books, A Legacy explains the events that led to hervocation, tells the stories of many of her artist friends,provides some enlightening anecdotes about fakes, and fea-tures a varied collection of early historic and contemporaryAlaskan art.Ray’s first chapter begins with a discussion on “curiomakers,” “artisans,” and “artists,” along with her opinions onthe aesthetics of Alaskan representational art. Ray takes issuewith comments concerning souvenir art made in 1938 byanother art historian, Hans Himmelheber, who noted that theKuskokwim Eskimo made art for the sake of representationrather than for aesthetic effect (p. 7). Ray rightly believes thatart can be aesthetically “art” although made for the souvenirmarket. I am not sure I fully agree with her repudiation ofHimmelheber, however, for in the Eskimo/Inuit tradition, artis representation. The Inuit, and presumably the AlaskanEskimo, had no special word for “art” in their own language:in Inuktitut the closest expression was “sananguaq,” whichSwinton, with the help of Inuit translators, has determined tomean something like “a little likeness-reality that we haveachieved” (1972:130). Until very recently, this idea was truefor most Inuit artists, as Kalvak attests in Dorothy Eber’sarticle “Talking with the Artists”: “White people tell storiesin books, I tell them by my drawings” (1993:430). Regardlessits intention, much of the art stemming from the Arctic isaesthetically pleasing to our Western eyes. Perhaps the argu-ment can be paraphrased in a quote whose source, as well asthe precise wording, I’ve forgotten: “The craftsman workswith his hands, the artisan with his hands and his head; theartist works with hands, head, and heart.” When Eskimo/Inuitartists work with all three, we are stunned by their ability.Unfortunately, I don’t believe this book contains more than afew examples of working with more than hands and head,though I’m certain Ray would not agree with me.This semiautobiography includes many references to Ray’sresearch and to the background of her books and articles, eachof which has its own story. She is obviously an author drivenby her own sense of adventure and discovery, as opposed toan academic who writes out of professional necessity. Herenthusiasms attest to this: for example, she has written on thebilliken, a ubiquitous and dubious item somewhat compara-ble to the garden gnome, and produced for considerable profitby the Alaskan Natives. Her detective story about its originsand manifestations is both amusing and enlightening.The Alaskan contemporary work is quite distinctive, al-though I noticed, not for the first time, that some of thegraphics and textiles show similarities to those of the Labra-dor Inuit who also were heavily influenced by the MoravianChurch. An example is the appliqué and embroidery piece onpage 67.In general, the Alaskan art in this book represents theEuropean tradition, fairly sophisticated and realistic, butunfortunately also sterile and unimaginative. A few wood-cuts, particularly Bernard Tuglamena Katexac’s Old IvoryEtchings and Peter J. Seeganna’s prints on pages 46 and 47,show real delight in the possibilities of the medium and seemto arise from a spontaneous sense of “Eskimo-ness.” Interest-ingly, Ray sees their work as precisely the opposite, sayingthat these works show “the benefits of formal training” andevidence of a change from “‘Eskimo art’ to a wider world ofart” (p. 46–47). It seems to me rather that, in Seeganna’s caseat least, the main benefit of formal training may have been thefreedom to think and create in his own aesthetic tradition.Otherwise, how can we explain the dramatic change in theEastern Arctic once the constraint was removed of producingthings that (southern bureaucrats thought) would sell downsouth? Here, Western representationalism was almost magi-cally transformed, with little or no formal training, fromsterile representation into the wildly creative—and distinctlyInuk—art of the late 1950s and 1960s, and later.Ray is obviously charmed when the creative juices flow, asshown by her appreciation of a wonderfully playful coiledbasketry kerosene lamp by Susie Chanigkak. She commentsthat it has a “whimsy that is rarely seen in Eskimo art” (p. 56).(It is rare in Alaskan art prior to 1970, but “whimsical” is anapt term for a great deal of Inuit art of this period.)In talking about the background to her authorship andfieldwork and her relationships with artisans and artists, Raydrops wonderful tidbits like her exposure of scrimshaw fakesperpetrated on 1800-year-old artifacts. A legitimate art in itsown right when practised honestly, new pictorial engravingson ancient ivory recovered from archaeological sites (a prac-tice that gives archaeologists nightmares, as it has destroyedmany sites) are sometimes sold by unscrupulous or unawaredealers as genuine prehistoric art.Ray includes a chapter on the history of Eskimo scrimshawor “engraved ivory,” along with the stories of specific illus-trated pieces. This pictorial art form was probably exclu-sively historic and derived from Russian sources, butnevertheless was compatible with the earlier Native traditionof decorating ivory tools and utensils with geometric pat-terns. Ray notes that this became high art during the Okvik,Old Bering Sea, and Punuk periods of St. Lawrence Islandand among the Ipiutak of Point Hope on the mainland c. A.D.1000. The illustrations of early 20th-century cribbage boardsand other ivory pieces by anonymous artists and by thefamous Happy Jack are exquisite, and the accompanying textthoroughly explores the history and the rise in both popularityand mastery of this art. Its quality declined following thedevastating influenza epidemic during the winter of 1918–19, which claimed thousands of lives, including those of174 •  REVIEWSexperienced artists, right across the Arctic and ultimatelyforced the abandonment of many of these settlements.Ray’s final chapter “Can This Be Eskimo Art?” is aninteresting historic contribution to the ongoing—and ulti-mately unsolvable—debate about the authenticity of Eskimo/Inuit art. One example she uses is steak knives designed bytalented Alaskan Natives but mass-produced in elephantivory by their Seattle employers. She ends with descriptionsof dubious practices and of outright fraud, helpful to theunwary tourist and the well-intentioned amateur art collector.The collection Ray put together over her worthwhilecareer makes an excellent museum exhibition, offering theopportunity to trace the development of a regional art charac-ter over several hundred years. I don’t care for much of thecontemporary art: to me, it has none of the excitement,liveliness, or creativity of that emanating from the EasternArctic over the past 50 years. Dorothy Jean Ray’s love forAlaskan art and artists therefore makes this book one I willgladly add to my shelf, to remind me that we art lovers, likethe artworks themselves, are a diverse bunch.REFERENCESSWINTON, G. 1972. Sculpture of the Eskimo. Toronto, Ontario:McClelland & Stewart.EBER, D. 1993. Talking with the artists. In: The shadow of the sun.Canadian Ethnology Service, Mercury Series Paper 124. Hull,Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization. 425 –442.Jane Sproull ThomsonThomson Heritage Consultants26 Hutton Place SWCalgary, Alberta, CanadaT2V 3B6CARVED FROM THE LAND: THE ESKIMO MUSEUMCOLLECTION. By LORRAINE BRANDSON. Churchill,Manitoba: Diocese of Churchill Hudson Bay, 1994. 200p., maps, b&w illus., bib., list of artists, index. Hardbound.Cdn$35.00.Reviewing this catalogue on the heels of another (DorothyJean Ray’s Legacy of Arctic Art) was an enlighteningexperience. Two collections, two very different approachesto collecting: whereas Ray purchased mainly Alaskanartifacts that she judged to be of artistic or anthropologicalvalue, the Eskimo Museum is the child of dedicated mis-sionaries who lived among the Inuit and were interested indocumenting their entire culture and its history. The re-sults are fascinatingly different kinds of collections.Beginning in Chesterfield Inlet in 1912, the OblateFathers established six mission stations centered on thenorthwest corner of Hudson Bay, serving a diocese scat-tered over 2.3 million square kilometres. By 1944, theFathers had amassed enough material to establish a smallmuseum in one room of the Bishop’s residence at Church-ill, Manitoba. This early collection already bore the eclec-tic signs of that which can be seen in today’s modernfacility: ivory cribbage boards engraved for the earlywhalers and other visitors of the historic past, prehistoricDorset and Thule culture artifacts, and wildlife specimenslay alongside the soapstone carvings collected from con-temporary Inuit that were shortly to become so famous. In1948, Brother Jacques Volant was appointed the museum’scurator (p. 9–10). The book is dedicated to his memory.Lorraine Brandson, assistant and then curator of the Es-kimo Museum since Brother Volant’s final illness in 1986,has played a vital role in documenting and caring for thecollection since the 1970s and is equally responsible for itspresent status and visitation of nearly 10 000 per year: anadmirable achievement in a town  of only 3000 residents.The book, as much a collection as the museum itself,includes the history of the Oblate Missions; the climateand natural history of the Arctic; story excerpts from themissionaries’ journals; a history of Arctic archaeology andculture; the yearly cycle of the Inuit; descriptions of Inuittools, housing, transportation, and clothing; and a chapterdevoted to, as Brandson puts it, “silatuniq, the wise way ofunderstanding things” (p. 167). Her detailed account of theseasonal movement, activities, and intricate social rela-tionships of central and eastern Inuit groups will interestboth the casual reader and the anthropologist. Overall, shehas achieved an excellent balance that should be the envyof many more prolific anthropologist scribes.The text is closely accompanied by photographs of thecollection illustrating the subject matter. Text and photographstogether explain why the individual artifacts were collectedand illuminate the entire philosophy of the museum. Theresult is a rare example of an art book that is truly coherent.A review of a book so dependent upon photographswould scarcely be complete without some comment on thequality of the photography. Robert Taylor’s prints varyfrom excellent to adequate: the lighting is uneven enoughthat detail is occasionally lost in the shadows, and someshots would have benefited from better depth of focus. Onthe other hand, the angles are selected with great sensitiv-ity and discernment and give an accurate impression ofmost pieces. It’s an astonishing collection, especiallyconsidering its small size—only 800 pieces—and my big-gest regret is that the small size of some of the photographsdoes not do justice to the quality of the work.For anyone who has visited the Eskimo Museum, forthose who have been to the Eastern Arctic and missed theEskimo Museum, and for those who will, someday, followtheir dream and visit the Arctic and its people, CarvedFrom the Land should fill a niche in your library.Jane Sproull ThomsonThomson Heritage Consultants26 Hutton Place SWCalgary, Alberta, CanadaT2V 3B6

A Legacy of Arctic Art, by Dorothy Jean Ray

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A Legacy of Arctic Art, by Dorothy Jean Ray

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